Philadelphia, Pennsylvania “Under Bad Joe, the City of Brotherly Love has been ravaged by bloodshed and crime,” former President Donald Trump said Saturday at the start of a speech at Temple University’s Liacoras Center.
The MAGA rally in the heavily Democratic city of Virginia was another event in a Democratic stronghold as Trump continues to make his case in a region where he usually doesn’t publicly support. Trump’s intent was to point out the problems that plague many cities like Philadelphia after he leaves office — murder rates, retail theft, stagnant economic activity and poor school performance — and show voters that it doesn’t have to be this way.
As if to prove Trump’s point, two major crimes occurred just outside the Liacoras Center before and during his speech. Early Saturday morning, Milan Jones, a 20-year-old TU nursing student, was found dead in her apartment. The man killed was reportedly her boyfriend, Timir Lackey, also a TU student. WPVI.
The issue of North Philadelphia students being victims of crime is a factor for the school. experience Enrollment is down 22% from 2020. But students aren’t the only ones being targeted. TU Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald was killed in the line of duty in February 2023. NBC10 report Fitzgerald was shot once by the fleeing suspect, collapsed and was then shot multiple times in the head by a man believed to be Myles Pfeffer.
“I often come here with a lot of anger about what my guys and my people have to endure.”
Before Trump finished speaking, another tragedy occurred: A few blocks north of the Liacoras Center, police officers patrolling near City Hall raced north to respond to a call of a police officer shot, sirens blaring.
At a press conference held at TU Hospital later that evening, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel provided information about what actually happened.
An officer with six years of experience and his partner conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle containing four people. During the stop, the officer noticed a holstered gun. One of the individuals began to flee, firing three shots as he ran. The officer was shot in the neck. The officer’s partner returned fire. The officer was placed in a patrol car and rushed to the hospital.
“Whenever I come here I feel a great sense of anger for what my men have to endure,” Bethel told reporters, “So today I ask people throughout the city of Philadelphia to pray for our officers and for the men who are here today or who are out there in the field who I know will give their lives in this line of duty.”
As of Tuesday, the officer remained in intensive care.
Suspect Ramon Rodriguez Vasquez, 36, is being held on $12.5 million bail in the shooting. WPVIHis criminal record includes firing at police officers after a carjacking in Puerto Rico.
This is a Democratic town, so directly across from the auditorium was an anti-Trump protest rally organized by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. While the Trump rally drew a large crowd, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party protest rally drew fewer attendees, with only 75 people at its peak. Most of the participants, wearing orange shirts, belonged to the Laborers’ International Union of North America.
LiUNA member Malik Staten told Blaze Media he doesn’t believe Trump is winning the support of black and brown voters.
“The people who are on his side are doing it for a check. [it] They do it for the pay. [it] “It’s to get notoriety. … But at the end of the day, people who know know that’s not the right way to do it,” he said.
Within an hour, LiNUA members had left. By that point, the protest had grown to about 25 people.
A Latino TU student wearing a MAGA hat told Blaze Media that he supports Trump because he supports his policies.
“I don’t want to be called ‘Latinx.’ I’m Latino with an ‘o.’ My mom is Latina, we’re not an ‘x.'” He added, pointing to progressive attempts to make Spanish, a gendered language, gender-neutral.
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