Stu Bykofsky: D.A. calls on ripped-off neighbors to write in
THE LETTER FROM the District Attorney's office was not intended for my eyes, strictly speaking. It was addressed to "Center City Leaders." It asked the help of community organizations regarding a career criminal whose (latest) arrest had been assigned a court date.
THE LETTER FROM the District Attorney's office was not intended for my eyes, strictly speaking.
It was addressed to "Center City Leaders." It asked the help of community organizations regarding a career criminal whose (latest) arrest had been assigned a court date.
Assistant D.A. Vince Regan, of the repeat-offenders unit, wrote that Julio Jackson was "arrested an astonishing" number of times, that although he was busted for drug possession, forgery and retail theft, "the overwhelming majority of his record" is thefts from cars, mostly in the 6th and 9th Police Districts, which include Center City, running river to river, roughly from Lombard north to Poplar.
Center City is the commercial heart of Philadelphia, but it is a large residential neighborhood, too. Almost 100,000 people live on its broad avenues and hidden alleys, and the population is rising, the Center City District's Paul R. Levy tells me, but car break-ins are a plague. Even if the "only" damage is a broken window, that's many hundreds of dollars, added to whatever the creep stole.
Regan's letter said "it would be incredibly helpful if people would e-mail me" about how they had been personally affected by auto break-ins. Regan's mini-bio of Jackson intrigued me, so I asked Bill Herling, a staffer in the D.A.'s office, for Jackson's criminal resume.
Jackson, now 46, was first busted in 1982, when he was 18. His 52 arrests include eight felony convictions - all thefts except one burglary, one robbery and one escape from work-release. He's rung up 22 misdemeanor convictions. He's got three probation sentences, 24 county-jail sentences, which means less than 24 months, and two state sentences, which means more than 24 months. His longest stretches were one to two years for the escape and two to four years for theft.
If you figure he was working his magic the entire time between his first and last arrests, that's 28 happy years of thieving and smashing car windows - and not a whole lot of time spent in a state-supplied jumpsuit.
You may believe that he was on the straight and narrow in between arrests. (You also may believe that Pee Wee Herman radiates sex appeal.) More likely he was practicing his larcenous trade.
Jackson's current address is the Graybar Hotel. His address before that was a homeless shelter in Center City. He probably wanted to live near his work - breaking into parked cars.
Jackson's not a violent criminal, let's say that, but he is someone who can use a rock to smash your sense of security in Center City and put a crack in your quality of life. So Regan invited the public, essentially, to write victim-impact statements for the judge in the event of a conviction. Almost 70 have been received.
I had never heard of a D.A. reaching out that way.
This was the first time he did it, Regan told me, and it's an illustration of D.A. Seth Williams' plan of "involving and empowering the community."
I had planned this column for a couple of Thursdays ago - without the cooperation of the D.A.'s office - to coincide with Jackson's scheduled court hearing (since rescheduled). I held back when the D.A.'s office pleaded that it didn't want to be seen as influencing the trial judge. Some judges don't like "suggestions" even after conviction, before sentencing. I've been informally admonished for "interfering" with judges once or twice myself, without bad effect. (Thank you, First Amendment.)
Last year, the 6th District recorded 950 thefts from cars. The number has zoomed to 1,127 so far this year, according to Capt. Brian Korn, who guesses that 5 to 10 percent of victims don't even report the crime.
About 70 percent of the cars have Pennsylvania plates, but thieves have no preference as to make and model - "all cars are targeted, new, old, foreign, domestic, makes no difference," says Korn.
He advises the usual precautions, such as lock your car doors (Duh!), don't leave valuables in the car - especially irreplaceable stuff on your laptop. If you leave a phone charger or GPS bracket in the car, that might invite the attention of thieves who think the electronic gadget also might be in your ride.
As a service to Daily News readers, the high-risk patch in the 6th District is the area between Race and Spring Garden, west of 8th Street. (The cops do stake it out.)
The cops and D.A. are doing their part. If your car's been ripped off, e-mail Regan at vince.regan@phila.gov.
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: