Friday, June 12, 2020

Mayor Kenney Orders Cops To Stand Down As Squatters Erect Tent City On Scenic Ben Franklin Parkway

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

As a band of homeless activists set up a tent city on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway yesterday, Mayor Jim Kenney ordered police to stand down and do nothing.

Activists set up less than a hundred tents at the base of the Von Colln Memorial Field, at the corner of 22nd and the Parkway, where spectators used to gather to watch Fairmount kids play ball. 

Signs went up proclaiming "Housing Now!", "Black Lives Matter" and "Defund and Disband" the police. 

Cops were furious about the mayor's stand-down order. "We are under a tyrannical dictatorship," one cop said about Kenney. "The people of the city want and frankly deserve and should demand better."

Amen.

Under Kenney's disastrous leadership, he and his rookie police commissioner were totally unprepared for the riots that began May 30th, and left Center City, the 52nd St. corridor, and other commercial sections of town boarded up with plywood and still smelling of arson fires.

Now Kenney has given up a baseball field on the scenic parkway to hundreds of protesters, who in just a couple of days, have doubled the size of their tent city. 

Mayor Kenney's been groveling and pandering and trying to appease the protesters since before they even came to town, but it's clearly not working.

On Wednesday night, demonstrators were picketing the mayor's penthouse at Third and Race. They've got another demonstration planned outside Kenney's penthouse for Sunday night. Maybe the rest of the citizens should join in.

Meanwhile, the city, which already has a budget deficit of $650 million, has been spending more than $1 million a day just on police overtime. That's an additional expenditure of at least $14 million in the two weeks since the protests began on May 30th.

And that's just the start of the costs of the civil unrest that the mayor has allowed to continue unabated.

Does anybody remember that before the protesters came to town, the city was under an emergency lockdown because of the coronavirus. Law-abiding citizens were prohibited from opening their businesses, or going to church, or to work, or to restaurants. They also were prohibited from assembling in groups larger than 10, a limit that's recently been raised to 25.

 But under the Progressive leadership of Kenney, all of the coronavirus rules under the emergency lockdown have been thrown out the window so that the protesters can gather in the streets, and pretty much do whatever the hell they want. 

The takeover of Von Colln Field was reminiscent of the Occupy Philadelphia movement that desecrated Dilworth Plaza back in 2011. After months of occupation, the cops finally had to clear out a tent city, but not before the protesters squatting there did more than $1 million worth of damage. 

In reaction to the latest outbreak of lawlessness, the local news media continues to treat both the mayor as well as the protesters who have taken over the city with kid gloves.

The headline in The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Philadelphians experiencing homelessness build protest encampment on Ben Franklin Parkway: 'We all matter.'"

The newspaper reported that the protesters had reached out to the Workers Revolutionary Collective for support, and that local residents were donating food, clothing and medical supplies, which was sure to extend the stay of the squatters.

Meanwhile, the Kenney administration continues its double standard --  for law-abiding citizens a lockdown, and for lawless protesters, appeasement and anything goes.

Besides the mayor, Philadelphia's other official disaster is District Attorney Larry Krasner. He just announced that he's going to appoint a task force to investigate the more than 2,000 arrests made by the police during the demonstrations. Krasner's goals -- free the demonstrators and indict as many cops as he can.

"Peaceful protest is not a crime," Krasner said at a virtual press conference. He claimed that most of the protesters that were arrested were between the ages of 18 to 24, had been cited for curfew violations, and typically didn't have any prior records.

On the other side of Krasner's double standard, he said he's anxious to indict more cops.

"We take the obligation to investigate instances of violence by police officers," Krasner told the media.

On Twitter, U.S. Attorney William McSwain responded, "Anybody who is familiar with Krasner's methods could see this coming a mile away. He is setting the stage for letting the rioters, looters, burglars and arsonists who rampaged through Philadelphia off the hook."

Kenney and Krasner, a Progressive recipe for disaster. 

16 comments

  1. Replies
    1. But how do we stop Kenney?
      He was reelected.
      George Soros is buying up local DA's.
      All this horror is happening in Dem run cities.
      Black Voices for Trump make noise FOR Trump now.
      Trump/Pence in November and vote Republican for every possible candidate in November.

      Delete
  2. The worst mayor ever, he doesn't care for the residents who pay huge rent and taxes, how nice it must look

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And yet, he won re-election in November 2019, so we're stuck with him unless a federal indictment comes along for 3.5 more years. Yay?

      Delete
    2. He's competing with Bill De Blasio for that award.

      Delete
  3. Anarchy in Philadelphia. Thanks to all the Democrats that voted these 2 in!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank God I moved out of the city. I now live in a county where the sheriff's comment about demonstrators and loiters "The people in Polk County like guns, the people in Polk county have guns and if someone breaks into their house the people of Polk county will use guns."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I left philly and Grady is my Sherriff too. Thank god

      Delete
  5. Thank God that I do not have the 'honor' of living in the City of Brotherly love!
    Maybe we forget who P/O Von Collin was.......

    ReplyDelete
  6. In the sequel to The Armies of the Night, there will be a great price for the Insurrection inspired and coordinated by the Mayors of Sanctuary Cities.

    The Days of Reconning are approaching when Citizens will respond to this illegal seizure of Public and Private Property. It won't be a Love Fest, for sure.

    Whie Vince Fumo sits in his Mansion on Green St. in the shadows of the Parkway, behind reinforced doors with an arsenal of weapons, will the Invaders come to his doorsteps and will he unload on the gangbangers and filthy mobs, and would he share his reflections on the great harm he has brought to the City he professed to love and protect after grooming and boosting someone as inept and corrupt as Mayor Kenney??

    The Biography, The Senator, that Vince paid for, needs a chilling addendum to expose the Crisis in Political Leadership that Vince bears direct responsibility for.

    Come on Vince, show us what you are made of, and address the Issues at hand.

    ReplyDelete
  7. He should be arrested for hindering the police in performance of their duties.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Mayor and the Police Commissioner have lost the respect of fellow officers and THE DA has lost the respect of Us Attorney Swain. The protestors number in very small crowds yet the media likes to exaggerate their impact

    ReplyDelete
  9. And I'll bet you that none of these "homeless activists" know who Sgt.Frank Von Colln is. Well I do, as I heard the gunshots that night in August of 1970. The "Park Guard House" as we called it, was only about 300 yards from the bottom of my street. He was assassinated by several members of a racist group of scumbags.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It has been over 4 months since the new Chief Integrity Officer, Sarah Stevenson, was installed by Mayor Kenney. In previous ethics and integrity posts in city government, she failed to investigate the allegation of improper discounts on PWD Help loans where state law directs that the city has NO legal authority and financial liability in such cases. Of course, official city records reveal that
    this Chief Integrity Officer, Ms Stevenson, approved a 55% discount on a PWD HELP loan and she has failed to produce reasons and cause for such financial impropriety. It is important to note that Ms. Stevenson previously served as the INTEGRITY OFFFICER within the Philadelphia Water Department, the agency responsible for PWD HELP loans.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Here's what's going on Seattle:

    https://nypost.com/2020/06/20/my-terrifying-5-day-stay-inside-seattles-autonomous-zone/

    ReplyDelete

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