Congressional Republicans paint Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner as the anti-cop, pro-criminal architect of the city’s crime crisis, while Democrats say the city is now experiencing some of its lowest levels of violence in years.
Family members of crime victims, former police officers and attorneys testified Friday before the House Judiciary Committee at a field hearing about how Mr. Krasner’s policies treat repeat criminals with kid gloves and allow them to wreak havoc on Philadelphia streets.
Liberal lawmakers, however, cited police data showing that the city is on track this year to witness its fewest killings and muggings in nearly a decade.
Democrats further countered that the committee’s time would be better spent addressing the flow of illegal guns on the street and supporting the agencies involved in those efforts.
But Republicans said Mr. Krasner’s unwillingness to prosecute certain crimes — such as illegal gun possession — is skewing perceptions that don’t align with reality.
“We are not enforcing the law in the city of Philadelphia, and in many other locations in the United States of America,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew, New Jersey Republican, in the hearing. “Larry Krasner — I’m sorry, I’m gonna say it because you know I’m a blunt guy. … He’s a bad guy, he’s doing bad things.”
Statistics from the district attorney’s office show Mr. Krasner has a penchant for dismissing cases ever since he took office in 2018.
Mr. Krasner, whose campaigns have been backed by progressive billionaire George Soros, didn’t pursue 43% of the cases brought to his office in his first year as the city’s top prosecutor.
That was up from the 35% dismissal rate in 2017, when Mr. Krasner’s predecessor, Seth Williams, and Mr. Williams’ interim replacement, Kelley B. Hodge, led the office.
The dismissal rate ballooned to 67% in 2021 — the same year Philadelphia saw a record-high 562 homicides. And 514 killings were recorded in 2022 when the district attorney’s office declined to pursue 63% of cases brought by Philadelphia police.
A drop in bloodshed coincided with Mr. Krasner’s decision to prosecute more cases in 2023, with the 52% dismissal rate in a year with 410 homicides citywide. Dismissals are up to 57% so far this year, but crime has continued to drop in the city.
The recent data rang hollow with Terri O’Connor, whose husband, Jim, was gunned down in March 2020 while he was working on the Philadelphia police’s SWAT unit.
The armor-clad tactical team was serving an arrest warrant when a man wanted on murder charges opened fire on police, hitting O’Connor twice. He died at a hospital shortly after.
Ms. O’Connor told lawmakers that the man accused in her husband’s slaying, Hassan Elliott, had been in and out of court for various gun charges and parole violations. Each time, the widow said, Mr. Krasner’s office refused to bring the hammer down on the now-murder suspect.
She said that leniency emboldened Elliott, a record that was later unveiled during his ongoing state and federal trials.
“In the months to come after, prosecutors would come to learn about five murders this male committed, after he proudly scraped the names into his prison cell wall,” Ms. O’Connor testified.
Mr. Krasner, whose term runs through 2026, did not attend the hearing. He told WHYY last year that “the Republican view is basically a fraud” and that the homicide rate was 40% higher “in the Trump states than in the Biden states.”
George Bochetto, an attorney who was involved in the stalled impeachment of Mr. Krasner over his alleged failure to prosecute minor crimes, said the district attorney’s philosophy is facilitating lawlessness on the street.
The former special prosecutor said Mr. Krasner decided to stop pursuing prostitution and illegal gun cases, giving criminals confidence to wreak havoc on the city.
It’s a legal approach that has dampened morale for the officers working in Philadelphia.
“These criminals, they know,” testified Nick Gerace, a retired Philadelphia police officer. “They tell these cops to their face, ‘Uncle Larry‘s gonna let me out in a couple of hours,’ and that’s exactly what happens.”
Democrats such as Rep. Madeleine Dean, from Pennsylvania, hit back at her conservative colleagues by saying there were “two hearings” going on.
She said Republican criticisms of Mr. Krasner’s office are undermined by their advocacy to defund the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. If conservatives were so worried about illegal gun prosecutions, Ms. Dean said, they should also empower the agency that monitors the flow of illegal guns in the country.
That point was echoed by Rep. Glenn Ivey, Maryland Democrat, who said Republicans’ vigor for crime-fighting is challenged by their push to defund the FBI.
Crime in Philadelphia spiked in 2020, as it did in major cities across the nation, after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But now the City of Brotherly Love is on pace to see fewer than 300 homicides this year, according to Adam Garber, executive director of CeaseFirePA, a gun-violence prevention group.
He credited the drop to the winding down of the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer gun purchases — which set records during 2020’s crime surge — and a mix of state and federal funding of community anti-violence programs.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, Pennsylvania Democrat, seized on the improving crime numbers to bash Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, for bringing his “traveling circus” to town and trying to divide the country.
“Senseless violence is not inevitable — it’s enabled by lawmakers who choose to sow chaos with political stunts like this hearing, instead of doing their damn jobs,” Ms. Scanlon said.