An activist journalist who insisted crime wasn’t that bad in his city has been dead for almost a week now — and the man who killed him, cops say, was a troubled teen he was trying to help.
According to WCAU-TV, police told the media during a news briefing on Friday that Robert Edmond Davis, the 19-year-old suspect in the shooting death of 39-year-old Josh Kruger, was familiar to Kruger.
“At this time we believe that Mr. Kruger was trying to help Mr. Davis and they were acquaintances,” said Philadelphia Police Lt. Hamilton Marshmond said.
“He was just trying to help him just get through life.”
No motive has been ascertained, however.
“As to the why, I do not know at this time,” Marshmond told reporters.
The 19-year-old was still at large as of Friday evening and was considered armed and dangerous.
WCAU said that the suspect “had experienced homelessness in the past and is known to the Philadelphia Police Department for previous incidents.” Which is the euphemistic way to say he had been homeless and had an arrest record.
“According to court documents, Davis had been charged with criminal trespassing in August. Those charges were withdrawn however after the person who accused Davis of trespassing failed to appear in court, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office told NBC10,” WCAU reported.
Kruger, who had written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Citizen, LGBTQ Nation and other outlets — and whose website said his work was influenced by his experiences with “homelessness, addiction, H.I.V., poverty, and trauma” — was shot seven times inside his South Philadelphia home in the early hours of Monday morning.
Police said he was gunned down at the base of his stairs — but that there was no evidence of forced entry.
“Either the door was open, or the offender knew how to get the door open,” Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said at the time. “We just don’t know yet.”
Well, now we know that the offender was potentially welcomed in by Kruger. It’s a cautionary tale, particularly given the fact that unnamed police sources cited by the Philadelphia Inquirer said that the killing potentially “may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related.”
“The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner,” the paper reported. “Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.”
The killing became national news in part because of Kruger’s high profile as a journalist and an activist — particularly on the side of the progressive policies favored by Philadelphia’s George Soros-backed district attorney, Larry Krasner.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Robert Edmond Davis. He is accused of murdering Philadelphia leftist activist and journalist Josh Kruger earlier this week. Kruger was a BLM advocate who argued that we have a “white supremacist police state” killing black people. https://t.co/elUZ12oaCm pic.twitter.com/2fLcntmpJS
— Andy Ngô ?️? (@MrAndyNgo) October 6, 2023
In July, Kruger talked about the “lawless land of liberals in Philly where shootings are…dropping to levels not seen in years.
“We are dependent on national trends, for better or worse. It’s unfair to blame local cops for rising crime, inaccurate to credit with drops.”
At lot of people who said Josh Kruger was killed by a MAGA extremist are looking really stupid right nowhttps://t.co/z66xD8gE1M
— Jack Poso ?? (@JackPosobiec) October 6, 2023
The death is, of course, a tragedy: Not only did Kruger know his alleged killer, he was reportedly trying to help him through life. That said, the case shines a light on the naivete of a certain breed of liberals that insists crime in American cities is well within acceptable limits and that more stringent law enforcement doesn’t lead to lower levels of lawbreaking, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Kruger may be dead, but the policies he supported will live on — and he’ll be just another statistic in the left’s failed attempt at replacing criminal justice with social justice.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.