During a weekly briefing last Monday, Philadelphia district attorney and prominent "progressive prosecutor" Larry Krasner sought to downplay the surge in violence his city has endured over the last two years.

"We don't have a crisis of lawlessness, we don't have a crisis of crime, we don't have a crisis of violence," Krasner said. "It's important that we don't let this become mushy and bleed into the notion that there is some kind of big spike in crime."

Those claims are at odds with the facts on the ground. Philadelphia has seen over 500 homicides this year, the most in 60 years; shootings, which began surging last year, remain well above pre-2020 norms. As former mayor Michael Nutter (D.) put it in a blistering op-ed, "I'd like to ask Krasner: How many more Black and brown people, and...