A laptop and USB devices were stolen sometime this week from the Philadelphia’s elections storage warehouse.
I went over this morning to check out the security situation. I was able to walk right into the voting machine storage unit, alone, for several minutes.
City Commissioners told me this morning the stolen devices have been disabled & they do not compromise the integrity of the Nov. election.
When this video ends, I ran into an staffer who told me press can’t be in the building. I told him the door was open & I announced my name.
This is the outside of the storage warehouse where the theft took place. I didn’t see any security cameras outside or in the building.
The staffer wouldn’t answer my questions about security. On the phone, Deputy City Nick Custodio told me that a security guard should be stationed there at all times now. He was not for some reason. I did see a security walking to the other end of the property when I pulled up.
There’s a man sitting in the door now, more staffers coming in and out of the building. I likely just walked in at a moment where no one is around, but the ease of access was still alarming to me.
JUST IN: In response to the theft & my subsequent reporting from the warehouse, @PhillyMayor is ramping up security:
- Increased guards at the site 24/7
- Adding round-the-clock police presence
- a new logging procedure for entering/exiting the building billypenn.com/2020/10/01/phi…
Many ppl RTing this story today as proof of...something. A reminder:
- this happened a month ago
- security issued were fixed ASAP
- warehouse primarily stored voting machines
- it did not store mail ballots used in general election
- no police evidence theft was elected related
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Pro-Palestinian activists with @JVPPhilly and Rabbis for Ceasefire are are blocking rush-hour traffic on the Spring Garden Street Bridge near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Dozens are holding signs and chanting “Let Gaza Live.”
While 100+ demonstrators shut down the bridge overhead, a smaller group of a few dozen has moved to block westbound lane on Interstate 76. The view from above:
Police have detained about two dozen protesters on I-76, placing them in zip-ties and lining them up along the highway median.
Saturday night in Philadelphia. A mass shooting on 4th & South Street with reports of nearly a dozen people shot. I’m on scene where police have cordoned off the popular weekend strip, a trail of what appears to be blood snaking along the sidewalk in front of a Rita’s Water Ice.
Looks like shooting travelled down South Street — signs of pandemonium stretching several blocks. Broken car window glass. Knocked over trashcans.
PPD Inspector D.F. Pace confirms 14 people shot, 3 dead.
I’m in Center City where hundreds of protesters rallied outside the federal courthouse in support of Roe v. Wade. The crowd is now marching down Market Street in rush hour traffic toward another protest at City Hall
A sampling of Philly abortion access protect signage:
- “Bans of my body”
- “keep your gross views off my daughter”
- “We Won’t Go Back”
- “Pro-Life is a Lie”
Cars honking, pedestrians cheering.
This is the first protest ever for Greg Glowacki, 32, a young father of a 2-year-old girl, his wife pregnant at home with their second child in suburban Bucks County.
“I want her to have the choice,” he said. “I want her to be free.”
On a press tour of Philadelphia’s ballot processing equipment in a 125,000-square-foot, heavily guarded warehouse in the city’s Convention Center.
This is step 1: the sorting machine, where mail ballots are first received in the county. This does not read the actual vote.
Step 2: the “extractor.” There will be 22 of these OPEX machines, which perform a two step process to extract ballots, first from the outside envelope and then from the inner “secrecy” envelope.
Each device is capable of extracting 12,000 ballots an hour.
Extraction is the “bottleneck point” in the process of counting ballots, most likely to slow things down.
Step 3 is tabulation: after each ballot is removed, it goes to these 12 machines that will actually tally the votes cast beginning at 7 a.m. on Election Day.
PPD's clearance rate for shootings and homicides is more striking than the prosecution rate. Here's the data (consolidated by DAO between police and courts) going back to 2015.
The DAO declined to charge in 27 of 1,762 shooting-related incidents through August this year.
Now, charges are one thing. The other is the sweetheart plea deals that police and feds allege Krasner loves to give violent offenders.
I haven't seen any data that compares plea deal changes in long term, only anecdotal cases focussed on Krasner admin whyy.org/articles/u-s-a…
Remarkable news in Philadelphia just now on I-676 teargassing:
- Mayor and police commissioner say they were wrong
- Deputy commissioner overseeing protest falls on sword, voluntarily demotes himself
- Officer who pepper sprayed protesters to be fired billypenn.com/2020/06/25/ken…
Many wondering if officials would have acted today without NYT video. Local journalists, witnesses and footage already painted a damning scene. The NYT did not reveal anything about the to-be-fired officer who, plain as day, maced peaceful protesters at close range. But...
How quickly was PPD Internal Affairs investigating this incident? How did four out-of-town journalists, using public footage and witness interviews, beat the $760 million department in making a credible timeline that could inspire Outlaw and Kenney to take immediate action?