No matter how bad gun violence spikes or how much it declines in Philadelphia, African Americans lead all other racial groups among those who’ve been shot and those who’ve done the shooting. 

Put another way, homicide was the fifth leading cause of death for Black people in Philadelphia from 2017 through 2023; for white people, it wasn’t even among the 10 leading causes of death during those years, according to the Philadelphia Department of Public Heath. In 2023, city data shows, 77 percent of shooting victims in the city were Black, 15 percent were Hispanic, 7 percent were white, and 1 percent were Asian. 

And while the city’s shooting and homicide rates dipped below pandemic levels this year, the percentage of shooting victims who are Black inched up to 80 percent as of the first week of December, according to the City Controller’s Office.

I’ve been acutely aware of this reality my entire career as an African American journalist, which began in the fall of 1993 as the night police reporter for a Washington, D.C., newspaper. I’ve been in Philadelphia since 1997, covering education, courts, city government, communities, and criminal justice issues for the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer. I came to The Trace in 2022. Elected and appointed leaders and their anti-violence programs come and go, but in Philly and many cities like it with large Black populations, Black lives are the most in peril from gun violence — year in and year out.

That’s why I wanted to look behind the headlines and soundbites to shed light on why this is so, and to put the steady carnage in a proper historic context. My new three-part series, the first installment of which came out today, takes a closer look at the roots of gun violence in Philadelphia’s Black community, which was first studied in depth in the late 19th century by renowned sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. The second part, out tomorrow, looks at how gun violence travels through multiple generations, highlighted by the story of Movita Johnson-Harrell, whose harrowing life has been defined by the murders of her father, her brother, and her two sons. The third and final story, out on Friday, delves into the irrefutable link between poverty and gun violence. You will meet Donnell Drinks, who has experienced both, leading him to become a drug dealer, gunshot victim, and murderer all before his 18th birthday. Drinks spent 27 years in prison and now works to save young people from becoming victims and victimizers.

I hope this series will impress upon readers that normalizing higher-than-average gun violence in the Black community is an abnormal response, one that needs to be challenged by each one of us.

From The Trace

What to Know Today

President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter with a grant of clemency that covers the younger Biden’s federal felony gun and tax convictions. A jury had found Hunter Biden guilty of three felony gun charges in June. There’s now a legal back-and-forth over the pardon. [Associated Press/Court Watch] 

Donald Trump announced Kash Patel, a loyal supporter of the president-elect, as his pick to lead the FBI. Patel is the author of ​​“Government Gangsters,” a 2023 book that lays out his skepticism of U.S. intelligence agencies and how he would overhaul them. Among the changes he’s suggested is cutting out the FBI’s intelligence-gathering operations, a move that would obliterate the agency’s ability to police racist violence and other domestic terror plots. [Associated Press/The New York Times] 

In Baltimore, members of a civilian committee tasked with reviewing and recommending charges in police misconduct cases say they’ve been receiving documents from the Police Department just as cases are set to expire — an indication of the pervasively slow pace of misconduct investigations, even as the city seeks to exit its consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department. City data shows that nearly half of the cases the committee has reviewed were received within 15 days of their expiration, a frustrating timeframe that prevents members  from considering complex cases, they say. [The Baltimore Banner] 

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s pick to lead the city’s beleaguered violence prevention agency promised this week to rebuild public trust in the office and strengthen oversight of contractors. Kwelli Sneed’s nomination comes after a tumultuous period for the agency involving a bribery scandal and a year and a half without permanent leadership. Sneed has served as the agency’s interim director for the past 18 months. [The Washington Post] 

After her ceremonial swearing-in as Cook County’s new top prosecutor on Monday, Illinois State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke vowed to take a tougher approach to gun offenses, describing the current level of violence as “war zone numbers.” O’Neill Burke called Illinois’ assault weapons ban a key tool to addressing shootings. [Chicago Sun-Times] 

Late last year, a Pentagon-funded study found that there was “no evidence” that violent extremists — many of whom are animated by guns — were disproportionately represented in the military, compared to the U.S. population as a whole. The report was boosted by right-wing sources like The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, whom President-elect Donald Trump has picked to lead the Defense Department. But that study relied on old data and ignored evidence that pointed to the opposite conclusion. In fact, other research indicates that people with military training are radicalizing at a faster rate than those without. And while extremists represent only a tiny fraction of service members and veterans, their plots were more likely to involve mass casualties. [Associated Press]

Roger Golubski — a former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective accused of terrorizing Black community members for decades — was found dead at his house of an apparent gunshot wound after he failed to appear for the first day of his federal trial. Golubski was charged with violating two women’s civil rights by rape, kidnapping, and sexual assault. He had been under house arrest for the past two years and was prohibited from possessing firearms. [KCUR]

Data Point

3.2 percent — the proportion of extremist cases, between 2017 and 2022, that involved active-duty members of the military. Less than 1 percent of the adult population is currently serving in the U.S. military. [Associated Press]

Non Sequitur

The Best Jokes of 2024

“Much about the past year has, similarly, been too funny to be true—or, alas, too true to be funny. But there were a few laughs along the way. Here are some highlights.” [The New Yorker] 

This newsletter was compiled by senior editor Sunny Sone.

Mensah M. Dean
Before joining The Trace, Mensah was a staff writer on the Justice & Injustice team at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he focused on gun violence, corruption and wrongdoing in the public and private sectors for five years. Mensah also covered criminal courts, public schools and city government for the Philadelphia Daily News, the Inquirer’s sister publication. A native of Washington, D.C., Mensah began his career at The Washington Times. His freelance work has appeared in People and Vibe magazines. In 2022, Mensah was part of a team of Inquirer reporters who were Pulitzer Prize finalists for explanatory reporting for their yearlong chronicling of the impact of gun violence on Philadelphia. In 2019, he was named print journalist of the year by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. In 2017 he received the Vernon Jarrett Medal for Journalistic Excellence and a $10,000 prize from Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication for writing a series of articles about a man who, at the time, had spent 37 years in solitary confinement. He graduated from Bowie State University in Maryland.