Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Philadelphia City Council<\/a> President Kenyatta Johnson<\/a> on Thursday offered a thinly veiled critique of District Attorney Larry Krasner<\/a>, who earlier this week faulted the police department<\/a> for botching an earlier murder case against the man accused of ambushing and killing Officer Shane Seiber<\/a> last weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about us coming together and figuring out how we work together to make the city safe,\u201d Johnson told reporters Thursday after Council\u2019s weekly meeting. \u201cAssigning blame, for me, right now is not relevant. We haven\u2019t even had a funeral for this officer.\u201d<\/p>\n The comments from the typically subdued Council president were notable because Johnson, a Democrat, has been an ally to Krasner. He endorsed Krasner\u2019s reelection bid last year<\/a> and has been the progressive prosecutor\u2019s most high-profile political supporter in City Hall.<\/p>\n But on Thursday, Johnson \u2014 who was answering a question about Krasner\u2019s allegations but did not name the district attorney \u2014 expressed disappointment in the \u201cback-and-forth\u201d that the prosecutor kicked off. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: The man accused of killing Police Officer Shane Seiber was acquitted of murder three years ago. \u2018They had him in 2023.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Johnson is the highest-ranking official in the city to weigh in on Krasner\u2019s remarks. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker<\/a> deferred comment to the police department earlier this week.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very, very dark week here in the city of Philadelphia, so at the end of the day, who done what, to me, doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe should be talking about supporting the family, and we should be talking about supporting the officers who lost their colleague, but also us as a city as a whole. We have to heal, because I know it impacted all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Krasner touched off a firestorm Tuesday when he posted a YouTube video<\/a> in which he insinuated that Eric Lewis, the man now accused of killing Seiber and critically wounding another officer, was able to commit that crime because police had tanked an earlier murder investigation. <\/p>\n The district attorney called the conduct by police in that case potentially \u201ccriminal.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2023, a judge acquitted Lewis on charges related to the 2019 shooting death of Christopher Williams in what investigators described as a road-rage incident. The Inquirer reported that the judge<\/a> was so troubled by the weakness of the investigation presented in court that he took the extraordinary step of alerting the police department\u2019s internal affairs bureau.<\/p>\n Krasner, in his video, said that a police officer who had dated Lewis\u2019 sister sought to \u201ctorpedo\u201d the case and provided false information to law enforcement.<\/p>\n He also accused the homicide detective assigned to the case of failing to investigate key aspects, and said that prosecutors in his office had done \u201ceverything humanly possible\u201d to convict Lewis.<\/p>\n Police spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp said in response to Krasner\u2019s allegations that the department was reviewing the investigation into the 2019 homicide, but that the leaders of the force are focused on supporting Seiber\u2019s family and other officers grappling with the death of their colleague.<\/p>\n \u201cAssigning blame while families are grieving does nothing to advance accountability or support those affected,\u201d Gripp said in a statement. \u201cTrue leadership does not seek to assign fault in a moment like this. It stands with the families. And when the time comes, it holds itself to the same scrutiny it asks of others.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: How a brief conversation on a West Philadelphia porch left one officer dead, and another seriously wounded<\/a><\/p>\n Police said Lewis on Saturday fatally shot Seiber and wounded his partner<\/a> outside his home in West Philadelphia<\/a> while the officers were responding to a 911 call. Lewis is charged with murder and related crimes in connection with Seiber\u2019s death. He also faces 10 counts of attempted murder in connection with the shooting of the second officer and for allegedly firing at nine others who rushed to the block.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson on Thursday offered a thinly veiled critique…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[126207,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-307814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-kenyatta-johnson-larry-krasner-shane-seiber","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307814","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=307814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}