Last March, Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, and the Philadelphia Police Department convened a news conference to announce a new effort to catch homicide fugitives with help from Philadelphians.
“Law enforcement cannot hold drivers of gun violence accountable without the public’s assistance,” Krasner said. “With the public’s help, we can hopefully bring some measure of closure to the families and communities of those lost to this terrible violence.”
[This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.]
Since then, the officials have convened a total of six news conferences to highlight the names, faces, and crimes allegedly committed by 47 fugitives. They include 45 men and two women wanted for slayings committed between 2018 and this year. All but four are wanted for shootings.
Now, more than a year after the launch, law enforcement officials say they’re not sure exactly how many tips they’ve gotten from the public, nor how many of the 47 publicized fugitives have been captured. Through researching court dockets, The Trace ultimately determined that 17 fugitives have been arrested, leaving 30 still unaccounted for.
Krasner and Joanne Pescatore, supervisor of his Homicides and Non-Fatal Shootings Unit, guessed that there had been about 12 arrests, but they could not provide names. Bilal did not respond to an inquiry seeking comment.
“We have not tracked that particular number. Therefore, we don’t have an exact amount of fugitives captured that were highlighted,” Homicide Lieutenant Thomas Walsh told The Trace. The department’s homicide unit will now “begin following that statistic so they would be available in the future,” he said.
“We have not tracked that particular number. Therefore, we don’t have an exact amount of fugitives captured that were highlighted.” — Homicide Lieutenant Thomas Walsh
According to The Trace’s research, the program has yielded an arrest rate of 36 percent. Those behind bars include two teenage boys arrested for their involvement in an April 2023 quadruple shooting in Northeast Philly that left three of four teen shooting victims dead, and a 20-year-old woman arrested for the 2021 fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy during a North Philadelphia robbery.
A 26-year-old man was arrested for fatally shooting a 69-year-old man inside a Citizens Bank ATM vestibule, and an 18-year-old man was arrested for his role in a mass shooting outside Roxborough High School in 2022, during which a 14-year-old boy was killed and four other students were injured. He has also been charged with fatally beating his partner’s 4-month-old child in 2022 and killing a 19-year-old man the day before the school shooting.
Krasner’s office referred questions about the number of tips received from the public that were instrumental in arresting the fugitives to the Police Department. Walsh said his unit would need about a week to research that figure and respond to the question.
Meanwhile, city officials continue to implore community members to share what they know about crimes with the police, even as the number of shootings and homicides are down more than 38 percent this year compared to the same time last year.
“We’re moving in the right direction, but not fast enough,” City Councilmember Curtis Jones said during a July news conference held on a West Philadelphia street where nine people were shot, three fatally, during a block party.
“When these officers knock on doors and ask to take a look at your camera and you know what’s going on but won’t say, that enables and emboldens people,” he said. “You don’t have to go and point at the house. You can call, you can text, you can email. You can find a way to let us know what we need to know to save our communities.”
Krasner, while not up to date on the number of fugitives who’ve been caught, praised the partnership and echoed the need for the public’s help. “It’s impossible to do it alone,” he said at the scene of the mass shooting. “The government is much more powerful when it has the assistance of the people.”
At a July 23 news conference during which Krasner and his law enforcement partners released the names of 10 more homicide fugitives, Democratic State Senator Art Haywood issued a warning to the wanted.
“I want folks to know that you will be caught. You are going to be caught by this tremendous group of detectives and the Police Department,” he said. “But it’s not just law enforcement that’s going to protect our community. We are asking every neighbor, every relative, to help us.”
Correction: This story was updated to reflect an arrest made on July 30. The percentage of arrests was corrected to 36 percent
