All crime victims deserve same consideration from public officials

AS A POLICE district advisory council member, I am in complete agreement with the recent column by Helen Ubinas about caring for all those shot and, I would add, all victims of crime and not just the select or privileged few.

While I am certainly happy and relieved to see Councilman David Oh recovering from his stab wound and wish both him and his family all the best in this very trying time, I couldn't help but think about some recent victims of crime in my own neighborhood who received little to no attention in the press and apparently weren't important enough to warrant a visit by, or the concern of, Council President Darrell Clarke or his colleagues on City Council. Victims such as the young woman who was beaten beyond recognition and who died in the South Philadelphia High School parking lot. Or the shooting victim several blocks from where I live, or the many families, victims of home invasions and other crimes, whose loved ones did not get a police security escort or a patrol car stationed outside their homes, as Oh and his family received. Didn't these victims of crime deserve the same level of concern and attention as a city councilman? Apparently not.

In addition to the many good things Ubinas advocated for and suggested in her column, I would ask for something more: Going forward, I would ask every councilperson - not a staff member - to visit and speak with every victim of crime that happens within their district. Get to know these people, and learn how they were violated. I believe then our elected officials would fully understand both the level of crime occurring in this city and that every victim of crime hurts and suffers that same as Oh and his family have. Only these crime victims usually don't get all the attention. I believe they should.

Joe Eastman, Advisory Council

3rd Police District

As if the attack on Councilman David Oh was not disturbing enough, the fact that neither Mayor Kenney nor Police Commissioner Richard Ross could make their way to the hospital to comfort Oh's family and staff is appalling. I suppose the mayor and the police commissioner thought their presence was not required. Is this the type of leadership Philadelphia residents deserve? I think not.

Francis J. Martin

Philadelphia

Jenice Armstrong totally misses the point on the latest Kathy Griffin exploit.

Although no sane American would ever support the beheading of any of our presidents, Armstrong shows a convenient memory loss and not only attempts to trivialize the previous eight years, where conservatives scandalously posted online images of President Obama being lynched, all the while childishly denying that their irrational hatred of the president wasn't based in racism, but totally ignores what was going on almost all only last year. All over 2016's social media, we saw right-wing pages and groups on posting doctored photos of Hillary Clinton in the crosshairs of a rifle scope, suggesting that she be murdered. Why, during the campaign, even Donald Trump himself said that he wanted Second Amendment supporters to take care of Clinton.

Now, where were these hypocritical Republicans last year, and since 2008? We Americans heard nothing from them, and in fact the silence from the right was deafening. Why now all of a sudden, conservatives show their selective disgust with a comedienne simply propelling her image of being outrageously goofy and trying to step over the line to get a laugh?

Marcus Gold'e

Merion Station, Pa.

Solomon Jones asked who radicalized the white alleged attacker in the Portland train incident. I have to ask, how many people of color are attacked by other people of color? Who's been radicalizing black people? Black supremacists?

John E Calter

Philadelphia

Regarding Jenice Armstrong's "Prom mom is the bomb, shelling out 25G" column, as a native Philadelphian and graduate of George Washington High School's class of 1981, I had to comment on Saudia Shuler's extravagance on her son's prom. She could have spent that money on a private school education, rather than sending her son to an underperforming school like Gratz. As the parent of a daughter who attends private school, $25,000 is two years' worth of education. That mother also makes her family a target: Certain folks will assume she is wealthy because of her over-the-top and ridiculous spending on an occasion that is really not that deep - it is just a prom!

Karen Muldrow

Bear, Del.