Crime in Philadelphia

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Crime in Philadelphia" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

• The
  police department
  .
• The
  Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (1st Judicial Circuit) is the state trial court
  .
• The Philadelphia District Attorney is the district attorney.
• The Defender Association of Philadelphia is the government-funded independent public defender office.

Notable cases and incidents

• Philadelphia Election Riot
  (1742)
• Lombard Street Riot
  (1842) – Three-day race riot.
• Philadelphia Nativist Riots
  (1844)
• The Schuylkill Rangers – (mid-1800s) criminal gang – see Jimmy Haggerty
• Kidnapping of Charley Ross (1874).
• Race riots in Philadelphia during the 1919 Red Summer (1919) - Incidents in May and July. 5 dead.
• Willie Sutton "The Robin Hood of Brooklyn" (1930–1950s) – Robbed most Philadelphia Banks, some twice, captured and tunneled out of Eastern State Penitentiary was recaptured and sent to Holmesburg Prison which he subsequently escaped from by ladder.
• Philadelphia Poison Ring
  (1938) – At least 70 people poisoned with arsenic, several by their wives.
• Philadelphia 1964 race riot
  (1964)
• Marie Noe (1949–1968) – Murdered eight of her children.
• Jospeph Augustus Zarelli (1957) – Four-year-old boy found dead in a cardboard box.
• Dolores Della Penna – 1972 abduction and dismemberment of Tacony
  teenager remains unsolved.
• Carl Gugasian – "The Friday Night Bank Robber" (1972-2002) – Perhaps the most successful in American history – robbed banks up and down the east coast.
• Joseph Kallinger – Schizophrenic Serial Murderer. (1974–75)
• Ira Einhorn, "The Unicorn Killer" (1977) – Popular counterculture figure killed his girlfriend and hid her body in his closet.
• Ed Savitz (1975–1992) – Sexual predator thought to have abused hundreds of teenage boys.
• Daniel Faulkner
  in 1981.
• Joseph Kindler – Serial burglar convicted of 1982 murder, sentenced to death, escaped prison twice, extradited from Canada.^[2]
• MOVE (1978,1985) – Activist group which was harassed by the PPD, resulting in the police's purposeful destruction of 65 homes along with 11 deaths in Cobb's Creek neighborhood. ^[3]
• Abscam- Several Philadelphia/Delaware valley politicians taken down in FBI investigation, videotaped accepting bribes from an Arabian company in exchange for political favors.
• Frankford Slasher (1985–1990) – Thought to have killed several women. Never caught, though a prime suspect referred to only as 'The Minister' was known to police.
• Gary M. Heidnik (1986–1987) – Kidnapped, imprisoned, raped, and tortured six women, two of whom he murdered.
• Harrison Graham (1986–1987) – Killed seven women.
• Raymond Carter
  (1988) – Convicted of killing Robert "Puppet" Harris; verdict overturned in 1996 due to likelihood of false testimony.
• 39th District corruption scandal (1990s) – Police corruption which led to the overturning of 160–300 cases and release of 100 prisoners.
• Eddie Polec murder case (1994)
• Troy Graves "Center City Rapist" (1997–1999) – Committed five rapes and one murder
• Lex Street Massacre (Dec. 28th, 2000) – 7 people were murdered in a crack house.^[4]
• Murder of Jason Sweeney (2003) – 16 year old murdered by his friends for his paycheck.
• City Hall corruption scandal (2003–05) – mayor's office bugged by FBI, several convictions resulting.^[5]
• Tainted Justice- A group of officers from the police department's narcotics unit illegally raided homes and stores in inner city neighborhoods during drug investigations and engaged in illegal activity such as groping women, taking money from cash registers and knocking out store security cameras.
• Kermit Gosnell (?–2010) – Abortion doctor convicted of killing newborns.
• Earl Bradley (?–2010) – Pediatrician charged with hundreds of sex crimes against children.
• Philadelphia basement kidnapping, October 2011, an ongoing investigation into alleged kidnapping of four mentally disabled adults, who were held in a Northeast Philadelphia basement.
• 2019 Philadelphia Packer Marine Terminal cocaine seizure

Homicides

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Crime in Philadelphia" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

References:^[9][10]

Organized crime

• Black Mafia and Junior Black Mafia, an African-American crime group based in West Philadelphia
• Irish American
  gangs in the country
• Philadelphia crime family, an Italian-American organized crime group in South Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and Newark; the largest organized crime group in the city.
• Philadelphia Greek Mob
• Warlocks Motorcycle Club, a motorcycle club involved in drug dealing

Documentaries

• Law and Disorder in Philadelphia, 2008
• The Fear of 13, 2015

See also

• Crime in Pennsylvania
• Crime in the United States
• H. H. Holmes – Early American serial killer, brought to justice by a Philadelphia detective.
• On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City – non-fiction book by sociologist Alice Goffman
• Vidocq Society – Local crime-solving club

References

Further reading

• Schneider, Eric C. (2020). The Ecology of Homicide: Race, Place, and Space in Postwar Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  ISBN 978-0-8122-5248-4
  .

• Down With Crime a project of The Philadelphia Inquirer.