Gun task force funds welcome news, but problem persists
By now it is a familiar scene. A group of politicians and law enforcement officials gather to bemoan another outbreak of gun violence.
This time it was a basketball court at the Bennett Homes housing project in Chester.
District Attorney Jack Whelan led a phalanx of officials and lawmen to bemoan still another spike in gun violence in Chester.
They stood on the court, where just a few nights before gunmen had sprayed the court with gunfire. It was part of one more violent weekend in the city, one where police were investigating as many as five shooting incidents that left eight people injured. Thankfully, none of the injuries were considered life-threatening.
In Philadelphia, they weren’t as lucky.
Police say a dispute between two groups of teens there ended not in a fistfight, the way perhaps such a disagreement would have ended a few years ago. Instead it ended the way all too many disagreements between young people do today.
Gunfire rang out on a residential street in South Philly. Two young lives were cut short.
Another teen now faces charges. After he was named as a person of interest in the case, with police looking to talk to him, someone beat them to the chance, firing 14 shots into his family’s home.
On Saturday thousands attended the funeral for one of the victims.
In Chester, two Republican state senators announced $500,000 in state funding to boost the Delaware County Gun Violence Task Force.
Sens. Tom Killion, R-9 of Middletown, and Tom McGarrigle, R-26 of Springfield, said the money was included in the funding plan for the $32 billion state budget that was signed yesterday by Gov. Tom Wolf.
The location of last week’s press conference was pertinent for a couple of reasons.
It was the scene of a multiple shooting the weekend before. But it was not the first time blood has been spilled in the area.
The basketball court is located in the 1200 block of West Carla’s Lane – a street named for city resident Carla Carrington, who was 17 when she was caught in the crossfire of gunfire back in 1988. Another young life silenced needlessly.
Killion and McGarrigle were joined by Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan; Delaware County Councilman Dave White; former Democratic city mayor John Linder representing Delaware County United for Sensible Gun Policy; task force members, county Detective David Tyler and Deputy District Attorney George Dawson; Pennsylvania State Police; and others in law enforcement.
The funding for the task force is rooted in a meeting between Chester city officials, the county, the District Attorney’s office, and new state Attorney General Josh Shapiro back in February in response to a similar uptick in gun violence in the city.
Things have not exactly calmed down.
Since January, there have been 155 shooting incidents in the city; 27 were fatal, according to Chester Police Chief James Nolan IV. Police investigations also resulted in removing 150 firearms off the streets, he noted.
“Not a day goes by when an individual doesn’t risk being shot here in the city. That is intolerable,” said Whelan. That was Thursday. Sunday night police were called to the 2900 block of West 11th Street for another shooting incident.
Right now there are four members of the task force. Whelan indicated the new state funding will either be used to expand its manpower, or subsidize salaries for existing law enforcement officers assigned to task force work.
This is not something new to the city. Or the region for that matter.
Whelan knows that as well as anyone. He’s now running for a spot on the county court of common please.
Republican County Councilman Dave White, who is also seeking re-election, also was there, and echoed what so many have been saying for so long.
He’s heard the stories of people afraid to come out of their homes, who steer clear of windows out of fear of the stray bullets that too often fly on the city’s streets.
“Gun violence has been plaguing the city for a long time,” said White. “No one should have to live that way in their own home, their own community.”
But they do. And they have been for a long time.
The reason? The same reason for problems in Philadelphia or other areas as well.
Too many guns in the hands of people who should not have them. We have a gun problem. This boost in funding for the task force is welcome news. But unless it can directly address the guns – and somehow keep them from flowing into the city, and into the hands of people with no respect for the law, let alone human life – it may not make much difference.