Residents and police are reporting an uptick in robberies in recent weeks, which often happens during the summer months. We have included a few reports below of the most recent incidents. Be careful out there.
The following message was posted in the West Philly Local forum on July 27:
“Hey community,
I have been a West Philly resident for ten years without any problems. This past month I was attacked twice by teenagers between 49th and 50th and Locust and Walnut. Please use much caution when walking around at night. Police have reported that this has been an every-night occurrence.”
Police have confirmed that there was a higher number of robberies, including gunpoint robberies, committed by teenagers in the area this month. Police say they have already detained some of the suspects and are working on identifying the others. Here are some of the latest robbery reports:
• A 24-year-old man was approached by a group of 5-6 young males while walking in the area of 46th St and Larchwood Ave. on the evening of July 21. One of the males pressed a gun against the back of the man’s head and said: “Give me your wallet!” The attackers fled south on 46th Street with the victim’s cell phone and wallet, which contained some cash. Before running away they gave the man his ID and debit card back after he asked them to. Two of the suspects, both teens ages 14 and 15, were detained at around 9:30 p.m. near 49th and Cedar. The victim’s cell phone was recovered, but the weapon and wallet were not found. Police detained the third suspect, a 16-year-old male, at his residence on the 1600 block of S. 57th St on July 30.
• A 21-year-old man was physically assaulted and robbed at a gunpoint on the 4900 block of Hazel Ave. on July 28, according to a police report. The robbery took place at around 11 p.m. when the victim was riding his bike in the area. He was approached by three black males, approximately 17-20 years old, and knocked off his bike. Two of the males punched the victim and one of them pointed a silver gun at him and took his cell phone. The third suspect rode off on the victim’s bike and abandoned it one block away. The attackers fled the scene on foot, according to police. The victim chased the youths, but lost them near 52nd and Pine.
• A 26-year-old man was robbed on the 4600 block of Springfield Ave. on July 28, according to a police report. The man told police that he was walking in the area around 11:30 p.m. when he was approached by a male teenager (around 17 years old) who was with four other males. The teenager asked for the man’s phone, and when the man told him that he didn’t have a phone he demanded the man’s wallet. The suspects fled with the man’s wallet, which contained his ID, credit cards, and some cash.
July 31st, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Whatever happened to the University City District patrols? I never see them anymore.
July 31st, 2015 at 3:01 pm
What a surprise, the 200 block of South 49th strikes again…
July 31st, 2015 at 4:12 pm
I see the University District Patrols, sitting in Deli’s and pizza places for hours, they walk to there contact points and then back inside.
August 1st, 2015 at 9:08 am
Watch for two kids/teens on bikes one has a half arm cast with camouflage style design. My niece and I were visiting woodlands they followed us through the cemetery keeping a distance… As we were walking home across from cemetery the same boys flanked us and tried to grab my nieces knapsack, A young man with a very big dog happened to be coming around the corner and stopped the situation just by walking by.
BUT this seemed planned and I believe we were targeted. So be careful…
August 1st, 2015 at 8:07 pm
@fingertush: same. I seem to always see them in groups or sitting down at sidewalk cafes, especially further west. (I see a lot more actual patrolling around Penn, but those might be the Penn patrols.) It’s very frustrating.
August 2nd, 2015 at 8:23 am
Take photos of them and post them to Instagram and twitter. Get these lazy “patrols” fired and maybe UCD will hire competent workers. UCD, I hope you’re reading this. You’re on notice.
August 2nd, 2015 at 11:15 am
You all are aware how it comes across to refer to a majority-black group of employees as lazy and incompetent, particularly when said employees are tasked with maintaining a veneer of safety and belonging for racially- and/or economically-privileged gentrifiers?
It comes across as profoundly ignorant.
August 2nd, 2015 at 12:46 pm
Artemis Bowel, in reference to your comment, you are the first commenter to say that the majority of UCD patrols are black. What has that got to do with the subject at hand?
Now, regardless of race, the question remains, are the employees doing the job they agreed to do in return for monetary compensation, or are they in fact spending their working hours socializing with fellow employees?
Also it’s their job to maintain safety whether a veneer or otherwise. If those employees can’t or won’t do their jobs then they should be repremand and/or replaced with employees who are more competent.
August 2nd, 2015 at 1:00 pm
@Artemis Bowel
Really? Lazy and incompetency have no color. If it’s true it doesn’t matter if they’re pink.
A young lady was attacked this morning and robbed of her purse while waiting for the bus at 48th & Larchwood. Crime has no color either. It just happens that the victim was white (maybe privileged) and her attackers were black (maybe underprivileged although they did have a car). Please stop making it about white or black, privilege, gentrification, ad nauseam, ad absurdum. It’s about stopping criminals, black, white, whatever.
August 2nd, 2015 at 4:31 pm
the statics from the police reports actually identify criminals by color, many of the crimes have been reported (again by police) as young african americans. based on these reports that is who is committing crimes, can we at least agree on facts? the facts say its mainly african american teens. we should be able to say that without it being a racist comment.
August 2nd, 2015 at 5:14 pm
Agree or disagree, that’s not at all responsive to the point that was being made
August 2nd, 2015 at 6:13 pm
@artemis
The only racist post in this thread is yours. You are projecting your insecurities about race onto this post. I’ve seen several white UCD patrol officers socializing instead of patrolling as well. If I mentioned that in my first post, would it have mattered? Yes, we live in a racist society. I get it. But race, socio-economic standing, religion, etc does not excuse pistol whipping someone for their backpack.
Veener… Gentrifiers… At least you paid attention in literacy class. Now if you could just get over your white liberal guilt, maybe we could find a way to have an honest and necessary conversation about crime and race in West Philadelphia.
August 2nd, 2015 at 7:31 pm
Penn rent-a-cops aren’t paid enough to take a bullet for your entitled asses.
August 2nd, 2015 at 9:07 pm
I agree that NO ONE is paid enough to take a bullet for anyone. What is this business about being entitled though? Not wanting to be pistol whipped or mugged makes me entitled? Wow.
Check me out. Look at me thinking I’m better than people for not wanting to get mugged. How dare I, Horacio? How dare I enjoy the neighborhood I teach in, pay taxes in, support local business in, play with my kid in the park in, fill my neighbors bike tires up in… How dare I expect the UCD to do their job instead of chat it up at the Choy Wong. How dare I crave the simple pleasure of not being mugged. What nerve! I must be some kind of monster…
Give me a break.
August 2nd, 2015 at 9:34 pm
Waaah! Go sip a chai latte. This shit happens all the time west of 52nd and North of Market. I don’t see anyone on this page crying a river about that. Oh, I’m sorry. This shouldn’t be happening in your neighborhood, with your taxes and rent-a-cops.
August 2nd, 2015 at 10:05 pm
Horatio, that fact that you accept this happening in your ‘hood doesn’t mean others have to put up with this crap. Maybe some people have higher standards than you. No one is “entitled” to assault another human being for no reason.
August 3rd, 2015 at 3:24 am
I’ll agree one to many u.c.d security guards do seem to have particular “hang outs”. It does seem they frequent A-plus at 45th. & Baltimore in multiple numbers.Giving new meaning to the phrase “convenience shopping”– ” I’ll take a pack of Winstons,a can of coke,& a u.c.d officer to go “….
August 10th, 2015 at 11:13 pm
Agreed Horatio, most individuals don’t wanna put their lives on line for a bunch of people who walk and kiss their dogs, drink Starbucks, ride bikes in the street with motorized vehicles and smell funny, for 10 dollars an hour. The way jobs are set up now a days (especially for the chosen people) its very limited and you sometimes have to take what you can get at the time until something better comes available. The comments on here just shows what people think of the ucd, and you want people to put their lives on the line for you guys? Yea right. I applaud the ucd keep doing what y’all doing for 10 dollars a hour with crappy benefits and have to battle the elements . hire the local police dept if one feels so threating
August 11th, 2015 at 7:14 am
46St, you forgot to mention our tails and horns.
August 11th, 2015 at 9:19 am
It is a bit peculiar that, in an area patrolled by the Philadelphia Police Department,and the UPenn Police department, that people’s wrath for feeling unsafe is being directed at the UC District bicycle watch people.
August 11th, 2015 at 11:15 am
@46st: Unless you’re under 12 years old, you are legally required to ride your bike in the street, so not sure what your problem is there. Also not sure what your objection to people walking their dogs is? And I don’t know what the Jews have to do with anything here, but if they are in fact having trouble finding work, we should definitely come together as a community to help them.
August 11th, 2015 at 11:51 am
46St, this is silly, but it beats working, so here goes:
If you substitute police for UCD, switch the implied races, and substitute the crassest African American racial stereotypes for ‘drink Starbucks/smell funny’ (you left out yoga, you slippin’, man), you get something like: white police officers aren’t paid enough to risk their lives for African Americans who…insert crude racial stereotypes. If that’s a sentiment you agree with, cool, but just be aware of what your logic implies.
In general, there seems to be a pretty large space between ‘Not Doing Your Job’ and ‘Taking a Bullet for Someone’. That space is generally called ‘Doing Your Job’. And that seems to be all that anyone on this forum is asking of the UCD patrols.
August 11th, 2015 at 1:57 pm
SO @46th st.
The way jobs are set up now a days (especially for the chosen people) its very limited and you sometimes have to take what you can get at the time until something better comes available
Are you referring to Jews here?
August 11th, 2015 at 3:04 pm
According to their post regarding the new Police Headquarters moving to West Philly, 46st said: “Everything black people have, other cultures always find a way to intervene, this a black neighborhood keep that way, ”Whites” Already destroy, or stole everything we ever had. Also muggings happened anywhere, in today’s society it doesn’t matter if there’s police present or not, what world do you live in? lol.”
Clearly, 46st is racist and fears that the white devil wanting to live in a safer and cleaner neighborhood is going to ruin their way of life. Sorry, you can’t keep pointing your finger at the white devil because there are people of all colors and races living their lives to better themselves and their community. In the words of Sam Cooke (one of the best singers of the last 100 years), “change is gonna come” for better or for worse and whether you like it or not.
August 11th, 2015 at 5:21 pm
Yes I am @janet , @dan its not the fact of being a racist, its the fact that history doesnt lie and it repeats itself still to this day. I’m a racist because I state facts not lies! It’s not pointing the finger,but its the truth. We had the black wall street which your people destroyed, our people were skilled tradesman, until your people created unions to keep blacks out. We weren’t introduce violence until the Europeans invaded and was taught. I can go on and on for days. These things aren’t taught in schools and i wonder why? The Willie Lynch, the African halocaust, where we really come from ?just because we are of a color decent doesn’t mean that all of our ancestors are from Africa, and we are all African Americans that was also given to us by your people.once again if I’m label a racist because I’m no fool and I’m knowledgeable to what’s really going in today’s society then so be it. @madame.. Zobia, ucd does their job.I’m born and raised in west Philadelphia 46st, before ucd even came to this side where it was predominantly black, not that it is changing in the area they are around, and I see them escorting people around all the time, riding up and down streets all day. But once again more than likely the employees of ucd live in the same areas where the so called ”thugs” that’s what they call them lol live at., that being said they have to worry about their own safety also. I honestly don’t get what u want them to do?
August 12th, 2015 at 10:42 am
@46st – We just want them to do their jobs…nothing more, nothing less. The crime in my neighborhood has risen and its not because white people created unions to keep jobs away from black people and its not because of the African holocaust.
The crime is happening because there is nobody around to keep these robberies from happening. I understand that the University District Patrols are not the police and its not their fault that these crimes are happening but it is their job to patrol the neighborhood.
All that is being asked is for them to do their jobs and hopefully their presence will keep innocent people from being robbed by groups of violent teenagers.
August 12th, 2015 at 10:48 am
@46st: Your casual racism (having a problem with white people riding bikes in the street (?), walking their dogs (?), smelling funny (?) and drinking Starbucks (which I hardly ever see in our neighborhood given that their are about a dozen good local coffee shops, but whatever) and not-so-casual anti-Semitism, take away from your broader point about the history of black oppression and white supremacy in this country. If you are just trying to be hateful towards white people, you’re doing a good job. If you’re trying to have any kind of a constructive dialogue, you aren’t.
August 12th, 2015 at 11:12 am
I think it’s time to ignore 46th st. He or she is either very racist or not mentally well. We should offer them help not argue with them. Or get them removed for being racist and anti semetic
August 12th, 2015 at 11:41 am
I believe that I see a pattern that, when a poster identifies as black, and offers contrary (okay, sometimes hostile) view, there is movement to have that person banned. Then, a little while later, many complain that we are we are one monolithic group in a diverse community and wouldn’t it be great if there were other voices.
I disagree with much/most of @46st’s post. But my observances/experiences show me mostly the UC district guys doing good work. I also think that it is a good point that many of those employees do, at the end of the night, go home to where there is no bicycle patrol and no UPenn police. I can imagine that it would be troubling to work making another neighborhood safer when that isn’t being done in one’s own neighborhood.
BTW, did anyone notice in all of the bike patrol arguments that the police caught the razor wielding purse thief group. Not bad.
August 12th, 2015 at 12:58 pm
@Corey, “Ignoring” isn’t the same as “banning,” at all.
August 12th, 2015 at 1:56 pm
Yes, but “or get them removed…” is.
August 12th, 2015 at 4:00 pm
The idea that the UCD patrol staff are to blame for an upward trend in crime in the neighborhood, or even worse that they ought to somehow physically intervene in violent crimes is unrealistic.
The actual job title for the bike patrol staff is “Public Safety Ambassador.” They are not “Police Officers,” “Security Officers,” or “Knights in Shining Armor.” According to the UCD website, their primary responsibilities are things like offering walking escorts, checking up on homeless individuals, jumping dead cars, and that kind of thing. While obviously their presence is intended to deter crime by putting a few very visible eyes on the street, they are not law enforcement and they have no notable powers above those of any other civilian to prevent or intervene in crime. They are simply tuned into what’s going on in the neighborhoods they patrol, and can call 911 if they come across a problem.
It’s very unfair to publicly accuse these individuals of being lazy and not doing their jobs when you aren’t even clear on what their job actually entails. Beyond that, a casual observer does not know when someone is clocked out for a lunch break, or if they’re on-call for providing walking escorts instead of on patrol duty.
While the above conversation about the race and class implications of criticism of UCD patrols got weird pretty fast, I think everyone should recognize that the Safety Ambassadors perform a very physically demanding job for $10/hour (which ends up as less than half the average yearly salary of $42K in University City), that some of them may not live in the immediate neighborhood and thus might not benefit from any safety patrols themselves, that many of them are young Black people, and that the creation of the role itself coincided with the increase in West Philly’s white population. That doesn’t mean oh, white people and/or students and/or young professionals and/or rich people should just tolerate being mugged in the neighborhood. But it does mean that calling the Safety Ambassadors “lazy” IS a charged statement (in addition to being an unverifiable one to passers-by), and that the program is caught up in all the politics and messiness surrounding change in West Philly.
As a side note, I also am not certain that mobile patrolling deters crime more effectively (uh, or at all) than strategically placed stationary posts, though I’m open to accepting the conclusions of rigorous research on the subject.
I don’t know what would reduce violent crime in West Philly, especially in the short term. But pointing fingers at a group of people who are tasked with, like, reporting potholes to the Streets Department and phoning social services for the homeless is unwarranted.
August 12th, 2015 at 5:56 pm
EVERYTHING KATE SAID!
August 12th, 2015 at 9:36 pm
I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other on the UCD patrols (I think they’re potentially a great resource, and I’ve had both positive and negative interactions with them). But if part of their function (and part of their job) is to deter crime simply by circulating visibly through the community, and if multiple people on this board have reported seeing groups of them together, that suggests one of two things:
1. Either multiple (four or five in some cases) UCD patrol people are allowed by design to take a dinner break at the same time in the same place.
2. Or multiple UCD patrol people are meeting up at the same time in the same place (and are not allowed to do so).
Given the experience of the man who manages them, option 1 seems unlikely (for the same reason that the entire Philly police department doesn’t return to headquarters from noon–1:00 everyday for lunch). If you’re all in the same place at the same time, it’s hard to deter crime anywhere other than the one place you’re in.
I don’t think people expect the UCD people to be on some Batman or Gymkata type shit. And I certainly don’t think people hold the UCD people responsible for single-handedly preventing crime in West Philly (they’re dudes [mostly] in yellow shirts on bikes, not a Seal team). I think people are frustrated when one aspect of the community’s public safety strategy, people who are paid, in part, to circulate, are clotting, not circulating.
In this case, the race and class considerations seem largely beside the point. If someone with a public safety job isn’t doing their job, should we refrain from pointing that out because our race differs from the other person’s race? Isn’t that both patronizing (expecting less of others simply because they’re of a different race, or aren’t earning CEO salaries) and potentially dangerous (because we’re putting some dubiously vague racial sensitivities above the safety of community members, who incidentally, include plenty of African Americans). Are the only options to either remain silent out of some confused sense of solidarity or preface any criticism with a page of caveats acknowledging the long, deplorable history of representing African American as shiftless and lazy, solemnly citing Bert Williams, Stepin Fetchit, Rochester, Prissy, etc. (a history that I suspect most people on this board are familiar with, because, you know, this is West Philly)? Sometimes things are more complicated than people make them out to be, and other times things are less complicated than people make them out to be. This case strikes me as less.
August 12th, 2015 at 10:26 pm
Today I saw a white person “rid[ing] [their] bike in the street with motorized vehicles” AND SIMULTANEOUSLY WALKING THEIR DOG. Clearly the devil’s work. #McPenntrification
August 13th, 2015 at 11:57 am
No doubt on their way to “go sip a chai latte”, 47st.
(Still giggling over that line).
August 13th, 2015 at 4:36 pm
We are no longer accepting comments for this post.