Crime

Philadelphia’s Market Frankford El might be compared to a circus freak show on the move. The 45-minute ride from the Frankford Terminal to the 69^th Street Terminal in Upper Darby takes about 45 minutes. The innumerable station stops along the way include the drug-infested neighborhoods of Kensington, where slumped over Fentanyl and Synthetic Cannabinoid (K2/Spice) addicts enter the train in great numbers, often nodding out in their seats, spilling coffee or soft drinks and sometimes vomiting or urinating when fellow passengers aren’t looking. During the worst of the pandemic in 2020 when ridership was low, large numbers of homeless took to sleeping on the trains. Now that ridership is up to par, the sleepers are less obvious but the homeless keep coming, attracting all sorts of hucksters who roam from car to car selling candy, incense or beef jerky, no doubt shoplifted from stores. Despite recorded warnings from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Septa) that passengers should not move between cars while the train is in motion, few obey the rule.

North Port, Fla. – The FBI confirmed Thursday that remains found in a heavily wooded Florida park are those of missing fugitive Brian Laundrie, who had been the subject of a massive manhunt following the death of his girlfriend Gabby Petito.

“On October 21, 2021, a comparison of dental records confirmed that the human remains found at the T. Mabry Carlton Jr. Memorial Reserve and Myakkahatchee Creed Environmental Park are those of Brian Laundrie,” the agency said in a statement.

Partial human remains were reportedly located in a Florida nature park where authorities have searched for Brian Laundrie, and a medical examiner has responded to the area, in the search for the fugitive wanted in the Gabby Petito case.

The discovery of remains comes after some items belonging to Laundrie were found in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park.

Apotex, the generic drug company that murdered billionaire Barry Sherman built, has recently paid almost $100 million (U.S.) to the U.S. government and the state of Texas over allegations it conspired with competitors to hike prices of popular drugs. And the other 49 states are in court alleging Apotex and other firms have engaged in a widespread pattern of price fixing.

In the U.S. government case, Apotex admitted to a conspiracy to “suppress and eliminate competition,” escaping a criminal conviction that would likely have barred it from the lucrative American market, according to the U.S. Justice Department. As its part of the deal, Apotex must co-operate with investigations of rivals, including recording telephone conversations, introducing law enforcement to sources, or testifying before a grand jury, documents filed in court say.

“Mutual combatants.”

I was a prosecutor for nearly 20 years and taught criminal law. But I must admit, I’d missed that one and thus had to be, um, edified by the office of Kim Foxx, state’s attorney for Cook County, Ill., and thus responsible for enforcing the law on Chicago’s murder-ravaged streets.

Slain Long Island native Gabby Petito was strangled to death, a Wyoming coroner revealed Tuesday.

“By Wyoming state statue only the cause and manner of death are released,” Teton County Coroner Brent Blue said in a livestreamed press conference.

According to new data put out by the CDC on Wednesday, 2020 saw the largest spike in homicide rates in over one hundred years. Between 2019 and 2020, homicide rates jumped by about 30%, which experts say is one of the largest recorded increases in American history.

In 2020, the homicide rate was about 7.8 homicides per 100,000 people, an increase from roughly 6.0 homicides per 100,000 in 2019.

Campaigners against violence need to work out what ‘success’ means

There haven’t been many crimes in recent years as appalling as the murder of Sarah Everard. The horrific details of the case were made public last week, during the trial of Wayne Couzens, the man who raped and killed her; and they are made all the more difficult to stomach by the fact that he was a serving police officer. It’s the abuse of a position of trust that makes this crime particularly chilling.

What’s even more appalling is that Couzens had apparently committed indecent exposure twice: once in 2015 and once three days before Everard’s murder.

When prosecutors won’t prosecute, what can cops do?

Yet again, the Chicago Police Department finds itself at loggerheads with State’s Attorney Kim Foxx about charging a criminal with a crime. First, it was low-level crimes that Foxx declined to prosecute. Then it was celebrity nonsense, with the Jussie Smollett hate-crime hoax. Next, it was the murder of a little girl. And now, it’s a deadly gang shootout. The larger issue is whether the police (and the public) have any options when a prosecutor refuses to prosecute, even when the evidence for guilt seems overwhelming.