Philadelphia Mayor Rejects Calls for National Guard Amid Surge in Murders

Philadelphia’s mayor will not try to bring in the National Guard to help deal with rising crime in the city.

“The National Guard is traditionally not an urban police department. We used the National Guard in the civil unrest period to secure areas that needed to be secured from looting and burning, and it freed up the police to do other things,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters during a press conference this week.

“But to send in the National Guard and a troop carrier into a neighborhood in Philadelphia, to me, is not respectful to that neighborhood, number one. Number two, they are not capable or trained to do urban policing, or do policing of any kind,” he added.

Kenney, a Democrat, would have to ask Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, another Democrat, to order the Guard to Philadelphia, unless Wolf made the order without Kenney’s support.

Wolf, who activated the Guard to help deal with potential unrest in April as jurors prepared to announce the verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, could not be reached. – READ MORE