A front page story in today's Inquirer (featuring a picture of convicted murderer Jerome Whitaker, who shot a police officer after his release) promised to tell me
how this thug "came to be armed"

In an apparent hit attempt, a gunman fired into a parked car at 15th and Sansom Streets, wounding two men and a woman, then shot three times at a pursuing police officer. Trying to get away, Jerome Whitaker jumped into the Schuylkill and drowned.

Today, Officer Mariano Santiago, 44, is recovering at home, a bullet still in his fractured shoulder. The other victims are also out of the hospital.

But before the incident completely fades away, the story of how Whitaker came to be armed, dangerous and on the streets that day is worth unraveling as a case study of how Philadelphia's justice system works.

At long last, I thought, the Inquirer would tell me something I had not been able to determine previously. What about his gun? How did he get it? Was it stolen? We already know that convicts like him are forbidden under numerous state and federal gun laws from possessing firearms. And the fact is that the Inquirer and local gun control people are constantly complaining that the problem is we don't have enough gun laws.

So I must know. How he came to be armed is an excellent, excellent question. A fact which no one denies that most of these shooters are career criminals who are not allowed to be armed in the first place. If they do arm themselves with firearms, they commit a serious felony whenever they do it. Under the circumstances, the public is entitled to know how they got the guns (especially those interested in the gun control debate), in order to better evaluate the claim that more gun laws are needed. An Op Ed in the Bulletin included Whitaker in a list contrasting the focus on gun control with the obvious fact that these shootings almost always involve criminals whose possession of guns is illegal:

After every incident, Mayor Street blamed gun laws as the reason for the slaughter. Yet the one thing besides using a gun the shooters all had in common - the one thing that Mayor Street, his myrmidon Commissioner Johnson and the media claques all repeatedly ignore - is that all the shooters had prior criminal records.

Mustafa Ali was the killer of the two retired officers. He was convicted in 1993 of robbing a bank at gunpoint. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III to only seven years in federal prison followed by five years' supervised release, despite the fact he was eligible for at least 111?2 years according to sentencing guidelines.

However, Mustafa's attorney, Patricia McInerney, now a Common Pleas Court judge, plea bargained the case with the government so that he did not get the sentence for which he was eligible. Indeed, ultimately Mustafa did not even serve the entire seven years of the more lenient plea-bargained sentence.

Antonio Coulter, the shooter of Officer Richard DeCoatesworth, had a prior arrest record for illegal drugs and assault. He was arraigned Nov. 1 and scheduled for another arraignment for additional charges Nov. 26. Perhaps this time the judge might keep him in jail - presuming he is convicted.

Jerome Whitaker, the shooter of Officer Mariano Santiago, had a prior arrest for murder. He pleaded guilty to the 1994 shooting of a 6-year-old. Mr. Whitaker's defense was that he fired at an unoccupied vehicle as payback for an earlier clash. The little girl was killed by a stray round.

Mr. Whitaker served all of 11 years in state prison before being paroled in July 2006. He was arrested about a year later for violating parole yet was subsequently released a few months later - only a few weeks before shooting Officer Santiago.

John Lewis, who shot and killed Officer Charles Cassidy, had a prior arrest record for illegal drugs. He had no past arrests for violent felonies, yet he was filmed by a security camera robbing a store at gunpoint weeks before - the same store he was robbing when he killed Officer Cassidy. (The moral of this story is that just because shooting suspects have never been arrested for a violent crime does not mean they never committed one.) Incidentally, the person who helped Mr. Lewis flee police also has a prior criminal record.

Yet, somehow Mayor Street is oblivious to this very pertinent fact: Criminals, sometimes even those with a prior murder conviction, are routinely let out of jail and walk the streets of Philadelphia with impunity.

One reason may be that it is easier for Mayor Street to blame the chimera of guns and evil greedy gun manufacturers rather than confront the real problems of a defective criminal justice system that consists of feckless judges, capricious parole boards and unanswerable probation departments. These people are part of the mayor's political cronies. He cannot point the finger at them.

It is more convenient that he assign blame for violent criminality to a business. This is more appealing to the mayor's left-wing base.

But no one seems to know anything about his gun. I posted about the Whitaker case before, but little was reported about the gun at the time.

So I've been waiting patiently, for over a month, for the news about how Whitaker "came to be armed."

That's an important question, right? Why else would it be the first item the writers promised to discuss today?

Imagine my surprise to discover, after scrutinizing the article at least three times, that there is no mention of the details of any gun or how he "came" to arm himself with it. Not that there aren't plenty of other details about the murder of the six year old girl, his release from prison, his subsequent crime spree, another arrest, the dropping of charges, a discussion of the limits of the criminal justice system, quotes from the attorneys on both sides, but at no point are we told anything about how he came to be armed. Not a word about the gun. In vain I searched for clues, even hints:

He was released last year, after serving 11 years. Parole officials said Whitaker had "accepted responsibility" for his crimes, was regretful and had cleaned up his behavior in prison.

His time spent in jail was typical. According to state-prison data, the average time spent behind bars on a third-degree murder conviction is 12 years.

"It looks to me like the system did precisely what it's supposed to do," said Bradley S. Bridge of the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

Whitaker was "fully deserving" of parole, Bridge said. The parole board had no way of knowing what would come next.

"There's always risks of people going awry. But you can't exist in a world where there are no risks, where bad things do not happen."

Back in the life

Once out of prison, Whitaker got a job working for a masonry company. His mother thought he was doing well.

"He was happier," said Cynthia Edwards. "He was doing a lot more than a lot of boys who come out of prison."

Edwards said she was stunned by the shootings.

"I'm sorry about a cop being shot," she said through tears. "I'm sorry about everybody being shot. . . . I would have never thought that he'd bring harm to nobody."

But a year after his release, it appears, Whitaker was back in a life of crime.

On July 8, he was arrested on charges of drug dealing. According to court records, bike police spotted him at 20th and Wharton Streets just after 10 p.m., standing next to a man who was licking a blunt - a marijuana-laced cigar.

As they confronted the two men, police ordered Whitaker to take his hands out of his pockets. He refused.

At that point, veteran Narcotics Officer Jean M. Spicer threw the 285-pound Whitaker up against a wall and patted him down.

She found $519 in cash and two prescription bottles, one containing 96 pills of the antianxiety drug Xanax - in the name of a David Gillins.

The other had 27 Percocet tablets; its label was torn away. Police said the drugs, both popular in illegal sales, had a street value of $1,200.

After his arrest, Whitaker stayed behind bars. His parole officer had him put back in state prison for violating his parole.

But in Philadelphia courts, the drug case quickly foundered.

Whitaker's first hearing was scheduled eight days after the arrest; it was canceled by the DA's office because prosecutors were waiting for a chemical analysis of the pills.

At the second date for that hearing, on Sept. 17, prosecutors withdrew the charges.

Court records list no reason for that decision. Nor are there any details about the case in the official transcript from that day. The court stenographer apparently didn't take notes of the so-called "house cleaning" discussion, when prosecutors quickly run through the cases they are dropping or delaying.

Soon after, with Whitaker's arrest withdrawn, a hearing examiner for the Parole Board ordered him released.

Whitaker was back on the street.

However, as we get closer to the final shooting spree, we do learn about the mask he wore and gloves that were obviously used to hold whatever gun it was he must have had:

Had the case remained active, he would have remained a parole violator and stayed behind bars.

Whitaker would have been in jail on Oct. 30, the night he put on a mask and gloves and shot four people, including Officer Santiago.

Is the gun considered as relevant as the gloves?

Why not? If guns are supposed to be the central issue, it doesn't seem fair to treat them as irrelevant, especially after promising to provide details. Why the details about the drugs and nothing about the gun?

Last month, the Daily News pointed out that the gun was "a 9mm" and "a pistol." There's also this tantalizing clue:

Investigators found the gunman's weapon on Sansom Street near 24th.

While I admit my bias, I like to attempt to be fair about the facts, and if guns in the hands of criminals are a problem (which people on both sides would agree they are), then I'd like to know the details in these shooting cases, especially when, as here, they are promised.

All we know is that a convicted murderer was loose on the streets, and that he "came to be armed."

If we're supposed to assume it's the fault of the gun that came to arm him, then I'd like to know more.

I mean, even if we're supposed to believe that the diabolical gun found its way into the hands of this convicted child murderer all by its little lonesome self, and then managed to make him shoot the three passengers in the car plus Officer Santiago, aren't we entitled to know how the gun accomplished such feats?

I'm completely stumped.

It's a hell of a way to promote gun control.