In Delaware County on Monday, law-enforcement experts asked Pennsylvania GOP state lawmakers to consider a variety of responses to the state’s crime epidemic… and to one left-wing official’s lack of urgency about it.
Speakers suggested various ideas like increased resources for detention facilities and youth courts. Over the course of the hearing, numerous testifiers complained that the leniency of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) remains a major hindrance to public safety in the City of Brotherly Love and nearby communities.
The performances of far-left officials like Krasner are yielding “very tangible, negative results,” House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Josh Kail (R-Beaver) told attendees at the Concord Township Municipal Complex in Glen Mills. Kail was among several Republican legislators championing the prosecutor’s impeachment last year for dereliction of duty and other offenses but the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives in November killed the effort to hold a Senate trial.
Krasner won his first election in 2017, having run on a platform of laxity toward offenders and hostility toward the police. The far-left billionaire George Soros generously backed the attorney’s campaign, helping him through a crowded Democratic primary. Since Krasner took office, city homicide has skyrocketed, reaching a record of 562 murders in 2021.
Kail recalled the Black Lives Matter anti-police protests that became increasingly frequent in the late 2010s and reached ubiquity in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN. Since then, police recruitment and retention has suffered, making achieving law and order in cities with progressive prosecutors even more challenging.
“It seems like today there’s this willingness to, for lack of better words, stick our heads in the sands as elected officials on this subject,” the representative said. “In 2018, it seemed like there were more flagrant matters going on with elected officials marching and slogans and all this other nonsense and now it’s kind of dissipated a little bit, but I think now we’re seeing the results of that nonsense and we’re seeing the tangible, practical results of the garbage that was spewed over the course of the last number of years.”
Kail defended police against leftists’ urge to impugn the behavior of all officers because some have used excessive force.
“Are there bad apples? Sure. Of course. That’s every profession,” he said. “It’s outrageous to pinpoint an entire profession based on the actions of a couple actors. If that were the case — I’m a lawyer — we would all be hung at this point.”
Representative John Lawrence (R-West Grove) urged support for police as they attempt to apprehend recidivists who cannot legally acquire guns but continue to do so. He underscored what he considered an especially galling statement Krasner’s office made earlier this year: “We do not believe that arresting people and convicting them for illegal gun possession is a viable strategy to reduce shootings.”
As a result of the prosecutor’s avowed neglect to prosecute criminal possession, Republican lawmakers have tried to enact “concurrent jurisdiction” whereby state prosecutors would have the power to pursue gun violations in Philadelphia. The legislation passed the state House with bipartisan support last year but it did not come up for a vote in the GOP-led state Senate.
Lawrence asked Chester Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 11 President Bob McCarron to respond to Krasner’s opposition to enforcing possession laws. McCarron described it as a breakdown in a system that exists to keep Pennsylvanians safe.
“Holding people accountable is what it’s about, right?” he said. “Otherwise why do we have laws…? What’s next? If we’re not going to hold them accountable for illegally possessing a firearm, are we not going to hold them accountable for using a firearm? That’s what it comes down to.”
Delaware County FOP Lodge 27 President Chris Eiserman echoed his colleague’s comment, adding that Philadelphia’s problems are having a clear spillover effect in his county and nearby jurisdictions.
“[Criminals] are coming over into Delaware County,” he said. “The police officers are stopping them and they just tell us, ‘Well, we’re allowed to do this in Philadelphia.’ Well, this isn’t Philadelphia, this is Delaware County. We’re going to hold you liable here; we’re going to arrest you and we’re going to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
Beyond counteracting Krasner, the officers pressed legislators to allot more resources for law-enforcement personnel. They insisted Delaware County police in particular need better training facilities, noting that neighboring Chester and Montgomery Counties both have higher quality training centers.
“Our officers don’t want to come here and work and then have to go train to be educated in a facility that’s dilapidated for lack of better words,” Eiserman said. “I mean, it’s terrible.”
Bethel Township Police Chief John Egan said another expense the state should make is increased assistance for police forces to buy body cameras, devices of which he said many officers were initially skeptical but which have turned out to exonerate police officers in 93 percent of arrest-related disputes.
“You can’t ask for better eyes than that,” he said. “I’m just asking you: Some way, somehow find the money.…”
Lawmakers also considered means to better handle young offenders and minimize the chances they will reoffend. Liam N. Power, a member of the education action team at the state’s Office of Advocacy and Reform, said more funds are needed for congregate rehabilitation centers, many of which closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This, he said, has left many facilities struggling to process swelling numbers of cases, many of which resulted from youth suffering under strict COVID distancing measures and school closures.
Gregg Volz, director of youth courts and instructor of criminal justice at Harcum College in Lower Merion Township, suggested localities should establish youth courts to address some juvenile offenses. In these forums, court officials train students to perform judicial-officer duties including those of the judge and jury. Advocates of these programs assert they are helpful toward reducing recidivism rates.
The hearing’s testifiers came to speak at the invitation of area Representative Craig Williams (R-Chadds Ford), another strong advocate for concurrent jurisdiction and the Krasner impeachment. Himself a former prosecutor, he lamented the correlation he sees between leniency in Philadelphia and the worsening of crime in the Greater Delaware Valley.
“There can be no doubt that there’s a direct correlation between an increasingly violent community and the lack of prosecuting crime,” he said. “I mean that’s just unassailable as a fact.”
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Larry Krasner” by Larry Krasner for DA.
