A journalist and advocate who rose from homelessness and addiction to serve as a spokesperson for Philadelphia’s most vulnerable was shot and killed at his home early Monday, police said.
Josh Kruger, 39, was shot seven times at about 1:30 a.m. and collapsed in the street after seeking help, police said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Police believe the door to his Point Breeze home was unlocked or the shooter knew how to get in, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. No arrests have been made and no weapons have been recovered, they said.
Authorities haven’t spoken publicly about the circumstances surrounding the killing.
I’m always a bit suspicious when a Journalist is killed like this. Who were those who may have been threatened by what he published?
The people in these comments talking like this is “just another day in a US city” have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. This is not the kind of violence that randomly happens. This person was clearly targeted.
They also fail to grasp the concept of “per capita” crime/murder statistics.
Per capita? Really? Try per capita gun murders around the world and see what countries the US keeps company with. I mean, your argument is basically because there are lots of people, being shot is NBD because the odds are low because there are lots of people?
And yeah, again, compared to other places this is the kind of violence that happens in the US.
However, this was a targeted shooting. A deliberate murder. That does tend to be a more rare occurrence, but it’s dishonest to break it out and treat it separately from the overall use of crime related gun use in the US.
What? Way to miss the point entirely. Not only that, but you’ve completely misrepresented my argument.
First: yes, this was clearly a targeted shooting, so this discussion doesn’t really apply to this specific case. However…
I haven’t said anything was no big deal, just pointing out basic statistics. Using the concept of “per capita,” when discussing phenomena among very large groups of people, is one of the (if not the) only ways to glean any valuable information from the data.
1,000 gun crimes seems like a lot in a town of 23,000 people. 1,000 gun crimes in a city of 2,000,000 people? Not so much… (obviously these numbers were made up to make a point)
No, I didn’t miss your point. I understand perfectly what you meant. However, you did miss my pointing out of your use of statistics via per capita as an argument to water down risk against the broader view of the US gun crime rate vs the rest of the world to point out that yes, Indeed, this is a US problem.
If I implied anywhere that I thought it wasn’t a US problem, that was not my intention at all. Clearly it is.
Per capita rates of gun violence in the United States are almost 90 times higher than the United Kingdom, for instance.
Yes. This is a uniquely American problem. I am agreeing with you.
“A targeted shooting a deliberate murder… that does tend to be more rare”
Accidental fatal shootings are well known to exceed intentional ones.
It’s rare to get an article on individual targeted killings, but they do in fact comprise the majority of killings. So no, this is not a rare form of killing at all, it’s simply being reported because it’s another journalist.
Bigots a.k.a conservatives
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. There’s an epidemic of violence going through the conservative movement right now. They’ve been growing more and more violent. See Jan 6. and all the terrorist attacks/shootings coming from their side lately.
Or who would have been threatened by what would have been published, should he still be alive?
This is why journalists should invest in a dead man’s switch that will automatically publish stuff I the journalists cannot check in
One last fuck you from the grave
“Either the door was open, or the offender knew how to get the door open,” he said. “We just don’t know yet.”
Detectives believe Kruger’s death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.
In recent months, he’d written on social media about a variety of alarming incidents at his home.
In April, he posted that an ex-partner had broken into his home. “The door was locked, so he had somehow obtained a copy of my keys,” he wrote. He had allowed the man, whom he’d known for years “before his troubles,” to stay at his house briefly after being released from jail. He said he was able to deescalate the situation and the man eventually left, and he changed his locks.
In August, someone threw a rock through his home window, he said. Then, about two weeks ago, he wrote on Facebook that someone came to his house searching for their boyfriend — “a man I’ve never met once in my entire life.” The person called themselves “Lady Diabla, the She-Devil of the Streets” and threatened him, he wrote.
Same here.
I have an uncle who was killed due to an article he was doing research for. Sadly, he ended up in a coma and then someone came back to finish the job. It had a large impact on my mother and her siblings, though it was a few years before I was born. I had always wondered how much of it was an exaggeration until a couple years ago when we found an article saying basically the same things the aunts and uncles always had.
Is it because they interviewed the aunts and uncles as their primary source?
That is a great idea, but no. He was living in another part of the country from them at the time of the initial attack. The article was written in that area.
No doubt a fascist done this.
Cops definitely murdered this man.
That’s my vote as well.
It would seem so.
Police have said the motive behind the killing remains unclear, but that the pair were in a relationship.
Davis’ mother and older brother said that relationship began years ago, when Davis was just 15, and involved sex, drugs, and abuse. They told The Inquirer in recent interviews that Davis said Kruger was threatening to post sexually explicit videos of him online before, police say, Davis shot him.
Not a cop it seems.
Some of those who work forces,
Are the same who burn crosses.
Is there any info linking police to the shooting?
Hello again old friend
Not to my knowledge but it was still an idea worth posing given the polices history against the homeless population nation wide and would be an easy answer as to why there’s not been any breaks in the case.
Although I didn’t pose what I said as fact, I can’t help what people will assume of groups they’re already familiar with.
It is the city that bombed it’s own people
Dude. The words you’re typing are grossly irrelevant to the story you’re commenting on.
___Care to explain further or are we just throwing pebbles
It looks like you used a catchphrase to grab worthless internet popularity points. We have no evidence, and it very well could have been the cops, or a junkie, or Santa. You’re on a public forum, it’s not stone throwing to point out nonsense.
They made a quip that referenced a popular anti-establishment song which criticizes police for acts of hate towards minorities.
This person, who was defending minorities, was shot and killed in their home, in the city whose police dept. dropped an actual bomb on minorities less than 40 years ago.
Police have also been known to enter people’s houses and perform execution-style killings like this in the US.
How is it irrelevant?
Because a cop didn’t kill him
That’s called a conspiracy theory.
You have taken a handful of unrelated things and applied them to an entirely unrelated story. With this formula, you could conclude anything you wished to conclude and get people to believe you because people don’t give a shit about facts any more.
I would advise people, all people in general, to read some words about the thing they think they know something about, before they go about committing on such things and spreading misleading and false statements.
I would like you to explain how you typed those words in relation to this story.
This case involves what the police had indicated was likely a domestic dispute, in the victim’s home, possibly involving drugs.
You’re talking about uh, the police murdering the homeless? Seriously. How could you possibly make that connection?
I don’t know what you mean by “breaks in this case” when this was posted only 24 hours after the incident. Within 36 hours, the police had identified a suspect.With my fingers.
Gotcha. That makes sense that you let your fingers do the thinking for you. Anyone with half a brain would have a hard time putting down your words.
We don’t know the cops did this.
No shortage of right-wing reactionaries, who aren’t cops, shooting people.
that said, the Philly PD don’t have the best reputation, e.g. blatantly trying to frame Mumia, etc.
Work forces??
Influential people. It’s a Rage Against the Machine quote if you need the context.
Police forces. Task forces… Etc.
Very sad to see this. Unfortunate what happened to Josh.
But who’s committing these crimes, and why so much senseless violence?
Probably a “good Christian”, since the fundamentalist are militantly (in a literal sense) against any sort of tolerance, acknowledgement, or compassion being expressed towards people who don’t completely conform to their heteronormative worldview.
I stole this from another poster, but it does indicate that it was probably his ex boyfriend, or drug related, and not a “good Christian” as you imply.
Here’s some excerpts from the local paper.
Detectives believe Kruger’s death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.
In recent months, he’d written on social media about a variety of alarming incidents at his home.
In April, he posted that an ex-partner had broken into his home. “The door was locked, so he had somehow obtained a copy of my keys,” he wrote. He had allowed the man, whom he’d known for years “before his troubles,” to stay at his house briefly after being released from jail. He said he was able to deescalate the situation and the man eventually left, and he changed his locks.
In August, someone threw a rock through his home window, he said. Then, about two weeks ago, he wrote on Facebook that someone came to his house searching for their boyfriend — “a man I’ve never met once in my entire life.” The person called themselves “Lady Diabla, the She-Devil of the Streets” and threatened him, he wrote.
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I mean it would par for the course.
Excuse me, but your bigotry is hanging out. Would you mind zipping up?
Yes! That’s exactly what you should say to Christians when they start spouting off on their racist, homophobic, or otherwise prejudiced beliefs. You’re a great role model.
I have done and will continue to call out racial and homophobic bigotry as quickly as I do religious bigotry.
Unfortunately, as shameful as it is, one of those forms of prejudice is supported by most of the active population here.
What? You mean in America, the country ruled by Christians who impose Christianity on children in schools, where the majority religion is Christianity, where Christian organizations get preferential treatment by the government, where Christianity is the overwhelming majority religion of politicians, and where there is an active political movement to literally enforce state Christianity on the population, and where Christian moral doctrine is being widely used to restrict the bodily autonomy of women?? Ah yes so much Christian hate
Unironically shut the fuck up
Unironically shut the fuck up
You have thoroughly convinced me!
Where can I sign up for the daily hate speech against Christians? Oh, nevermind, I forgot I already have a Lemmy account.
It is unfortunate that rather than learning how to fight against their methods, you have instead decided to emulate them.
“Hate speech against Christians”
Please point out the hate speech in the comment you replied to. Telling you to shut the fuck up isn’t hate speech, and everything else is literally a straightforward fact about Christianity in America. Zero hate speech.
Gotta play the persecution game though, am I right?
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I’m curious what you consider hate speed or bigotry against christians.
If I dislike all christians that follow the bible/their gods commands and believe in their gods benevolence, would you say I’m a bigot?
“Religious bigotry” LOL
The only people who practice anything that could be called that are religious people themselves. Everyone else just wants to be left the fuck alone.
Fair enough. I should have called it anti-religious bigotry.
Calling out your hateful ideology for what it is, is not bigotry. You seem to not understand that word either. Nothing I said was bigoted.
Religion is a choice
Religion is poison.
It is unfortunate that you think so, there is a lot of wisdom in the various world religions.
We may be beyond the need for religion, but I doubt even that.
Finding wisdom in religion is like trying to pick corn out of shit.
No there’s not.
You can be a wise, moral and ethical person without religion. It’s easy. Tons of people do that every single day.
It is unfortunate that you think so, there is a lot of wisdom in the various world religions.
What wisdom is in world religions that couldn’t be found elsewhere without all the murdery baggage?
There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry. Any adult who remains a Christian knows exactly what the religion with the highest kill count stands for. They decide to ignore that because they get the warm fuzzies once a week for an hour.
Now go restore Roe v. Wade or you are useless to me.
There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry.
Bigotry is thinking, what I believe is right and everyone who believes differently is wrong.
To point at all varieties of Christianity and say, “you are bad,” is being bigoted.
Now go restore Roe v. Wade or you are useless to me.
If you want someone useful here are some people that agree with you and will help you fight, assuming you can manage to not call their belief system disgusting to their faces:
Rev. Angela Williams, a Presbyterian pastor and the lead organizer of SACReD: Spiritual Alliance of Communities for Reproductive Dignity, told Healthline that faith leaders and religious groups that support abortion rights have been preparing for this moment for a long time.
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/meet-the-religious-groups-fighting-to-save-abortion-access
Members of the Episcopal Church (79%) and the United Church of Christ (72%) are especially likely to support legal abortion, while most members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (65%) also take this position.
Bigotry is thinking, what I believe is right and everyone who believes differently is wrong.
No. That is just being human.
To point at all varieties of Christianity and say, “you are bad,” is being bigoted.
Ok? It isnt some weird charm argument winner. You can call me any nasty thing you want and that won’t raise from the dead a single Iraqi or stop a single 14 year old girl having to induce an at home abortion because her uncle raped her.
If you want someone useful here are some people that agree with you and will help you fight, assuming you can manage to not call their belief system disgusting to their faces:
Not good enough. I want to hear a Christian shaman to say that anyone who opposes their religion on the rest of us is no longer a Christian. Disown or own. I like hot beverages and cold ones but not lukewarm ones.
Episcopalians are less than 2% of the US population. Jewish people and LGBT people are a bigger voting bloc. Using one of the most liberal and one of the smallest Christian denominations as evidence for what Christianity in the US is like is intentionally misleading, when more than 10x as many Americans consider themselves Evangelicals (about 1/4th).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
You gotta take a stand somewhere. The intolerant religious zealots would be a good place to start.
There’s no paradox - there’s acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior. If anyone, displays only acceptable behavior, you tolerate them - full stop. If anyone goes out of bounds, you respond appropriately to correct the behavior - full stop.
To borrow a line from /u/theneverfox@pawb.social
The paradox is literally what’s happening with you in this thread, genius. the Christian church has been out of bounds for centuries, and now that people are finally responding appropriately, you kick and scream saying “not like that! you can only respond appropriately if you follow all the rules laid out by the people who oppress you! you need to tolerate our intolerance because our imaginary friend says we need to hate you to stop the end of the world”
There were “good” people who identify as Nazis. should we let that ideology thrive because a minority of its population put flowers on the graves their compatriots created?
I get that you just want to hold hands and sing kumbaya, but I have trouble holding the hands that are covered with the blood of my brothers, sisters, and allies.
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Just be sure you’ve taken a moment to understand who you’re speaking with and what you’re speaking with them about. Because in this case, any issue of bigotry has absolutely nothing to do with this drug related domestic dispute murder.
Commenters here are arguing with each other over something that has nothing to do with this case. So, it’s not that you care about the victim, you care about virtue signaling.
FWIW, the victim regularly attended an Episcopalian church. So, I’m not so sure he’d be cool with people using religion as a cudgel beneath his obituary.
this drug related domestic dispute murder.
Is that what it is looking like now? The article was significantly sparse on details.
The article was significantly sparse on details.
Yeah. No argument there…
I posted this earlier https://lemmy.ml/comment/4475683
Well hey maybe religious people should stop consistently hurting other humans and society in general because they think their imaginary friend would be down with it.
It sounds an awful like you are saying, “Well yeah, we are bigots, but we are bigots because they deserve it!”
Am I misunderstanding you?
Yes, you are misunderstanding me.
I’m saying that religion has a richly documented history of intolerance and repression, up to and including the present day. I am simultaneously saying that I am intolerant of intolerance.
I feel like you should read up on this if you’re still struggling to wrap your head around the nuance of what pretty much everyone else in this comment tree besides yourself is expressing.
If you keep advocating in this fashion you are going to start feeling very backed up against a wall very quickly. When people are routinely hurt by an institution the unambiguous defense of the people within institution as a whole claiming a similar victimhood plays on a part of human nature. What people want of you is to accept that the numbers of people claiming Christiandom to then go on to harm someone means that as someone who claims to be Christian that you should be the first voice to start criticizing your own.
Instead because you cannot separate yourself from your Christian label or other people’s frustration and pain caused by other people who do so under the flag of being “Proud Christians” your advocacy appears shallow and self serving. You and all the good Christians you defend become literary “the good man who does nothing” If facing people in your audience who have experienced trauma at the hands of your group what they want to see is that you accept that people like you harmed them and that you are different than them by being able to recognize their pain and shelve your agenda and listen unambiguously. What they are asking is for you to show you care about them and are strong enough to weather and differentiate the criticism they aren’t directing at you.
It’s a similar effect to how a lot of systemic issues around racism get held up on the feelings of the people in institutions about being implied to be racist. Oftentimes the issues never get dealt with because the conversation has to stop become all about the feelings of the person and how they aren’t a bad person. While they may not intend it that person’s feelings become the obstacle that throws up the roadblocks on people who are fighting desperately to have less roadblocks. Once this happens often enough people start to figure that that person’s feelings DO make them a bad person because regardless of their personal merits they are still in the way and having to sway every individual roadblock by taking them offside and coddling them telling them, it’s okay we know YOU aren’t a bad person becomes way too much. Thus people start getting more frustrated with the people who demand this treatment and take up their energy and they start getting more strident.
When you place yourself in that spot it’s easy to see people’s frustration as hate but it is different. They want you to be better.
I appreciate the well-thought out and verbose response. Have an upvote!
Now to the meat of it. I am not a Christian, I am someone who is tired of some bigots getting a pass and some bigots getting their whole instances defederated. Since there is clearly a disinterest in heavy-handed moderation to get rid of the one-sided bigotry then the best recourse is open discussion.
I have no doubt that the people here who are heavily prejudiced against religion have their reasons, but that does not mean that their words are good or acceptable in an open forum. When people express their ideas in socially unacceptable ways they should be called out and down-voted, but currently they they are mostly receiving positive responses. This is wrong. It is a mark against the communities and instances they are posting those statements in.
It does not matter why someone feels justified for spewing hate, they should be called-out or at least shunned. If you want to help someone work through their hate, that is great. I just want to stop being embarrassed by it. Despite being a great concept, I literally cannot recommend Lemmy to anyone because the top comment is so often some trash about how “all conservatives are fascists” or a gay activist died “it must be a Christian.”
Lemmy is kind of unapologetically leftist and there is a lot of dissatisfaction by a number of groups that all coelece around the use of religion or “traditional values” a euphemism for Christian, more specifically the Pauline chapters, norms that reject LGBTQIA identities and a flattening of the rights of women to be autonomous. When you look at the “bigotry” you’ll find “Christianity” does not always often mean the same thing when people use it from poster to poster. In many ways it closer to a shorthand for the Evengelical movements which are growing more like consolidated political parties. If someone claims to be Christian the belief in Christ itself is not always the cause for the vitriol (not saying the angry atheists do not prowl). Rather it is how they weild it against other communities.
Moderation is never truly neutral. To some extent all places are tailored to be safer to someone. Leftist spaces are often tailored to be more sympathetic with people to whom conservative values trend on the whole to be hostile towards. Importantanly however it is important to look at how that frustration is being utilized. On the whole people here’s main gripe is an overreach of control at the expense of safety and health of other people. The desired outcome is not a banishment from society but a ceasefire.
It’s true that bigotry can work both ways, but you have to admit the right has given us a lot of reason to feel bigoted towards them, especially in light of incidents like this where progressive and smart people are being killed for being better humans than other humans. Christianity has one main tenet - love they neighbor as thyself. There is no other principle to Christianity, only this one. And yet right wingers seem to think they don’t have to obey it but can still call themselves “christians,” which is a complete lie and slap in the face to god and everyone on earth.
Nope, my pointed disdain for backwards, illogical, regressive, exclusionary, predatory cults is showing. I don’t have a problem with religious people as long as they don’t force their shit onto others. Nationalist Christians are trying to force their bullshit theocracy onto the whole country, and that’s very fucking far from ok.
For the record, I was raised catholic, and I noped the fuck out of that bullshit once I got old enough to ask incisive questions. Maybe you should too.
It took going to a Bible College for me to break it down. That doesn’t mean that I have forgotten all of the good-hearted, well-meaning Christians that I met along the way. I haven’t forgotten all of the assholes either.
Yes I know, there are plenty of busybody assholes that identify as Christians, just like there are plenty of busybody assholes that identify themselves as atheist, gay, straight, athlete or gamer. Some people just feel the need to tell others how to live their lives even when they don’t really understand them. It doesn’t mean that we should act like everyone in that group is the same.
That sort of prejudicial reductionism is the real enemy. It is the thing reasonable, free-thinkers should be fighting against, not turning around for our own use.
Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people. But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act. Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring. What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.
Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people.
That is indeed my exact point.
But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act.
That is actually one of my main concerns with the direction lemmy is heading. At some point when the bias becomes extreme enough we need to start calling out those that are crossing the line. If it seems like I am not pointing enough at the extremes of the republican side, it is only because their voices are few and far-between on Lemmy. Typically when I find them, they are already buried in down-votes and comments. I usually a downvote to the pile, upvote a few other comments, and then move on.
Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring.
In principle, I agree with this, but in practice it seems to be having questionable long-term results. The rise of the extreme right seems as prevalent there as it is in the US. Though some of that may just be overreporting because of the general interest in Germany when it comes to right-wing extremism.
What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.
I think this issue is a bit more complex than that. I think it has to do as much or more with people being forced to support the side they feel less negative towards even if they don’t really agree with that side. Here is an interesting if imperfect analogy I read relating to it:
Since the main topic is apparently too hot of a take, I’ll take pineapple on a pizza for example (Perhaps I’m getting into even hotter waters). Free of external influence (i.e. memes), I think most people will eat it without much thought. Some might like it, some might not, and I doubt it’s all that controversial–likely less than anchovies. If you don’t like it, you just don’t have to eat it.
But if one extreme said we must ban pineapples from all pizzas, and the other end of the extreme said we must put pineapple on all pizzas, we have a very different scenario. I myself enjoy Hawaiian pizza and find pineapples to be a fine topping. But I certainly don’t want to eat only pineapple pizzas all the time. So, I’d look at both extremes and side with no pineapples ever. That seems better of the two options. I can no longer be a centrist because the idea of having only pineapple pizza seems horrible. But I don’t really eat whole pizzas by myself, I eat it with others. And if others are such great lovers of pineapple pizza, I’d be influenced to side with the other extreme of always having pineapple due to peers.
I want to highlight that both of these extremes are authoritarian. One forces you to eat pineapple. The other forces you to not eat pineapple. Neither are true libertarian choices. They are forced viewpoints one forces on the other. That’s what forces people to have such strong negative emotion towards it. No one wants to be forced into things. This is important and I’ll come back to this later.
Excerpt from https://lemmy.world/comment/3742406 from /u/Grumpy@sh.itjust.works
My point was not about authoritarian. It is about the lies that are being told to the masses to convince them that being turkeys for Christmas is actually good for them. The lies have gone from extreme into the ridiculous. I watched Trump tell a crowd that climate change is not true and that he can sort out the forest fires tomorrow. He wants to make use of the wasted overflow pipes in cities. Where do you start on that one? Trump has caused murders literally; people died in the insurrection. He is affirmed as being a rapist in judicial hearing. In the UK we call this out as being a nonce. There were republican candidates who said they would follow Trump if he was elected while in prison. Worse still, this is only a minor take on the whole story. Boebert committing sex acts in front of kids. The open gerrymandering in states across the US. The attacks on the judicial system and civil employees. The way they used public servant wages as blackmail instead of using democratic leeway.
How far down the rabbit hole do you have to go before thinking that there is something wrong here, and I have to use my position to prevent more of it?
You are contradicting yourself.
Care to explain how?
No.
Christians love to play the victim, when you literally run the country.
Tangentially, my go-to aphorism when some American Christian starts whinging about how “persecuted” they are:
get off the cross, we need the wood.
And to be clear: any Christian in the US claiming “persecution” should be viewed with the same seriousness as white, upper-middle class people claiming everyone racist against white property… because both of those claims are categorically bullshit. Nobody in the US wants to or cares about persecuting white people or Christians. We just want all the Nationalist Christians to get the fuck out of our politics and stop trying to push theocratically-derived laws on the rest of us, because just like we don’t want to live under a Sharia legal system, we similarly don’t want to live under a biblical (or Torah-derived, or any-other-religious-text-derived) law system.
Theocratic Christians are such a minority that the risk of this is nil. This is like conservatives fear-mongering about the US going Stalinist.
The US has never had a biblical law system and never will. (Certainly not in the near future, although with infinite time anything is possible).
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Bigots and manipulating sociopaths have a difficult time reconciling that they’re terrible people.
Ah, the ol’ “the anti-bigots are the real bigots” response? Is that where we are now?
They randomly accused people they have no evidence of for commiting a crime. So yeah, they are being a bigot.
Looks like they are both bigots from here.
Major cities have always been cesspools of violent crime.
It’s Philly, this is nothing new (Edit: since people love twisting words, I meant violence in general not the specific targeting of an activist journalist for Christ sake). I grew up in South Jersey (half way in between Philly and Atlantic City, NJ) and there’s always a headline on the nightly news about “X people were killed in a shootout today in West/South/North Philly today”, most people don’t see it though since Philly is overshadowed by NYC (anyone from Central Jersey and North gets NYC news). Everything but Center City has always been a shit hole for the most part.
Edit: I live in NYC for 5 years, it of course has shitty areas all over too. Everyone is trying to act like major cities are perfect, crime free areas. Did people forget that the Italian and Irish mobs ran NYC and Philly for decades?!
Having a home invader break into your house and gun you down is not a common occurrence, even in philly. It was a targeted attack.
I didn’t say that was a common occurrence, I was saying violence and murder is common in Philly. It’s literally on the news almost every night.
Of course this was a targeted attack.
What do you mean by “targeted”?
That’s not what they said.
It’s Philly, this is nothing new.
You got selective reading or something?
They said shootings, not your very specific example. You got a reason for your shitty attitude?
No, it’s more like people are twisting my words. I simply meant violence and murder is nothing new in Philly. If you read the rest of what I wrote I clearly state that. Whose the one with selective reading?
This wasn’t someone gunned down in a shootout. This was a homeless and LGBT rights activist who was brutally murdered in his home.
Nothing about that is ordinary.
Is it “ordinary” for anyone in any career to be brutally murdered in their home?
If you were halfway between Philly and Atlantic City, you were too far away from Philly to pretend to be an expert. But keep using that weak anecdotal “evidence” to continue your ignorant views on urban areas.
Saying “Everything but Center City has always been a shit hole” gives you away. You have no fucking clue. Probably been at least a decade since you’ve driven within 30 miles of the city.
So apparently the ABC nightly news is “anecdotal evidence”. My aunt lives in Philly, my brother’s works there frequently, I’m pretty aware of how Philly is.
It’s sensationalist, absolutely.
edit: ok you’re right, the ABC Nightly News isn’t sensationalist. 🙄
I also like how immediately after you claim it’s not anecdotal, you talk about how you know people who live there lol
I mean, shootings in bad parts of Philly and Camden aren’t new, but they’re gang-related. This sort of crime detailed in the article is not common, even in Philly. This guy was targeted. Someone he likely knew was in his home, because no one had to break in (I highly doubt he didn’t lock his door), and 7 shots is overkill. Journalists aren’t being targeted like this on the regular.
Source: grew up 20 minutes outside of Philly in South Jersey
These comments are out of control. To be fair though, this AP article is garbage.
The likelihood of this having anything to do with the victim being a queer journalist in Philadelphia is practically zero. Here’s some excerpts from the local paper.
Detectives believe Kruger’s death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.
In recent months, he’d written on social media about a variety of alarming incidents at his home.
In April, he posted that an ex-partner had broken into his home. “The door was locked, so he had somehow obtained a copy of my keys,” he wrote. He had allowed the man, whom he’d known for years “before his troubles,” to stay at his house briefly after being released from jail. He said he was able to deescalate the situation and the man eventually left, and he changed his locks.
In August, someone threw a rock through his home window, he said. Then, about two weeks ago, he wrote on Facebook that someone came to his house searching for their boyfriend — “a man I’ve never met once in my entire life.” The person called themselves “Lady Diabla, the She-Devil of the Streets” and threatened him, he wrote.
The conspiracy theories are strong in this thread. Nobody wants to believe that random acts of violence can happen. There always has to be some deeper conspiracy to try and make sense of it, and to feel like there is some semblance of control in our lives.
Bear in mind a lot of the commenters come from a civilised society, where a journalist getting shot is massive fucking news and implies something about his profession getting him killed
People just don’t get shot in modern countries
People just don’t get shot in modern countries
Man this is going to trigger the gun nonces…
They can’t type and wank at the same time bud
He said modern countries, so America isn’t being considered here.
People just don’t get shot in modern countries
Uhm… gonna have to refer you to waves hand to entire country
Except for the fact that this very likely had nothing to do with the victim being a journalist.
Well, nothing that was written above makes it seem like this was random. This seems to have been very deliberate, but for reasons unrelated to their outreach work.
Right. In a Philly at least, the vast majority of gun violence is targeted and personal. That’s why so much of it is mostly ignored.
“A specific individual waged a campaign of targeted harassment against a person they knew, for 6-12 months, before committing premeditated murder.”
Another act of random violence. Who could have seen it coming.
I think it’s part of their idea that everything wrong in the world comes from America, so if they topple the American capitalist system everything will be fixed.
Random acts of violence don’t fit this narrative, the fact that there will always be psychopaths by sheer fact of the genetic lottery doesn’t fit this narrative, and the downfall of left leaning public figures through no fault of their own or that of some secret cabal of the US government doesn’t fit this narrative.
The fact that bad shit will still need to be fixed and/or corrected for in a “post revolution” world just breaks their brains.
It’s Turner Diaries logic, “no see, once we get rid of them the world will be perfect!”
You’re not making a very good point for what you think you’re arguing for. If anything, you’re just confirming 'murica is a shithole.
yes to all, minus “genetic lottery”
even the the most generous and trusting reading of this would suggest that the US just selling unhinged people guns is possibly something that could be chalked up the cause of this murder. Permissive gun policies in this country and multiple court rulings that police don’t have to take protective measures seriously have degraded people’s ability to have control over their lives.
Even if there was no intent here, this “random act of violence” is the result of generations of failed policies.
Selling more guns than people, just to the fully hinged individuals, would still make it really easy for the unhinged ones to steal one.
Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.
“Party and Play” (PnP) with meth is a thing and it’s as toxic and fucked up as you’d imagine.
If that was what was going on … I can’t say I’m remotely surprised what happened did.
Why speculate? When I see threads like this, that is my one and only thought. It adds no value, muddies the water, and doesn’t rely on evidence.
Why speculate? I’m too autistic for this thread. I don’t speculate. I wait for evidence.
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On his website, he described himself as a “militant bicyclist” and “a proponent of the singular they, the Oxford comma, and pre-Elon Twitter.“
[Emphasis mine] This is such an important issue to me. Contracts have been ruled upon because of the appearance or lack of the Oxford comma (a union got fucked because it wasn’t there). All his other traits are also admirable, but this is the unimportant-important thing that jumped out at me.
We can’t let these fascists overtake society.
We should be more focused on people not making rash assumptions or accusations prior to all the facts of an event being known.
This has absolutely nothing to do with fascists. I can’t even imagine how you came to that conclusion. It’s being reported as likely being a domestic dispute.
Man, get over yourself, you are just spitting nonsense here.
If by the fascists you’re referring to the criminals who murdered him, it’s too late. The victim was out there every day fighting to keep these criminals on the streets. We really do need to get tougher on crime, all over the West.
They will be caught.
“They” are the ones in charge of catching each other, so not likely. Or they’ll find some black homeless person to take the blame and make it look like a robbery rather than a hate crime.
That’s a rather conspiracy theory stance right there
I mean there’s an official FBI report that says it white nationalists have infiltrated police departments and another that says they use their influence to prevent convictions of domestic violence perpetrated by white nationalists. Additionally there are plenty of reports in multiple cities to show that cops often plant evidence to convict people of crimes they didn’t commit in order to aid their career. And the victims are almost always black, usually mentally disabled, and often homeless or home-insecure. So it’s not a stretch.
And I’m not talking about a conspiracy outside of the already proven idea that white nationalists have infiltrated police departments and alter evidence. One cop altering evidence for his buddies isn’t a conspiracy.
And the only thing that could be considered a “theory”/hypothesis is that this was a targeted killing, rather than a random one like the media are already painting it as. And that the police will push that scenario and refuse to investigate white nationalist groups to see which ones sent him threats. We’ll just have to wait and see on that. I suppose it depends on if any witnesses or others go to the media with evidence.
“Cops often plant evidence to get convictions”- Police don’t prosecute, get your conspiracy theories straight.
“This was a targeted killing”
It almost certainly was, the victim was involved in drugs and probably knew violent people and kept in touch with them.
The real case is far more likely to be “reformed drug addict killed by former acquaintance”, than “journalist killed for reporting issues”.
I didn’t say cops prosecute. But if they arrest someone and there’s no evidence, they don’t get credit for catching a criminal, just for throwing an innocent person in jail and that looks bad. So they plant evidence so that anyone they arrest gets convicted and sometimes so the real perpetrator doesn’t. It’s all very well documented. Just no one will arrest them for it since they are mostly all doing the same or have allowed it to happen without doing anything about it.
Again, no. Cops can detain and investigate without making a formal arrest or bringing someone to jail. If it is questionable circumstances, then they will simply take statements and go for an arrest later.
There actually is a circumstance where police are incentivised to plant evidence, and that’s if you have a problematic individual (someone who gets the police called on them regularly), and planting evidence of a more serious crime would remove them from the street.
You make a long of strong claims that require a lot of strong evidence and sources
i know there are incidents, but the US has 300.000.000 people living there, it’s a guarantee that you’re going to have assholes.
You claim it’s structural, that there are groups conspiring together to get this done. That is a big, big claim that better not come from a Facebook page.
Mind linking that FBI report?
I mean the report itself is not available to the public. There was a bulletin sent to police departments that was heavily redacted when released. This was like 15 years ago. Lots of other information has been released over time. The bulletin itself I couldn’t find with a quick Google search, but there is a lot of information about it that you can use Google to find. That’s not my job to prove. It’s not a small amount of info. So Google it. Here’s a link to get you started.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement
when i first read this, i thought it was the journalist advocating for homless and lgbtq+ to be shot and killed
Same, it took me a second
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Two likely senarios:
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It’s someone he knows in the LGBT community who has beef with him over something not related to his activism. Maybe he pissed off someone he was trying to help. Maybe he was caught in a weird romantic triangle. Maybe he just befriended someone who is psycho.
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Or, it’s someone anti-LGBT who did it due to his activism or related to that.
Could be either at this point.
In what world would scenario 1 even be considered an option. Be real.
It’s an option because a majority of victims know their killers personally. Now, that may also mean it’s scenario 2 or a family member or someone they had a bad business deal with or someone random. And I do take issue with the assumption that those two scenarios are the most likely. But it’s not out of the question.
The real world. Are you serious?
Have you ever read a news story or just headlines on social media?Yep, some weeks ago a crazy white guy shot dead an old woman for hanging the rainbow flag outside her store.
Ok. Did you bother to read the article at all before contributing such a stupid comment? No, you did not.
Do better.Gotta love when someone doesn’t have more arguments: “dId yOu ReAd tHe ArTiClE?”
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
While I’d like to believe there’s some grand conspiracy to silence this guy, I actually think it’s more likely this was done by someone he knew or was working with.
I could easily see some angry, deranged homeless person killing a journalist just because he “didn’t like him.”
…do you pay attention to the news at all? The real world is soaked in domestic violence over ideological, especially in the west.
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Everyone knows when a journalist dies, we should look first at the unhoused population.
Unhoused…that’s a fucking stupid term.
People downvoting you cause they don’t like that it’s truly stupid that we have decided to whitewash homelessness with a cute word that doesn’t make you feel as bad.
They are homeless, without a home, without shelter, those that have been pushed from the basic need of private shelter.
If they want to call it unhoused sure, but they are indeed shelterless.
Involuntary outdoor enthusiasts.
Well, homeless may refer to people who don’t legally possess shelter, while unsheltered or unhoused refers to people who don’t reside in any shelter. I think it is a useful distinction because you do encounter people who consider couch-surfing to be homelessness, even though the physical circumstances are quite different from living on the street.
I have been homeless 3 times in varying ways and for one of them got a hotel once every few days to sleep and shower. I really wasn’t better off for it.
We are homeless because we have no space to be safe and feel protected. We are without a home. And there will never be a perfect word that covers everyone and doesn’t quite cover the nuance. But you paint with a broad brush and fill in the nuance after.
Well I’m the one who used it and I’ve been homeless twice, so I’m glad that falls under acceptable use for you.
It’s a survey term that gets better responses, not a whitewashing or emotionally insulated term.
All ive seen on why I should use unhoused is because conservatives have tried to weaponize the word homeless into a pejorative term to blame the victim. Which means we are picking a new term to make people feel better about the issue and the consensus still seems to be homeless people say homeless.
I would argue people would think being in a shelter makes you stop being unhoused while you are still very much homeless. Homeless reminds you the issue is that we can not get homes, just shelter. But maybe it makes people who feel the same while being better off feel bad idk.
It’s like a return to hoovervilles. Sure there is shelter and it’s quasi housing but I doubt anyone in them at the time would call it a home. It’s not the word that is the problem but how people feel about the issue. A word change won’t change that entirely just confuse the dumber people for a minute while they catch up.
Sorry you don’t like it.
I have been homeless twice, but didn’t really feel it because I was able to get a hotel room and/or able to sleep at my workplace after work. I was working ~80 hours/week, so I was pretty insulated from feeling it, but it took years to realize that I was homeless (I don’t know, I grew up middle class and assumed it couldn’t be me?).
It wasn’t until someone used the term unhoused, that I mentioned how my old boss used to let me and my ex sleep in the bar as long as we were gone by 11, then I realized that it had been me twice.
Homeless technically refers to anyone without a home, but a lot of people who believe they are temporarily between homes would not identify as homeless (not even just out of classism, but not wanting to take resources from people who need them more, etc.). Unhoused tends to get a more complete response
No I for sure understand that unhoused can be used but it has a certain criteria to be used. but people are using a softer term for a serious issue and I hate it when it’s used to gloss over the harsher issue of the homeless like all they are struggling with is not having a home when it’s much more. Homeless and Unhoused are two very different terms.
There’s always a bigger motivator in ideological differences.
Vast majority of violence is interpersonal and someone who was known prior to the violence.
That’s just not true at all. Ideological killings in the west are far less than domestic related ones.
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Umm no it doesn’t…
Right? Makes it sound like a targeted attack specifically because of those issues.
You two are saying different things. The first poster just can’t read. Your point is more valid - we don’t know yet whether this attack was motivated by his activism. Though not unimaginable in the current circumstance.
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Crime is pretty bad in Philadelphia, certainly not a place I would want to live. Though it does beat out St. Louis and Baltimore 3x over in murder rates.
He was shot 7 times. I’d bet this was personal, or that he was specifically targeted.
To be clear, I know nothing other than what I just read in the article, but someone had to really want him dead to shoot him seven times, and no one else i.e. not a mass shooting.
When investigating a crime, and there is overkill like this, it usually points to a personal motive.
I bet when they find the guy he will claim skydaddy told him to do it.
Yep, this doesn’t look like a robbery.
It takes a weekend to learn how to use lock picks to open a door in seconds. I know the police carefully frame it as “or knew how to gain entry”, but it’s not as high a bar as they make it sound.
Ahh, I see I’m not the only fan of the lockpicking lawyer.
Rural crime is pretty bad too. I’ve met literally like one person who was randomly attacked on the streets in Philly. The vast majority of crime is people killing people they know.
Philadelphia has over 3x the homicide rate as the country as a whole. Crime is quite bad in Philly.
TIL homicide is the only crime that exists
Even if we’re talking about violent crime (which, itself is a minority of crime), homicide doesn’t even make up a majority or plurality
It’s a pretty solid metric to start with as it is the hardest to fudge. Homicides will be discovered. Other crimes can easily fly under the radar if nobody reports them.
Per capita. Red states are far worse when you look at an actual relevant statistic. Just Google it. Someone else in this thread even linked to the map.
Per capita
Correct. Philly has over 5x the per-capita homicide rate as the nation as a whole. The city has a high crime rate.
Per-capita homicide rates:
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US Average: 6.5
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Philadelphia: 32.74
Bad faith, and your links prove it. Comparing apples to oranges and manipulating data to suit yourself. Your first link goes to the wiki for “crime in the United States.”
Look at any (legitimate) source that breaks down the top most violent cities in the US, and see where Philly is on that list. Here’s one (based on FBI crime statistics): https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/most-violent-cities-in-america
Hmmm that’s weird, I don’t see Philadelphia at all… Baltimore is the only city I see on there that’s in the Northeast. Huh.
Most of the cities in the top 20 are southern or Midwestern cities. Red cities and/or cities in red states.
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Can agree. Me and 4 of my friends all had our cars broken into in Houston.
None of us reported it because we felt like there would be no point.
Do you know what “per capita” means? And no, it’s not just a fancy word to make liberals’ statistics look good (yes, I’ve argued with someone who said that).
Why don’t you take a good honest look at a map of the homicide rate per capita and learn something.
If one were to assume you are actually correct about that number (which I don’t, I don’t buy it)… Over 3x the homicide, and over 1000x the people on average. Are you capable of understanding that basic math, or…?
This Wikipedia article visually shows the per capita homicide rate and it’s not anywhere near as extreme as the other dude implied. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate
It might not have been malicious though, because I see a lot of professional outlets talk about total numbers when per capita is more relevant.
Hmmm, sure is interesting where the hot spots on that map are… curious.
A large portion of it seems to be explainable by the usual suspect: poverty.
This is a similar map for poverty.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2018/comm/acs-5yr-poverty-all-counties.html
We wouldn’t want ya.
So, what causes crime to rise? What solutions do you offer?
More people means more crime. On the aggregate.
This person is ignoring the fact that per capita statistics are what’s relevant here. And those are very clear. People like this just pretend they don’t exist because it literally shows the opposite is true. That red, conservative, rural areas have far more violent crime and murder per capita.
Reduce wealth and income inequality somehow. There’s been no research on UBI reducing crime afaik and honestly I don’t know that it would work for that. People need to feel like they are doing valuable work.
Cops on foot patrol in neighborhoods NOT to punish anyone but literally just to get to know the community and make eye contact.
Access to training and education to promote moving into higher income and responsibility jobs.
Mental health support (although people won’t want help as long as they are Fighting against the system)
There need to be healthy, organic, non-crime non-drug non-gang groups for people to be part of. I don’t know what is are into these days. Basketball? Dancing on Tiktok? Anything social.
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You can also get executed for having weed.
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Is a place truly safe if you can be executed for having weed?
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IIRC Singapore has a very specific and controlling demographic control system? Like regions have to have demographic breakdowns that approximate the national numbers or something?
There are a bunch of social engineering things you can do to reduce crime. But good luck trying to tell Americans where they can and can’t move. Probably easier to just tax the super rich.
Asshats like you certainly don’t help the Lou be better, you’re welcome to stay away forever while we enjoy our T-ravs
How dare one not want to live somewhere because of… checks statement… high crime rates.
The crime rates are only the downtown city of St. Louis which due to STL’s unique political city/county split makes it an inaccurate comparison to every other city in the nation. Combine our county of city of St. Louis and St. Louis county together, and we’re not as bad as everyone makes us out to be. Every other city gets to use their full city metro area, both they love using St. Louis as a boogeyman because we’re split differently and they can count only the city downtown area for crime
Every other city gets to use their full city metro area
Atlanta doesn’t. The city limits only include about 1/10 the population of the metro area.
I don’t mean to diminish your point, but rather just to mention that we’ve got some of the same sorts of statistical anomalies, too.
Every other city gets to use their full city metro area, both they love using St. Louis as a boogeyman because we’re split differently and they can count only the city downtown area for crime
Says who? I checked the FBI crime statistics. and they have rows for the STL MSA for 2016, 2017, and 2018, though not in the latest one from 2019, probably because they didn’t report the numbers to the FBI.
Yeah, I grew up in South Jersey, about an hour SE and there’s at least one news story about a murder that happened somewhere in Philly each night. Sometimes multiple separate shootings. Most of Philly is a shit hole.
