In the latest episode of Battleground Politics, outgoing Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney spoke with Lauren Mayk about how he handled Philly’s gun violence, the city’s finances and the stress that came along with the job.
With his tenure coming to an end, outgoing Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney reflected on his handling of the city’s gun violence during his eight years in office.
“It’s been overwhelming, heartbreaking, sad,” Kenney told NBC10’s Lauren Mayk in the latest episode of her Battleground Politics podcast. “You have to understand we live in a state where it’s harder to get a driver’s license than a gun. There’s something wrong with that scenario.”
As of Thursday, at least 400 homicides have been reported in the city in 2023 -- many from shootings, according to Philadelphia police data. That year-to-date total is about 20% down from last year, but still on pace to be one of the deadliest dating back to 2007.
Battleground Politics with Lauren Mayk
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While speaking with NBC10 last week, Kenney put much of the blame for the violence on the city’s current gun laws.
“New Jersey has relatively strict gun laws. New York has relatively strict gun laws. California. And they’re not dealing with the problems we’re dealing with,” Kenney said. “And I’ve said this before, when the second amendment was written, it was written for a single shot muzzle loaded long gun, that you had to pour gunpowder in and make one shot to fight the British. Well, we don’t need a militia anymore because we have the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. We don’t need people with 50, 70, 100-shot clips.”
Kenney also discussed the high-powered weaponry often used in Philadelphia shootings.
“I mean our crime scenes are riddled with casings, multiple casings, every time there’s a situation. Those weapons should not be available to anybody,” he said. “If you want to hunt, you want to target shoot, you want to be a sports person, whatever. You want a gun in your house to protect your home? Got no problem. At all. But if you go to a gunshow out in Montgomery County and buy a bag of guns with no questions asked and they’re all high capacity, semi automatic weapons that are only needed and used to kill people.”
Children and teenagers have often been both the victims and the perpetrators in the city’s shootings. Kenney talked about the Group Violence Intervention Program in which city leaders work with and mentor Philly-area teens.
“And we’ve convinced them that they were going the wrong direction and they could’ve been killed or been in jail for the rest of their lives,” he said. “And they’re responding now to us. They’re responding to the mentors, the volunteers in those programs.”
Kenney said his personal connection to the city’s youth makes the violence that impacts them all the more devastating.
“They’re smart kids and they’re entrepreneurial,” he said. “And they have abilities and talent and every time we lose one it’s heartbreaking. Both for the families, for the family of the deceased, for the family of the shooter, for me as a person. I take those deaths personally and feel that we failed them in some way. It’s just a hard situation.”
According to the City Controller’s Office, 10 percent of Philadelphia’s gun violence victims this year have been under the age of 18. When asked why his administration didn’t address the youth violence on a daily basis, Kenney said the responsibility didn’t only fall on him but the entire city.
“I think it’s all of our responsibility. It’s not just the mayor’s responsibility,” he said. “It’s every community. It’s every parent. It’s every neighborhood leader’s responsibility to stop it.”
Kenney described the work his administration did to find solutions to the violence.
“We put $400 million into programs to address this issue. I think that the pandemic blew people’s minds. There were millions and millions of guns purchased in Pennsylvania during that period of time,” Kenney said.
According to Kenney, the plethora of available guns in Philadelphia amplified the violence.
“Situations that were an argument or a fist fight turned out to be a shooting or a homicide. Argument over a parking spot – one person’s armed – they want to shoot the other person,” he said.
There are additional resources for people or communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Further information can be found here.
Kenney also placed blame on the criminal justice system, citing the deadly stabbing at the Center City Macy’s as a recent example.
“From what I understand, the man who killed the poor security guard at Macy’s had 13 prior arrests," he said. "I’m not ‘Mr. Lock em up.’ We’ve cut our prison population by half. But some people need to be locked up. And that guy needed to be locked up."
Kenney said he had little control over what happened to suspects after they were arrested.
“And what happens to that person after police do their job, is out of my control because I’m not the DA. I’m not the president, judge of the court. I’m not a judge. So what happens after that, we’re stuck with what they do or don’t do,” he said.
Kenney said he avoided having a “public fight” with Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner during his tenure but did have private conversations with him, which he claimed were “not that fruitful in the results.”
“I’ve expressed myself to him on a few occasions. I don’t do it publicly because you guys want to make it a public food fight and I don’t think there’s any benefit to that, frankly,” Kenney said.
Kenney also addressed a moment during his time as mayor that drew widespread criticism.
Shots were fired after the Wawa Welcome America concert on the Ben Franklin Parkway on July 4, 2022, injuring two Philadelphia police officers. While speaking on the shooting at the time, Kenney said he was looking forward to not being mayor. More than a year after making those comments, Kenney believes it would be unfair for them to define his entire tenure.
“I said that on July 4, after a wonderful day of peace and music and fun, and some knucklehead a mile or more away decides to shoot his gun in the air and almost killed two police officers. That’s a frustrating, angry thing for me,” he said. “And if I expressed myself in that way, that’s how I felt at the time. July 5, I went to work. July 6, I went to work. July 7. Everyday since then I’ve gone to work. So that one expression of emotion, frustration and anger should not be identifiable with the entire eight years of this administration.”
Kenney’s comments at the time sparked outrage from community members and city leaders, including then-councilmember and current Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker.
“I think the mayor’s comments were asinine,” Parker said at the time. “I told him that if you could feel this way, imagine how Philadelphians who don’t have the ability to check out feel on a daily basis.”
Kenney said Parker’s criticism didn’t stop him from supporting her during the recent election.
“I voted for her so I didn’t hold it against her. I still cast my vote for her. And again, as I said earlier, we’re leaving her with a fiscal legacy that’s terrific. So no hard feelings,” Kenney said. “It’s a hard job and I think that when she’s in it, she will see, there are times when it’s very, very difficult. And very frustrating. And again, I learned from the past. And I would never express that again to you or anybody else about how I really feel. Because when somebody says to me, well how do you feel about that? I did that once. And it didn’t work.”
Here’s a full breakdown of the latest Battleground Politics episode with Jim Kenney.
00:30 – Kenney’s future plans
3:30 -- Does Kenney feel like Philly is better now than it was before he took office?
6:00 – Kenney’s conversations with city workers in the final days of his term
7:00 – Kenney’s reaction to violence involving Philly children
12:00 – Does the Parker administration have a better chance at dealing with Philly’s violence?
13:48 – Kenney and DA Krasner
14:57 – Did Kenney fail to bring city leaders to the table as mayor?
15:43 – Kenney speaks on his controversial quote on the July 4th shooting
16:56 – Kenney reacts to Cherelle Parker’s comments on his July 4th quote
18:00 – How did Kenney deal with the stress and emotions of being mayor?
20:51 – Lessons learned from the city’s response to the George Floyd protests
23:02 – Kenney’s reaction to federal wiretaps
24:10– Kenny’s thoughts on John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty
25:55 – Kenney’s thoughts on former President Donald Trump
27:35 – Will Kenney be part of the Biden campaign?
28:08 – What was Kenney’s best day in office?
31:50 – What was Kenney’s worst day in office?
34:13 – Could Kenney have done more to help with Kensington’s drug crisis?
36:38 – Is Kenney completely finished with politics?
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