Cartoon: Larry Krasner’s plea for help

District Attorney Larry Krasner has called on Philadelphia leaders to invest $100 million to help curb gun violence. Why does this feel like blackmail—like shaking down local businesses for protection they should already have?

Under District Attorney Krasner’s watchful eye, gun-related violent crime in the city has continued to rise. Philadelphia homicides are up 55% so far in 2021. Even Mayor Kenney “waded into the fray,” the Inquirer reported, “accusing Krasner of being too forgiving of suspected gunmen—an accusation the district attorney denied, saying that he was continuing to charge nearly all suspects arrested for violent crimes, and that he was also seeking high bails for those defendants.”

”I am calling on business leaders, I am calling on our academic institutions, I am calling on my fellow government leaders, and I am calling on everyone in the community to come forward, to hold hands, to get it done and come up with that $100 million,” Krasner said.

Holding hands is a nice sign of affection, and surely it beats holding a photo of a fallen loved-one, but we need more. “You have to be willing to entertain the notion that, sometimes, a measure of mercy, a second chance, or a form of accountability that does not result in a conviction will dissuade people from crime, whereas the opposite for that same person, meaning a conviction, will push them toward crime,” Krasner has stated in the past. But under his leadership, law-abiding citizens are the ones who suffer.

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