1,000 Philly Cops On The Street To Watch 100 Protesters

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The Philadelphia Police Department, which was woefully undermanned for last year's George Floyd riots, was out in force yesterday as the nation awaited the verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who's accused of murdering Floyd.

The Philadelphia Police Department canceled all days off yesterday for all personnel as the city had more than 1,000 officers out on the street working 12-hour shifts. 

In West Philadelphia, more than 200 bicycle cops were on patrol while the city shut down about a mile of 52nd Street, which was the subject of widespread looting last year, with barricades from Parkside Avenue to Larchwood Avenue.

In Center City,  some 70 bicycle cops were stationed downtown to handle any potential protests/riots. 

The only problem was that yesterday less than 100 protesters showed up. As one cop who was out there put it, it was a case of serious overkill. 

But the city is still stuck with the bill. And the total cost of the extra police deployment for just yesterday was an estimated $2 million. 

The Empire Strikes Back: Inky Columnists Attack Columbus Lawsuit

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

With the city of Philadelphia facing a $450 million budget shortfall this year, officials have said that all options are on the table for cutting city expenses.

So I've got a helpful suggestion. Why not go through every department at City Hall and eliminate every PR spokesperson/flack that the city employs. 

We can start in the mayor's office, where Deana Gamble as of 2018, according to the latest figures available online, was earning $118,450 as director of communications. No doubt she's been given a raise since then for outstanding propagandizing on behalf of the mayor.

Next, we can go to the District Attorney's office, where Jane Roh as of 2017 was earning $105,000 as director of communications, and whack that position as well.

Why? Because their services are redundant. Philadelphia already has The Philadelphia Inquirer, which publishes 356 days of the year. And rather than report the news, the "paper of record" takes on as its official daily function, the duty of not only defending Mayor Kenney and D.A. Krasner, but every other Democratic official out there, from the president on down. 

The Inquirer's intrepid editors and reporters can also be counted on to ceaselessly trumpet every progressive Democratic talking point. But woe to any heretic who dares to advocate a contrary view. 

Take, for example, last week's filing of a civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the city and Mayor Kenney on behalf of City Councilman Mark Squilla and 47 national, state and local Italian-American organizations. 

The lawsuit, written by Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto, had the audacity to charge discrimination over Mayor Kenney's executive order that canceled Columbus Day as a city holiday, and replaced it with the more woke Indigenous Peoples' Day. 

Inquirer's Take On Columbus: All Tabloid And No Truth

By Robert Petrone

for BigTrial.net

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed, "God is dead [a]nd we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?" 

Today, I proclaim that those same murderers have now killed journalism, from the inside. The polemicists of The Philadelphia Inquirer have murdered truth and facts and rely solely on ad hominem attacks and hit pieces to make a point.

 But character assassination -- of me, of our historical icons, of defenders of civil liberties like Councilman Mark Squilla or the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations -- will not "break our bones."  In fact, their words will never hurt us, because we have the facts and primary historical sources to summarily disprove their unsubstantiated, citation-less lies.

Compare recent, misinformation-laden, citationless, tabloid polemics such as The Inquirer's "The Columbus Day holiday is based on a lie. Yet, some people don’t want to let it go" and the one subtitled "Some historians believe Columbus was kind to Native populations he encountered. But some historians would be wrong, and every actual civil rights activist is rolling in their graves" with my citation-filled 1492 Project series of articles at Broad + Liberty about the true history of Christopher Columbus, titled: "Christopher Columbus Is the Greatest Hero of the Fifteenth & Sixteenth Centuries."

D.A. Krasner & His Favorite PAC Playing Shell Game With $$$

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

District Attorney Larry Krasner is playing a shell game with his favorite PAC. It's called laundering cash donations that are way above the legal limits.

Last year, the Real Justice PAC of San Francisco lavished more than $100,000 on the D.A.'s reelection committee in the form of cash, in-kind contributions and rent money. The only problem was that the city of Philadelphia's legal limit for annual donations from any PAC was only $12,600.

That created a legal problem for the city's top law enforcement officer and his favorite PAC, namely what to do with all that extra cash? On the latest filings from the Krasner for District Attorney committee, Krasner reported that he paid The Social Practice LLC of San Francisco $70,000 for "marketing services."

It's a real cozy relationship that Krasner's got going here. Both the Real Justice PAC and The Social Practice LLC have the same address: 3041 Mission St., San Francisco. And five leaders of The Social Practice, which bills itself on its official website as an "ideologically driven political consultancy," also happen to be listed on the PAC's website as team leaders of the Real Justice PAC. 

Rebecca "Becky" Bond and Zack Malitz, both of whom are co-founders of the Real Justice PAC, are also listed as co-founders of The Social Practice. Jin Ding, a member of "The Team" that runs Real Justice, is also listed as a partner at The Social Practice. Dan Rowe, another member of the team that runs Real Justice, is communications manager of The Social Practice. And Alexandria Sousa, another member of the team that runs Social Justice, is a senior strategist at The Social Practice. 

Everybody's playing on the same team. 

Councilman Squilla, 47 Italian-American Organizations File Civil Rights Suit Against Mayor Kenney Alleging Ethnic Discrimination

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

You could call it the revenge of the Big Bambino; and Chris Columbus too.

In U.S. District Court this morning, City Councilman Mark Squilla joined a coalition of 47 national, state and local Italian-American groups in filing a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia and Mayor Jim Kenney.

The lawsuit, authored by Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto, charges that by unilaterally dumping Columbus Day as a city holiday, and replacing it with Indigenous Peoples' Day, Mayor Kenney is guilty of  discriminating against Italian-Americans, and violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

The lawsuit further argues that the mayor's executive order to cancel Columbus Day as a city holiday was not only in violation of city, state and federal law, but was just the latest in a "long line of divisive, anti-Italian American discriminatory actions" previously undertaken by Kenney. 

In addition to canceling Columbus Day, the lawsuit states, Kenney has stereotyped Italian-Americans in public rhetoric as "Cousin Guido" and "vigilantes."

He's put the South Philly zip code where most Italian-Americans live last on the list when it comes to distributing city-wide COVID vaccines, the lawsuit charges. And for the final insult, Kenney, without any kind of due process, vengefully targeted the Rizzo statue and the Columbus statue for destruction. 

With Inky's Help, D.A. Krasner Keeps Lying About Gun Crimes

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2019, Bernard Giddings was driving a car load of would-be assassins toward Audenried High School.

As Giddings drove past the corner of 31st and Tasker Street, a block away from the school where students had just been let out, three armed passengers leaned out the windows of a white Chevy Malibu and opened fire from close range on a crowd of nine juveniles.

A 16 year-old male who heard five gunshots saw three bullet holes rip through the jacket he was carrying, but miraculously, that was the extent of the reported injuries. Cops found four 9 mm casings at the crime scene. Due to some good police work, the cops were able to track down and arrest both Giddings and Andre Presley, a passenger in the Chevy who admitted to being one of the shooters. 

When it comes to gun crimes, Giddings and Presley, both 25, were multiple offenders. Giddings had one prior gun arrest, while Presley had two prior gun arrests. After he was involved in that drive-byshooting, however, Giddings served only 20 months in jail before he was back out on the street again. 

What did he do with his newfound freedom? Last week, police arrested Giddings for the third time on a gun charge, after they searched his house and found a loaded Smith & Wesson .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol under his bed.

In an interview that he gave The Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday, District Attorney Larry Krasner would have you believe that when it comes to committing gun crimes, repeat offenders like Giddings and Presley are an anomaly. But according to a veteran prosecutor who sought anonymity, "The way Giddings and Presley's cases were handled proves that Krasner's lying to the public."

"The people being arrested with guns are the people running around and shooting them," the veteran prosecutor said. "They are not the exception, they are the rule."

More Prosecutorial Misconduct In Carl Holmes Case; D.A. Krasner Failed To Disclose Personal Conflicts In Biased Crusade Against Cop

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In indicting and prosecuting former Police Chief Inspector Carl Holmes, District Attorney Larry Krasner failed to disclose a personal conflict of interest.

As a defense lawyer in 1996, Krasner represented Christopher Butler, the convicted robber of a 7-11 who pointed a gun at Holmes, and was found guilty of assaulting him. Butler got 6 to 12 years for the robbery.

But Krasner also represented Butler in a civil rights suit against the city, claiming that after Butler robbed the 7-11 and pointed a gun at Holmes, Holmes used excessive force against Butler by shooting him seven times. The civil rights suit was settled in 1997 for $80,000.

As a result, Greg Pagano, Holmes's lawyer, filed a motion in Common Pleas Court to disqualify Krasner as prosecutor in his continuing vendetta against Holmes. The motion to disqualify Krasner as prosecutor because of Krasner's undisclosed conflicts was filed on the same day that Judge Kai Scott dismissed the second of three sex abuse cases against Holmes that were the result of decade-old allegations made by three women who are former cops.

"Philadelphia District Attorney, Lawerence Krasner, failed to notify this Court, Supervising Grand Jury Judge, the investigating grand jurors and defense counsel of his role in the criminal trial, post-trial, criminal appeal and civil cases, directly related to the testimony and credibility of Carl Holmes," Pagano wrote. 

"Under the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, DA Krasner has a duty to disclose that which is material to a defendant’s innocence. Mr. Krasner’s role as defense counsel to Mr. Butler in criminal and civil proceedings, attacking Mr. Holmes’ credibility and police work constitutes Brady/Giglio material," Pagano wrote, referring to evidence that must be turned over to the defense.

When Krasner Turned His Back On Opioid Crisis In Kensington

Fox Nation host Lawrence Jones visited Philadelphia's Skid Row this week and filed a devastating report on how bad the opioid crisis is in Kensington. "People can't even walk their dogs in this neighborhood because you will step on a needle," Jones said. 

How did it get so bad? Three years ago, Mayor Kenney convened a high-level conference to discuss how to help a city-wide task force dealing with the opioid crisis. But behind closed doors, District Attorney Larry Krasner told the mayor and top city officials that nobody in his office would lift a finger to help. This story originally ran on March 10, 2020:

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

It was standing room only in the mayor's conference room at City Hall. On Oct. 17, 2018 Mayor Jim Kenney had gathered some 20 top police officials, including the police commissioner, to meet with a half-dozen top officials from the District Attorney's office, led by the D.A. himself, Larry Krasner.

The mayor had convened the meeting to discuss how the D.A.'s office might better cooperate with the cops and a two-year-old city-wide task force that was dealing with the opioid crisis in Kensington. The concerns were that crime was on the rise, including human trafficking, and that addicts were dying in record numbers.

But Krasner wanted no part of any anti-drug task force. In response to pleas from the mayor and top police officials, Krasner gave what was described as a lecture. The federal government, he said, was to blame for bringing drugs into the country. The war on drugs was a colossal failure. And the bottom line was the top law enforcement official in the city wasn't going to lift a finger to help in any opioid crisis. The D.A. subsequently ended the 90-minute meeting by telling the mayor and the assembled police officials, hey we're done here.

"I was stunned," recalled one official at the meeting. "He [Krasner] basically disrespected the mayor and every other person in the room."