NOT-SO DEADLY YEAR
MURDER RATE DOWN IN DELCO, CHESTER
The joy in celebrating any new year was lost for Deborah Anderson and Lita Smith when their sons were fatally shot in Chester Jan. 1, 2015, as well as for Ofelia Lopez, whose brother was gunned down in Chester on Dec. 28, 2015.
Like bookends of grief, Anderson and Lopez represent the first and the last of 34 families who lost a loved one to homicide in Delaware County last year.
It was less than an hour into 2015 when shots rang out in the 1400 block of Culhane Street in Chester. Police arrived to find 22-year-old Ramon Anderson laying on the ground in a side yard, unresponsive and with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:55 a.m.
For 25-year-old Antonio Robertson, death occurred at 11:44 p.m. on Jan. 1, 2015 — nearly three hours after authorities, responding to a shooting, found him lying across the front seat of a tan Buick in the 2700 block of West Sixth Street in Chester and transported him to Crozer-Chester Medical Center.
Luis Lopez, 23, died at the scene of a shooting that authorities said resulted from a robbery — again in the 1400 block of Culhane Street in Chester. Two others were wounded in that incident.
“Everything,” is what Anderson, Smith and Lopez all said they missed the most about their sons and brother. Other mothers, fathers, grandmothers and sisters who lost a loved one to homicide last year echoed similar sentiments.
On the “Justicefor Ramon Anderson” page on Facebook, a New Year’s Eve message was posted asking friends to “show your respects at 11:55 … with a moment of silence” for Ramon and all the
others who passed in 2015.
One homicide too many
Delaware County saw a 30 percent drop in its homicide rate in 2015, a sharp contrast to the previous year that’s believed to be the deadliest on record in county history. In 2014, 49 people died at the hand of another, breaking the previous record of 44 homicides countywide in 2005.
“We are always glad to see a reduction in homicides, though one homicide is always one too many,” District Attorney Jack Whelan, Delaware County’s top law enforcement official, said on Thursday. His sentiments were shared by both the outgoing and incoming mayor of Chester, which historically experiences the highest number of homicides each year in the county.
Of the 34 homicides in 2015, all but three were shooting deaths. The majority remain unsolved.
Among the shootings, the death of 18-year-old Tyler Williams in Upper Darby was ruled justified, while the deaths of 16-year-old Fasaad Johnson and 31-year-old Robert Edwards in Chester are both pending clearance as justified homicides, Whelan said. Edwards’ death was an officer-involved shooting.
Another police-police involved shooting was the March 28 death of Darby Borough Patrolman Mark Hudson, which occurred at his home in Darby Township. His girlfriend, Tyaina Finch, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder on Nov. 9 and is currently awaiting sentencing, which is listed for Jan. 7 before Judge John P. Capuzzi Sr. in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas, according to online court records and Darby Borough Police Chief Robert Smythe. “It’s an absolute shame this kid
was taken from us,” Smythe said Friday night. “He was just a really nice person, aside from being a good police officer. He absolutely cared about people.”
Chester, the only city in Delaware County, had 24 homicides in 2015. Following the county’s downward trend, that figure represents a 20 percent decrease in the homicide rate for the city from 2014.
In 2014, 30 people died at the hands of another in Chester — breaking the city’s previous record high of 28 homicides in 1993.
“It’s 20 percent less, but it’s still too many young people taking the lives of other young people,” Chester Mayor-elect Thaddeus Kirkland said Friday.
“One person is too many. It should be zero,” said outgoing Mayor John Linder.
Linder said he’s hopeful that public safety initiatives he helped to implement in the city will be allowed to continue, and as a result continue to advance the downward trend in the homicide and other serious crime rates. Among the initiatives he cited were partnerships between city police and other law enforcement agencies, as well as an aggressive move toward improving community relations with law enforcement overall, and ridding the streets of firearms.
Noting the majority of city homicides involve firearms, Linder said more than 675 guns were taken off Chester streets in the last four years. “We appreciate what has happened and we would be remiss and irresponsible if we didn’t do everything to continue the downward trend,” Kirkland said.
Building communications
Looking ahead, Kirkland said he would like to expand on the idea of community policing in Chester, by assigning the same officers to the same neighborhoods for extended periods to allow the time “to develop trust, to get to know each other.”
Kirkland also sees public safety initiatives like seat belt checkpoints as another tool for police to deter potential crime.
Behind Chester in the 2015 homicide toll is Yeadon, with three lives lost, and Darby Borough, with two lives lost. The municipalities of Upper Darby, Darby Township, Norwood, East Lansdowne and Eddystone all saw one life lost to homicide in the last 12 months.
For Sharon Conroy, the shooting death of her brother, 60-yearold Thomas Childs, outside Ridgway Industries in Yeadon on June 9, was the second devastating loss to violence. Her son, 36-year-old Patrick Conroy, suffered a fatal asthmatic reaction after being
jumped in Philadelphia by five teens playing hooky on March 26, 2008.
“You just can’t even imagine how anybody could do this to another person,” Conroy said during an interview in July.
For the Burrell families of Chester, it was a similarly crushing loss. Both Derrick Burrell Sr., 47, and his son, Derrick Burrell Jr., 30, were killed in Chester in 2015. The elder Burrell was fatally stabbed in April, while his son was stabbed fatally shot in November.
In previously discussing the circumstances of the Feb. 3 death by blunt-force trauma of little Mason Hunt in Norwood, Whelan said the 2-year-old boy was “terrorized during the last two days of his life.” The child’s mother, Shannon Matthews, 30, of Chester, and her boyfriend, Daniel Grafton, 31, of Nether Providence, are both charged with third-degree murder and related offenses, and are awaiting trial scheduling, according to online records. A case status conference is listed for Jan. 19.
In Eddystone, 33-year-old Jami Vincent died as a result of a shooting on Dec. 20. Her boyfriend, Roger McBride, 31, of Saville Avenue, is charged with thirddegree murder and involuntary manslaughter in what he told police was an accident, according to charging documents.
Working with groups like Parents of Murdered with Children, Whelan recognizes the pain that parents, siblings and others experience in the wake of a homicide.
His office will continue to work with both grass-roots organizations and churches throughout the county, particularly in Chester, to strengthen community rapport in an effort to obtain information to both prevent crimes before they occur, as well as prosecute crimes after the fact.
In 2016, Whelan plans to launch an Illegal Gun Strike Force, which will build on efforts that began last year.
“The focus will be removing illegal guns from the streets. Our weapon will be the new Brad Fox Law, under which we’ve had two successful convictions,” he said.
Whelan said the initiative will begin in Chester, with plans to expand countywide. Education will be part of the strike force’s mission.
“If you’re convicted, you will be doing five to 10 years in a state penitentiary,” he said.
Chester, the only city in Delaware County, had 24 homicides in 2015. Following the county’s downward trend, that figure represents a 20 percent decrease in the homicide rate for the city from 2014. In 2014, 30 people died at the hands of another in Chester — breaking the city’s previous record high of 28 homicides in 1993.