When You Lose Michael Nutter. . .
The Liberal Black Ex-Mayor of Philly Speaks Out Against Local Soros-Funded Prosecutor Larry Krasner's "White Wokeness." This is a Big Deal. Prosecutors Like Krasner are Everywhere.
Michael Nutter, 64, served two four-year terms as Mayor of Philadelphia from 2008 to 2016. The University of Pennsylvania graduate now teaches urban studies at Columbia University. Nutter held public office in Philly for 22 years. A long-time Democratic activist and ward leader, he arose from his West Philly neighborhood to unseat an incumbent city councilman, a position he would hold for 14 years.
Nutter is no conservative. He tried to boot the Boy Scouts out of city building because of their policy of not permitting adult gay scout leaders. In 2014, he turned Philly into a sanctuary city for illegal or undocumented aliens. But otherwise, Nutter was generally pro-law enforcement. While reforming the police department early in his tenure, he also declared a “crime emergency” in parts of the city. He supported “stop and frisk” policies, which progressives hate and have now abolished in Philly, New York, and other urban enclaves.
So it may be no surprise but still noteworthy that former Mayor Nutter has had enough of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. Nutter’s own words from an op-ed in the New York Post (why not the Philadelphia Inquirer, one wonders?):
District Attorney Larry Krasner’s recent remarks about whether we are experiencing a crime crisis are some of the worst, most ignorant and most insulting comments I have ever heard spoken by an elected official.
Krasner told reporters: “We don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence.”
It takes a certain audacity of ignorance and white privilege to say that right now. As of Monday night, 521 people, souls, spirits have been vanquished, eliminated, murdered in our City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, the most since 1960.
I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost, many of them black and brown, while he advances his own national profile as a progressive district attorney.
I’d like to ask Krasner: How many more black and brown people, and others, would have to be gunned down in our streets daily to meet your definition of a “crisis”? How many more children and teens have to die in record numbers to capture your attention and be considered a “crisis”? How many more moms, dads, spouses and friends need to shed tears over the loss of a loved one for you to call it a “crisis”?
It is too bad that Nutter waited until Krasner was handily re-nominated by Democrats and re-elected last month to another four-year term before he began speaking out. Krasner’s deeply lenient, soft-on-crime policies have been on display since first elected in 2017. Nutter’s belated voice lends credence to others who note that while blacks comprise 42% of the city’s population, they comprise 80% of murder victims under Krasner’s watch.
And innocent people are dead in Philadelphia as a result.
It’s not just Philly. There is an epidemic of well-funded lenient, soft-on-crime, progressive prosecutors elected under the guise of “criminal justice reform” in several jurisdictions, from three counties in Washington, DC’s Northern Virginia suburbs (Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun) to St. Louis, Chicago, and perhaps most notably, San Francisco. Even in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas. The results speak for themselves.
Nobody that I know is against genuine “criminal justice reform.” No rational that I know wants to see innocent people brutalized by bad cops or flawed criminal justice systems (except, apparently, those ignoring the alleged treatment of some January 6th protestors). But I don’t think the pro-crime policies of San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin or Philly’s Krasner are what most rational Americans have in mind.
Dennis Prager and others are correct: Whatever The Left touches, it ruins. At least when it comes to crime, but the evidence is piling up on other issues, too. And even former big city ex-mayors like Michael Nutter are starting to wake up. The American people are well ahead of him. In an August Rasmussen survey, 70 percent of likely voters said crime was “out of control.” From the study conducted for the National Police Association:
The elimination of cash bail requirements in some jurisdictions is among the policies voters blame most for the problem. Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters say letting accused violent criminals out of jail without bail while they wait for trial increases violent crime. Fourteen percent (14%) disagree and 13% are not sure.
Illinois this year became the first state to eliminate cash bail. Chicago’s police superintendent last week said it was an “outrage” that a federal judge released the man accused of supplying the gun used to murder Chicago Police Officer Ella French.
The survey also found:
-- Seventy percent (70%) of voters say district attorneys refusing to prosecute accused criminals contributes to rising violent crime.
-- Sixty-one percent (61%) believe early release of criminals from prison contributes to violent crime.
-- Fifty-six percent (56%) think prohibiting police from a “stop and frisk” of a suspect believed to be armed contributes to violent crime.
-- Fifty-two percent (52%) believe prohibiting police from engaging in pursuits contributes to violent crime.
Welcome to the club, Mayor Nutter. We caught the “white wokeness” reference, which is noteworthy. Better late than never. Too bad Philadelphia has four more years of this, but it’s what they voted for.