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GooFoYouPal t1_isa73wa wrote

> He also said his attendance should not be tied to the fact that his official car often remained at home while his work parking spot sat empty — as was the case last week when The Inquirer first attempted to interview him at the district. Akil said he sometimes drives his personal Honda Civic or Cadillac Escalade to the office just to “put a couple miles on it,” and parks it down the street instead of in his dedicated parking space to avoid getting a ticket from his own officers.

lol

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mundotaku t1_isai0un wrote

> Akil said he sometimes drives his personal Honda Civic or Cadillac Escalade to the office just to “put a couple miles on it,” and parks it down the street instead of in his dedicated parking space to avoid getting a ticket from his own officers.

You know PPA is bad when they ticket the captain who never shows up and he is scared of them

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GooFoYouPal t1_isamzty wrote

he’s talking about his own officers. It’s such a pathetic excuse but also comical.

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An_emperor_penguin t1_isbjpxk wrote

A lie that unbelievable is a big "fuck you" to the city on top of everything else he's (not) doing

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PhillyAccount t1_isa64ja wrote

This city desperately needs an a-partisan good governance & reform party. Everything else is just nonsense until we can get the local government to a functional state again.

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this_shit t1_isa8e44 wrote

This guy is a byproduct of much more than city government. The city tried to fire him twice, but state law has created a system that makes it impossible to fire cops for almost any crimes.

The thing to understand is that the entire department is lousy with complete fuckups like this turd. 11% is out on 'long-term disability' (thanks again to state law) and over 800 clerical and office roles are filled by sworn officers -- many because they're too stupid/dangerous to do street work.

When you look at crime and dysfunction in Philadelphia it's hard to understate the pernicious influence of corrupting state laws imposed on Philly by an ideological group of rural Pennsylvanians dead set on making our city as dangerous and unlivable as possible. In the schools, taxes, parking, and here in policing it's just corrupt.

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Level-Adventurous t1_isaap6l wrote

Can you cite some of these laws? I’d like to have them in my pocket when I get in my weekly arguments with conservative in-laws

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this_shit t1_isaglu5 wrote

  • PA Act 111 created a parallel legal system that adjudicates any disciplinary actions or dismissals of police officers through binding arbitration. The process is supposed to be fair, but over decades has accumulated bad precedents to become a firewall to firing cops. It's become essentially impossible to fire a Philly cop who isn't convicted of a crime. As recently as 2020 there were bipartisan efforts to fix this law, but pro-cop Republicans and some Democrats defeated it.

  • The Heart & Lung Benefit - a state law that lets the police union pick doctors who can then 'diagnose' long-term disabilities - has been abused to the point where 11% of our police force is out sick for months at a time. Not only that, they get paid more while out sick.

  • The Uniformity Clause in the state constitution prohibits Philadelphia from raising property tax rates on commercial properties, unlike many other cities. This means that Philly either has to raise taxes on poor residents (who can't afford it), or forgo lucrative revenues from high-dollar commercial properties in center city. There have been large coalitions of businesses and politicians trying to fix this for years, to no avail.

  • The School Reform Commission (SRC) was created to 'responsibly manage' the city's schools by taking control away from Philadelphians and putting it in the hands of republican legislators from the middle of nowhere for nearly two decades. That experiment ended a few years ago with no serious improvement in school outcomes, but with 1/3rd of our school seats closed and handed over to unaccountable charters that do things like teach abstinence only sex ed and steal district money.

  • The Philadelphia Parking Authority is a state agency with no local governance - ostensibly it exists to collect parking revenue and hand it over to the schools. In reality it's a local republican patronage mill that fails to effectively enforce parking restrictions (see: south broad, sidewalk parkers, etc.), somehow manages to make very little profit, and spends suspiciously large sums on "consultants" who are friends of the board. PPA has never hit its revenue targets for sending money to the schools. Last year they even tried to claw money back from the school district.

In each of these cases, Philadelphia politicians are powerless to fix the problems created by state laws because state laws supersede local laws. Kenney may be a no-show at this point, but frankly there's not a lot he can do about the police.

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mustang__1 t1_isbmioo wrote

This report from 2years ago on the Ppa is.... Enlightening...https://controller.phila.gov/philadelphia-audits/report-on-the-philadelphia-parking-authoritys-on-street-parking-expenses-and-other-matters/

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ScienceWasLove t1_iscla8q wrote

I worked in the Philly SD for 18 months. I believe you had to work for at least 6 months or 1 year before you could claim full disability. I was surprised of the wait time, but it exists because of rampant long term disability fraud.

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The_Clamer t1_isaepj5 wrote

I think it’s a bit unfair to blame rural PA voters for the problems in Philly. They could never appreciate the nuance that certain laws/regulations that work for them won’t work for a city. Also no one in rural PA cares about Philly. They care about issues in their tiny towns and getting in fights on Facebook about pipelines.

Source: Grew up there.

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pessimistic_bastard t1_isafbtx wrote

Many rural PA townships/counties defunded their police departments years ago and now rely on our state troopers who are paid from the state fund to patrol the areas. Half a billion dollars (2019 dollars, not adjusted for 2022 inflation) we as a state pay for the troopers to patrol these communities.

Source

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ikover15 t1_isah9xr wrote

Some of those places aren’t even THAT rural. Quite a few spots in the 4 surrounding counties have state troopers at least overnight.

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The_Clamer t1_isaq5e6 wrote

I don’t contest this in fact I agree with you but do you think the people choosing to do that thought “well maybe Philly will pay for it?” It seems a bit disingenuous to assume malicious intent. The people making those decisions probably thought “we need to cut budget, where can we do it?”

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pessimistic_bastard t1_isbfkam wrote

Cutting the police budget is "defunding the police", malicious or not and someone has to pick up the tab. I assume when Medicare / Medicaid is cut, it won't be malicious but they wont care to stop and think who will have to pick up the tab.

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1up t1_isahr7x wrote

People in rural PA definitely care about Philly judging by how I've heard about Philly being a lawless hell-hole in some way basically everytime I've gone to visit my rural in-laws over the past decade plus.

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earf123 t1_isaukym wrote

A large amount of people believe that major cities are akin to no man's lands. They live in a completely different reality.

One night I was out at a party with a group of friends, and one of their SOs is one of those people that are convinced cities are warzones. While walking back after the parry we saw a man get in his car. What I and everyone else in the group saw was a guy having to jiggle his keys a bit to get the door unlocked and get in his car, what they saw was some dude deffinitively stealing a car in a lawless hellscape they were lucky to have walked through unmolested.

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mustang__1 t1_isbqazx wrote

Parts of Philly, not insignificant in size, are no man's land... At least if you're sane.

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AbsentEmpire t1_isb8vxt wrote

You hear that from Philadelphians as well, it's not unique to rual areas.

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1up t1_isbbc42 wrote

Nobody was saying philadelphians don't care about philadelphia though.

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karensPA t1_isaftwi wrote

Or maybe rural PA is just as bad with corruption and police operating with total impunity but we never hear about it because it doesn’t fit into the popular “diverse cities run by Democrats are corrupt and dangerous” narrative.

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this_shit t1_isah7b7 wrote

> Also no one in rural PA cares about Philly

Not in a conscious "hey, fuck philly!" way they don't. But when they go to vote, they have an impressive record of always picking the guy who then fucks over philly.

Intentional or not, this is on the rural voters picking shitty legislators.

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The_Clamer t1_isar9na wrote

I agree they aren’t going to the polls to spite Philly residents which was my original point. Sadly yes there is an impressive track record of rural politicians making choices that negatively impact the city, but in general the people in those rural areas aren’t voting for them because of that. Anyways go vote and donate to reasonable candidates in rural areas if you want to see change.

−1

this_shit t1_isawdai wrote

> but in general the people in those rural areas aren’t voting for them because of that.

I mean...

Does it matter if it was 'intentional' or not? If my elected leaders were fucking with the democratic self governance of other parts of the state, I would hold them accountable. When was the last time Philly's legislative delegation got together to take control of York County's schools away from York County voters?

Rural PA voters vote for reactionary ideological blowhards who have long used the power of state government to hurt the prosperity of the state's largest city. You can't call it anything other than what it is.

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AbsentEmpire t1_isb8pi3 wrote

This is bit disingenuous as rural officials did not seek to take over the Philly school district. The school district declared bankruptcy, the city refused to bail it out, and the state was required to step in. As with any state bailout for a municipality the state gets to appoint oversight of the financial distressed government, which is what it did with the school district.

Are you going to complain about rual officials bailing out the city with PICA next?

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this_shit t1_isbaigr wrote

SDP did not declare bankruptcy, Act 46 was passed without the support of Philly representatives. Act 46 gave the state the power to unilaterally take over school districts by declaring them 'distressed'. Only Philly was targeted.

More to the point, the SRC was not a receivership because most receiverships end when the financial woes end. The SRC stuck around for ~two decades to implement an unpopular and unwanted program of school privatization that hasn't produced better results for either taxpayers or students (but it did weaken the teacher's union...).

You can disagree, but you can't call me disingenuous. Your analogy to a receivership is just wrong - it's a completely different thing.

Addl important context: the Philly school board was suing the state at the time for violating the civil rights of minority kids because state school funding to the city was so little. The SRC was imposed on Philly to counter the political and legal campaign for more state funding of poor school districts.

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8Draw t1_isazn65 wrote

More or less what Rebecca Rhynhart has been up to for a while, right?

I don't even know what her stances are on the issues. Just that she's been policing everyone from the PPD to city council to the mayor and brought some much needed transparency.

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AbsentEmpire t1_isb90qu wrote

It's a shame that city council is not subject to her oversight.

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atheken t1_isah2tt wrote

Ranked choice would help, especially for positions where we elect more than one person.

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this_shit t1_isa8gjr wrote

How could Larry Krasner do this?!

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IvanStarokapustin t1_isaeoq4 wrote

Clearly when Krasner came in and made it clear you couldn’t steal money, beat prisoners or sexually harass women, he became so demotivated to show up.

I mean, how’s a guy supposed to do his job when he can’t have some fun or take a little taste?

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Genkiotoko t1_isaeuwi wrote

I hope Krasner sleeps as soundly at night as Akil sleeps during working hours.

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Unfamiliar_Word t1_isa88uq wrote

That was exhausting to read and intensely frustrating. I struggle to describe the impression that it gives of Captain Akhil; words like, "frivolous," and, "shallow," come to mind. I suppose that it's too 'on the nose', but he even reminded me of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Perhaps it's a merely how the writers portrayed him, but he seems like somebody who rose up through exploiting defects in the system and gladhanding, not through meaningful accomplishment and effort.

There are probably more than a few officers like him in the PPD, which seems very vulnerable to such characters and deprived or uninterested in having or using defenses and controls against them. Leadership, if I may be pardoned for stating the obvious, has a powerful effect upon the character of an organization. Leaders like Captain Akhil exacerbate and enable the police department's worst impulses and habits. Their influence presumably also extends to the Fraternal Order of Police, which is an abhorrent organization that seems to exercise more control over the PPD than any formal, notionally democratic civilian authority. The police, which is a larger social entity than just the currently serving sworn officers, seem to operate for their own interest rather than that of the public, which is a profound latent threat to society.

I always rejected, "defund the police," as rhetorically reckless nonsense and outright police abolition seems insane as something to serve the function of the police will always exist and that something is probably best kept within the state, but they are thoroughly unacceptable in their current state. They should ideally be torn down, the old cultural edifice of 'The Police' destroyed as surely as Carthage was, and be rebuilt as something quite different, but that seems politically and practically impossible.

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worriedaboutlove t1_iscs23a wrote

Yer a writer, aren’t you Harry?

(Beautiful comment. Loved reading it.)

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Unfamiliar_Word t1_iscsgtm wrote

You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.

That should give you some information as to what kind of writer I am.

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Frontstunderel t1_isa5t71 wrote

It seems lately that being absent is a positive metric with the police so I’m not surprised he might get promoted

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the_hoagie t1_isagtz6 wrote

The 22nd has always been a shit district. Good for the Inquirer to actually do some reporting for once though.

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karensPA t1_isafxz8 wrote

But I was told the problem was the DA! How can this be?

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GooFoYouPal t1_isawaw0 wrote

Here’s a wild thought, they can BOTH be problems.

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karensPA t1_isbh0v5 wrote

Yeah, 🙄 and maybe the police have an interest is pointing fingers away from their own incompetence

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GooFoYouPal t1_isbjlpt wrote

Again, BOTH those things can be true. You seem to have a problem grasping that very, very basic concept.

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AbsentEmpire t1_isb9j8b wrote

Because Krasner is a problem, as is the police department, mayor, and city council.

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karensPA t1_isbbnyj wrote

Of course, Philly had no problems with mayor or city council in 2014 when crime hit an all-time low. They all have a role to play but the big difference now is the cops are understaffed and running wild and the courts are backed up from the pandemic. Fix that and you’ll improve the crime situation.

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bukkakedebeppo t1_isbhr9t wrote

Gotta love that Clarke thinks the jabroni is a stand-up dude. Birds of a feather, etc.

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Tigergasse1821 t1_isa5b4r wrote

Can someone please copy and paste the text? I’d love to read this one as I’ve had numerous bad interactions with this police department. I’ve called for a variety of issues and every single time was a complete disappointment.

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Simon_the_Cannibal t1_isbmhdz wrote

If you're on desktop (I don't know if this works on mobile), some browsers allow you to restrict javascript from certain URLs. That will solve the issue going forward.

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AbsentEmpire t1_isba05b wrote

As much of a shit bag as this guy is, he's not unique. This bullshit is rife throughout the city government. The problem is firing shitty cops is way harder than other shitty city workers defrauding the government.

Reform for better accountability of government workers regardless of profession needs to happen.

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amor_fatty t1_isaga4s wrote

This is totally Krasners fault.

/s

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Farzy78 t1_iseipvi wrote

Probably get down voted to hell but when hiring or promotion is based on the color of your skin instead of actual job performance this is a result.

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Bloody29th t1_iscu007 wrote

just curious what happened to all those cops that were taking guns that were supposed to be destroyed and selling them back onto the streets. like never heard anything about it again after the initial report that happened like 3 or 4 years ago

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Hot-Pretzel t1_isd37zx wrote

Go figure that happening in Philly!

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incognitoville t1_isbf7aj wrote

this dude is an absolute joke and his employment should be terminated.

a promotion is absurd!

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reversering t1_iseo7lr wrote

When no one can be fired, thanks to the union, what do you do with bad officers? Sadly, you promote them to get them out of positions where they can do harm. Look up the "Dilbert Principle"

0