{"id":135153,"date":"2026-03-11T05:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/135153\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T05:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:27:14","slug":"philly-da-larry-krasner-warns-against-retaliatory-shootings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/135153\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly DA Larry Krasner warns against retaliatory shootings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. The Billy Penn newsletter keeps you informed about everything Philly, with a quirky vibe of healthy skepticism and persistent optimism. Join us and sign up today.<\/a><\/p>\n

As warming weather threatens to lead to a spike in street violence, Philadelphia law enforcement officials are warning residents they will vigorously pursue anyone who engages in retaliatory gunfire or other crimes.<\/p>\n

People angered by violence against their friends or family should let the legal process play out rather than taking matters into their own hands and risk being arrested, District Attorney Larry Krasner said at press conference Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s anyone out there who thinks, \u2018well, I don\u2019t like what happened with that particular incident, I\u2019m going to go settle this\u2019 \u2014 no, you\u2019re not,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you want to stay outside, then let the courts do what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said they are investigating several recent fatal incidents. Those include a shooting last week in which an 11-year-old allegedly killed<\/a> his mother\u2019s 30-year-old boyfriend, and a multi-vehicle crash<\/a> in Germantown where two young men died, another was critically injured and a semiautomatic weapon was found in their car.<\/p>\n

But officials also pointed to police department data showing that overall levels of violent crime continue to plummet even beyond last year\u2019s historically low figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There have been 18 homicides so far in 2026, less than half of the 37 recorded by this time last year. Total violent crimes are down 13%, with gun robberies and armed assaults falling by more than a quarter in the first nine weeks of the year. Property crimes like burglaries and residential theft are also down 15%.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m never going to celebrate as long as there\u2019s a single victim of crime. And I don\u2019t know that any administration is going to end crime in our lifetime, but\u2026 it is going in the right direction, perhaps in part due to the fact that we had a lot of cold weather,\u201d Krasner said. \u201cIt seems to be going down in general, in ways that are, almost in my lifetime, at least in my career, unprecedented at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lengthy shooting investigation<\/p>\n

Several of the crimes Krasner and his staff discussed involved young people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Assistant district attorney Anthony Voci of the DA\u2019s youth justice division noted an incident in Kensington apparently rooted in a gang rivalry, one of a few shootings<\/a> that occurred Monday. Two men committed a home invasion that spilled out into the street, resulting in serious injury to a 60-year-old woman and the shooting death of one of the attackers, he said.<\/p>\n

He also discussed the shooting involving the 11-year-old boy, which he said sprang from a domestic dispute. He described it as \u201ca tragedy across many different spectrums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voci said the investigation of that incident will take time because investigators need to download, analyze and process digital evidence, and want to make sure the physical evidence matches witness reports.<\/p>\n

Krasner again asked residents to leave the response to the incident to law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe and the Philadelphia Police Department have been very, very carefully sifting all the evidence to make sure that what we do here is the just outcome,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t do things that are wrong on the street, because then we have to come after you, and we don\u2019t want any of that. What we want is peace on the streets, and we want a just and fair outcome to that investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digital evidence leads to long prison terms<\/p>\n

Krasner pointed to a screen displaying the words \u201cWe outside too,\u201d which he said refers to the fact that his staff, police, the FBI, and neighbors are out on the streets looking to identify people who commit retaliatory crimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that a lot of juveniles everywhere, including in Philadelphia, are on their phones and they\u2019re paying attention to social media and they\u2019re talking within their own circles,\u201d he said. \u201cDo not wreck your life, thinking that somehow you\u2019re bringing justice. We will bring the justice, and you know that we\u2019ll be fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DA staffers highlighted their heavy use of information downloaded from phones to catch shooters.<\/p>\n

Assistant district attorney William Fritze, who heads the office\u2019s Gun Violence Task Force and digital forensics lab, said they have been using that kind of evidence to bring grand jury indictments and win sentences of 40 to 80 years for repeat violent offenders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not arresting you for one incident that you committed. We\u2019re arresting you for all of the incidents that you committed,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re being arrested because we can use your digital footprint and try as you may. There\u2019s no deleting a digital footprint, so you will be held accountable in those cases.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. The Billy Penn newsletter keeps you informed about everything Philly,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31,2495,336,69,71,70,595,206],"class_list":["post-135153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-crime","tag-district-attorneys-office","tag-larry-krasner","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-police-department","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}