<p>this college grad had come to Philly to teach in the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows program
Apparently he was killed for his Ipod
I have posted before about why I don’t think Philly is safe, please tell your students to be careful on our streets</p>
<p>That’s so sad. With two boys roughly the same age as this young man, I can’t imagine the phone call these parents received! My oldest S loves Philly and returns about once a month. He generally stays on or near the Penn campus, not the south side, and as far as I know, is always with a group and not wandering in the wee hours. My other kid lives in NYC - and does tend to wander alone fairly late at night. I probably don’t know the half of it, because they know I’d freak out. I just try not to think about it, because they don’t listen to me anyway.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>This was nowhere near Penn.</p></li>
<li><p>This was actually not someplace where a person like him would have lived until the last 7-8 years. A gentrifying area where young, educated (mostly white) people with not-well-paying-jobs are displacing black and Vietnamese populations.</p></li>
<li><p>That said, nothing like this had happened in that neighborhood in a long time, and people are not blase about it at all. It is receiving constant news coverage, they have the presumptive killer on security-camera video, and there’s a good chance that the killer will be caught.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This city does have too many homicides. But most of them are clearly related to battles among drug dealers or other criminals, or to old-fashioned sexual jealousy. To some extent, people (including the police) are inured to that, and no one gets all that upset if there aren’t innocent-bystander victims. A case like this – where the victim wasn’t shooting at his killers, or hadn’t done that recently – galvanizes attention. It’s news, not more of the same.</p>
<p>This is an area where a lot of Penn grad students are starting to live, and a time of day my son would definitely be out wandering about. Yes, it can happen in any city. It just seems as though it happens more often in Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Exactly how many Penn grad students do you know living in South Philly?? While there are people who live all over the city, let me assure you it’s a small minority of Penn students that would live that far away. While Philly is unsafe, let’s be clear that almost anyone who wanders south philly at that hour can see that it doesn’t look particularly safe and they choose to take that risk, whether it’s due to the low rent, to make money at starbucks etc. It’s an ok area generally but very residential and blue collar – the kind of place that gets pretty quiet at night once families go inside; so you know that if you’re walking around and someone steps out of an alley there will be likely nothing you can do. This isn’t the part of town with clubs, popular bars and restaurants etc. – those areas are much more populated at night and that’s where the students are hanging out late at night and there’s a visible Philadelphia PD presence. The tragic thing in this case is that maybe this small town kid who had never lived in a city didn’t realize what the area was like and how much more careful you need to be in a city at night in a quiet part of town.</p>
<p>Two blocks from Pat’s King of Steaks (depending on direction) has been a borderline area for decades. “Rocky’s neighborhood” – Italian working-class – is probably a good ways south of there – and even then, what you used to hear about in the bad-old Salvatore Testa / Nicky Scarfo days were mob figures getting gunned down in neighborhood hangouts.</p>
<p>If you’ve ever been to the corner where Pat’s and Geno’s stare each other down, you know it’s a little iffy. What do you think the klieg lights are there for? (I don’t necessarily recommend it, by the way. The cheesesteaks are awful. However, the tribute wall to Danny Faulkner, the police officer for whose murder Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted, can be an eye-opener for visiting college students who may not be aware that there are two sides to that story.)</p>
<p>I’m just not sure what the kid was doing wrong. Ipods aren’t noisy. He was probably walking home.</p>
<p>Tread lightly, please. In context, this was a kid doing just what we want kids to do–teach in high risk schools. Yet their programs don’t give them nearly enough salary to give them a choice of neighborhoods in which to reside. </p>
<p>My nephew just took a position with Teach for America, in an urban school district of Philadelphia, assigned to teach Math. He has nothing to do with Penn and he’s not working for Starbucks. I’m trying to figure out what to write to my brother and sister in law at this moment. They know Philadelphia well, but said his neighborhood was pretty bad.</p>
<p>I just hope he stays safe and will put Zabel’s family in my prayers. In my scheme of things, Zabel deserves respect akin to those who die in Iraq this week, trying to do good in a rough spot in the world. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, how about paying these teaching fellows a better stipend so they can live in other neighborhoods? They don’t know the territory, some stand out due to their race. I wonder if they’re perceived as being without family or friends to protect them and obviously live solo in their new communities of assignment. It’s not fair to these teachers. Obviously I’m edgey because of my nephew, as well as extremely sad for Zabel.</p>
<p>I appreciate JHS clearing up the geography re: UPenn, as this would apply to more CC readers.</p>
<p>The areas of Boston where there is a higher rate of crime than in the rest of the city are Dorchester and Roxbury (more the former, lately). These are not areas where college students are likely to be living.</p>
<p>I was in Philly earlier this week when this tragic incident happened. My heart breaks for this young man and his family. Here was a young man trying to do good in this world. While robbery is bad enough, why did they have to kill the guy? It is truly sickening that humans have no regard for other human life. I don’t know the neighborhood but on his salary, living in a gentrified neighborhood that is lower in rent is pretty common. My kid who is a girl is on the street alone late at night in New York. It does make one wonder about safety just walking down the street to your apartment. Heartfelt thoughts to Zabel’s family. I don’t know the answer to this kind of random murder that I see in the paper every time I go home to Philly. I realize it is a city but it is scary and frankly, disgusting.</p>
<p>This kind of stuff can happen in any urban area. While Boston/Cambridge “feels” a lot safer than Philly, I still think prudence and awareness of your surroundings is warranted. There are examples of this kind of thing happening here too.</p>
<p>Has everyone who has a college kid living in ANY neighborhood told them this basic: if anyone wants your wallet, jacket, jewelry, ipod or anything…just hand it over.</p>
<p>Don’t say a word, just give up the object. Assume they have a gun even if you don’t see it.</p>
<p>You have to say these things explicitly to kids, because many of them don’t know.</p>
<p>Assume the robber only wants the monetary object, and not to take your life. Objects can be replaced. Tell your kids, if you haven’t already.</p>
<p>Instead, put the energy on trying to notice the perpetrator’s appearance; phone the police immediately and it might be a successful arrest. Maybe you’ll get to testify as a witness. My brother-in-law did (at age 28) and sent someone to jail for a LONG time because he kept his energy there on the witnessing part. He’s a lawyer now…outside of Philadelphia! Rule to muggers: don’t hold up a law student with nerves of steel.</p>
<p>Along those same lines, tell them to be aware of their surroundings and don’t walk around alone late at night with headphones on or talking on a cell phone. There was an 18 y.o. girl in a neighboring community brutally raped (she is now in a medically induced coma) dropping off books at a the night depository of a public library at 10PM. She told the friend she was chatting with on her cell phone that she saw a suspicious looking guy, but still got out of her car to drop off the books. This happened in the week prior to her high school graduation and she was planning to attend our state flagship with a full scholarship in the fall.</p>
<p>audiophile- The self-defense class we just had at work actually advocates talking loudly on a cellphone while you are walking in a sketchy area.</p>
<p>To condemn the entire city of Philadelphia as unsafe because of this tragedy is way over the top. There are few cities in America where it is a good idea to take a one mile walk alone at 1:30 in the morning through a marginal neighborhood. I know the area where this occured and – 1) I would strongly discourage my kids from living there, 2) I would tell them never to walk alone at night and 3) if they couldn’t get a ride home with a co-worker at 1 am I’d either get them a car or make sure they had the money to take a cab.</p>
<p>And yes, there are neighborhoods like this – and much worse – in Boston, New Haven, New York City, Baltimore and Washington. Does that make these dangerous places to go to college? Not really, as long as you take reasonable precautions and don’t stray into areas you are unfamiliar with.</p>
<p>I wasn’t implying that he was doing anything wrong – he was just walking home after work. Is it a necessity for some to be out that late – sure – he needed to earn some money before his teaching job started and that was the shift that Starbucks gave him. However, he did take upon himself a significant risk of something happening. I was just saying that maybe he took that risk unknowingly esp. being from a smaller town – not realizing that it isn’t a good idea to be out that late, even if you need the job and your roommate has just assured your parents that it’s a “safe” area.</p>
<p>I’m sure this will be an unpopular view here, but I think parents are too supportive of kids wanting to save the world. Theoretically, it would be a wonderful idea to move to a city and teach the underprivileged. But in reality, you can’t always make a decent enough salary to ensure that you can live in a reasonably safe area. So is it worth it??</p>
<p>“you can’t always make a decent enough salary to ensure that you can live in a reasonably safe area. So is it worth it??”</p>
<p>How many 23-year-olds in suburban and rural areas died in car accidents today? That’s a much more common cause of death among law-abiding white college graduates than murder. Maybe we should encourage young people to move to the inner city, where they can walk home from work and avoid this more prevalent danger.</p>