As John pointed out yesterday, the Mayor of Philadelphia imposed a curfew last night in an attempt to quell the ongoing rioting and looting. Shockingly, many of the people who were already in the process of breaking any number of laws didn’t follow his orders and set out to continue the mayhem.

A citywide curfew aimed to calm unrest after Philly police shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr. didn't stop some looters and protesters overnight. Here's the latest. https://t.co/UdsIskuXx4 pic.twitter.com/UqnAXNRrmX

— NBC10 Philadelphia (@NBCPhiladelphia) October 29, 2020

So why would the looters continue emptying the shelves of all the city’s stores after they’d been put on notice by the municipal government? Perhaps it’s because they’d heard that the cops had been ordered not to arrest any looters. Yes… you heard that correctly. The cops were told to simply “disperse” the looters and not take them into custody. This comes from one of the local Fox News reporters who heard it directly from multiple police sources.

Breaking: OBTAINED BY FOX29 NEWS. Directive from @PhillyPolice executive team. Extremely frustrated officers, both patrol&commanders told me overnight they were”ordered to NOT arrest looters just disperse them”. ‘CAR-2’ is Deputy Police Commissioner Melvin Singleton @FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/HVjryECnrv

— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) October 28, 2020

Steve Keeley’s wording is significant in a couple of ways. First of all, he’s not just hearing complaints about this order from rank and file officers out on the streets. He’s also hearing carping from police commanders. So who would have the authority to give this sort of a “stand down” order to the entire Philadelphia Police force? The announcement says that it came from “CAR-2” but that’s Melvin Singleton, the Deputy Police Commissioner. Does anyone honestly think the Deputy would issue an order like that on his own?

No, that order had to come from the Commissioner herself, Danielle Outlaw, who we’ve discussed here on many occasions. It had to be either her or Mayor Jim Kenney, possibly a joint decision between the two of them.

As you may recall, Danielle Outlaw took the office of Police Commissioner on a promise to “put an end to the incarceration nation” that we all supposedly live in. She’s been one of the biggest proponents of the “empty the jails” movement in the country. When the pandemic hit, she quickly used that as an excuse to speed up her efforts to put as many convicts back out on the streets as possible.

Oh, and just in case you weren’t aware of her history prior to coming to Philadelphia, do you know where her last gig as Chief of Police was? In Portland, Oregon. It sounds like she was paving the way for the chaos and mayhem in Portland long before she brought those same theories of “law enforcement” to the City of Brotherly Love. You can probably tell how on the ball she is by one comment she gave during yesterday morning’s press conference. She said she “had no idea that 1,000 people would be swarming the Port Richmond area.” Seriously? Have you been watching what’s been going on in the other large cities around the country? This chaos caught you totally off guard?

With all of this history as context, should we really be shocked to learn that she ordered her cops to stand down and not arrest the looters when her new city began going up in flames? Heaven forbid we should put the guy carrying away five flatscreens behind bars for a few hours. Steve Keeley further clarified that all looting was being classified as burglary, and no calls regarding burglary would be responded to during this crisis.

Philadelphia is in a lot of trouble. Violent hoodlums have taken over the streets under the false pretense of protesting the death of Walter Wallace. At least the Governor has sent in the National Guard, but they have thus far been held back in “supporting roles.” The Mayor’s efforts at declaring a curfew are failing. And the police are under the command of someone who sees the idea of arresting criminals as a problem in our society. This might be a good time to flee Philadelphia for a while if you have the means to do so.