The election of Larry Krasner as Philadelphia’s district attorney in November 2017 was more predictable than it may have seemed. Philadelphia has a long history of police abuse, dating back to the Frank Rizzo era, when innocent pedestrians were sometimes corralled into police vans and made to spend the night in jail. These abuses of police power have lingered in the public awareness. Fast forward to Krasner’s campaign, which called for an end to mass incarceration and for the elimination of cash bail, in effect allowing criminals greater leeway when it came to returning to the streets and a life of crime. It was a politically successful message.
But having presided over a record-setting spike in homicides, Krasner faces a serious primary challenge. And he has made another, perhaps longer-term enemy in John McNesby, the president of the city’s Fraternal Order of Police—who, despite the city’s history, speaks for a growing number of Philadelphians in his outrage over Krasner’s lax approach to crime.
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