MONICA: iMayor Phones Home, Finally

“As Street talked about fighting an “attitude” that kills, he could have been referring to his own. With months to go before ending a 30-year government career, the mayor must wake up some mornings wondering how he will be remembered. No politician wants to go down in history as having done nothing because he didn’t bother to tell anyone what he did and why. No one wants to be recalled as weird, uncaring, or clueless because of where he doesn’t go, what he doesn’t say and the company he doesn’t keep. At this point, Street can’t do much to get guns off the streets and out of the wrong hands. He’s got about as much of a chance getting state laws passed as I do getting invited to his going-away party. With the city prisons at a 9,074-inmate all-time high, the mayor is even technically correct in saying he can’t “arrest” away the problem. So what now? Street has spent enough time in meetings. That don’t-snitch “attitude” he talks about is out there, on every block. For the rest of the year, he should take his message to every homicide scene. Surely the mayor knows by now that half the battle is showing up.”

MONICA YANT KINNEY: The Buck Stops Where? When?

cops.jpgRELATED: Angry residents in Philadelphia’s Wynnefield neighborhood want to know why crime cameras were not working in their neighborhood over the weekend when a 23-year-old man was shot and killed outside a Chinese restaurant. Residents say if you’re going to have surveillance cameras they should work. Cameras installed last fall along the 54th Street Corridor are used as a way to stop crime. But the cameras have been off for several stretches since they were put in including early Sunday morning when a 23-year-old man was shot dead outside a Chinese restaurant at 54th and Arlington. [KYW]
RELATED: The Philadelphia police department has taken the wraps off 25 new Harleys for the highway patrol and traffic units. The gleaming white motorcycles were lined up on Spring Garden Street waiting for the officers to hop aboard. [KYW]

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