--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Fall is here. Might be time to find some nice new pieces you can wear again and again.
--:-- Noel King: With Saks Fifth Avenue, it can be a breeze to shop for your personal style, like maybe a relaxed Prada blazer or Gucci loafers that are great for both work and the weekend.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is very Sean. This is very Sean-coated. Gucci loafers.
--:-- Noel King: Saks says Saks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's from an in-store stylist or a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you just what you want to see.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They say they'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when something you've been eyeing is back in stock.
--:-- Noel King: You can find inspiration for your personal style every day at Saks Fifth Avenue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Each Apple product, like the iPhone, is thoughtfully designed by skilled designers.
--:-- Noel King: The titanium Apple Card is no different. It's laser etched, has no numbers, and it earns you daily cash on everything you buy, including 3% back on everything at Apple.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Apply for Apple Card on your iPhone in minutes. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
--:-- Noel King: Previously on Today Explained. Philadelphia offers one of the starkest examples of this terrible nationwide trend. They had 499 homicides last year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is defending his record and says he is tackling the ongoing violence in our city.
--:-- Noel King: Krasner came in with letting us know that our civil rights will no longer be violated. And I think that's why he got the support of the people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Culture of the DA's office is like a sports culture. They try to maximize convictions and maximize years.
--:-- Noel King: He will plead to all these folks and they back out on the street.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm speaking for a lot of mothers. I'm speaking for a lot of minorities who have been victimized through the justice system as well.
--:-- Noel King: So it's like for me, it's a multidimensional quest of knowledge before I vote.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today on the show, Philly makes a choice. ProPublica's Alec McGillis gets us to election day, but first, he's going fishing.
--:-- Noel King: Back in May, I went down to this riverfront park in southwest Philly called Bartram's Garden.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It has a little dock with a bunch of rowboats.
--:-- Noel King: I was with a few Today Explained producers, Miles Bryan and Jillian Weinberger.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We went to meet up with teens who were part of a youth group called Yeah! Philly.
--:-- Noel King: Some of them had been caught up in the criminal justice system.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A couple were wearing ankle monitors because they had active cases.
--:-- Noel King: But that afternoon, everybody was relaxed. It was a good vibe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You ever catch anything?
--:-- Noel King: No, yeah. Yo, I think I caught like two fish, though.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Have you caught anything?
--:-- Noel King: Nah. I caught a couple condoms.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, shit, I got a turtle.
--:-- Noel King: We were there to ask these young people what they thought was driving Philly's spike in gun violence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tiffany Rudolph blames it all on one thing. The pandemic, there's no other way around it.
--:-- Noel King: Like, we're not in school anymore.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's kids, especially me, like, I've depended on going to school to keep myself out of trouble.
--:-- Noel King: There's a lot of kids that I know, like, I was worried for some safety of other kids because it's like people come to school for an escape.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I do blame the pandemic as far as to why the gun violence went up.
--:-- Noel King: Tiffany's theory that the surge in violence was directly tied to the pandemic it's a lot like what Philly DA Larry Krasner told us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He was the prosecutor who made a lot of reforms and was taking heat for them from people who said those reforms were driving the spike in shootings.
--:-- Noel King: Not so, he told us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You have no organized sports for a year, essentially.
--:-- Noel King: You have high school classrooms that are closed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You have summer camps closed, summer job programs closed.
--:-- Noel King: You have all the programming that goes with Houses of Faith, shutdown.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You have this stripping away of essentially everything we have taken for granted as being preventative and protective of young people.
--:-- Noel King: And when all that happened, guess what? Young people were killing a lot of young people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Krasner believes the pandemic and the way it upended all of our lives is the reason for the increase in gun violence.
--:-- Noel King: We wanted to see how this dynamic had played out for young people in Philadelphia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So we decided to spend some more time with Tiffany to see how the pandemic affected her day-to-day life.
--:-- Noel King: This is my apartment. This is my living room.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What are we listening to?
--:-- Noel King: I don't know. You two.
--:-- Noel King: Her apartment's neat, but pretty sparse.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's a poster up on the wall for a drinking game and another with a line of scripture.
--:-- Noel King: What's the quote up there?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me.
--:-- Noel King: It was here when I got here, but I didn't take it down because I like it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tiffany took us back to early 2020.
--:-- Noel King: I was a straight-A student.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I had a 4.0 GPA.
--:-- Noel King: I was on the National Honor Society.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I was number two or three in my class.
--:-- Noel King: That would be a feat for any kid.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But Tiffany's circumstances made it remarkable.
--:-- Noel King: In 2018, I was taken by DHS to be put in foster care.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And not taken, taken.
--:-- Noel King: I signed myself in the foster care.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My household, I was living with my stepmother, and my dad was incarcerated.
--:-- Noel King: And it just wasn't going well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I was forced to grow up at an early age.
--:-- Noel King: Tiffany grew up in West Philadelphia, in a neighborhood that struggled with poverty and shootings for a long time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For Tiffany and a lot of kids like her, school wasn't just a place to learn.
--:-- Noel King: It was a place of stability and safety in an often chaotic world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tiffany also played soccer, joined youth groups, interned with her school's administrative office.
--:-- Noel King: Took classes at a local university, worked a job, anything she could to stay occupied.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But then the COVID lockdown began.
--:-- Noel King: Last evening, I announced that we had lost the first of what will become many Pennsylvanians to the novel coronavirus.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And happening right now, all restaurants and bars in Philadelphia are being ordered to shut down.
--:-- Noel King: We have breaking news from the Philadelphia school district.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Officials have just announced that schools will be closed indefinitely.
--:-- Noel King: No doubt officials will be talking about this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All of Tiffany's activities were canceled and schools shrunk down to a box on her screen.
--:-- Noel King: It got draining.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I went from being energized to lazy.
--:-- Noel King: You go from waking up early in the morning, by the second bus to get to school, you're up, you energized you ready to go you ready for the day
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It like you home
--:-- Noel King: It like oh well technically I don't have to get out of bed so I just going to stay in bed
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's not healthy at all
--:-- Noel King: She limped to graduation and managed to enroll at Temple University for the fall
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But when college classes started online, she had a hard time.
--:-- Noel King: Academically, I failed Temple to the point where I have no credits for my first semester.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I dropped out of school my second semester before it was over.
--:-- Noel King: Teenagers across the country struggle to stay engaged with their schoolwork during the pandemic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Many have been dealing with increased anxiety and depression.
--:-- Noel King: Some pediatricians have reported more suicide attempts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Philadelphia's high school stayed almost entirely closed through this last school year.
--:-- Noel King: The rec centers shut down.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The libraries shut down.
--:-- Noel King: Even now, many of the city's swimming pools are still shuttered.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The school shutdowns were initiated to save lives.
--:-- Noel King: But for some of the boys Tiffany grew up with, the shutdowns themselves put them at risk.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A lot of people, they went to school to escape from their home.
--:-- Noel King: You never know what people go through behind closed doors.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They could have went to school just to eat because they don't have food at home.
--:-- Noel King: They could have went to school to get the loving from their teachers because they couldn't get that at home.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, I know some of the boys, like, they used to go talk to the counselor.
--:-- Noel King: No matter how they act or whatever, they will go to the counselor.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's like, for them, I know it hit them hard because it's like, you don't have a counselor no more.
--:-- Noel King: And it's like, okay, they have free time now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You have 24-7 out of the day.
--:-- Noel King: You're not in school.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You don't have to do anything technically.
--:-- Noel King: So it's like, oh, I'm going to go out and do this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm going to go out and do that.
--:-- Noel King: And it's because they don't have the structure of going to school anymore.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it wasn't just school that was out.
--:-- Noel King: It was after-school programs, too.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, yeah, Philly, the one that took the kids fishing.
--:-- Noel King: Whether it's you've got to do your homework, you want to hang out, you want to play video games, you can all come home.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Kendra Vanawater is the co-founder.
--:-- Noel King: Before we went out on the dock together, she walked us through the group's new permanent location in the heart of West Philly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Beanbag chairs, TV, bookshelves, all of that.
--:-- Noel King: Kendra created this place for kids to decompress, process, and talk out disputes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A place to head off conflict before it has the chance to become violent.
--:-- Noel King: Before there's even a reason for cops to get involved.
--:-- Alec McGillis: We mediate a lot of stuff.
--:-- Noel King: We have kids who come here and say this is the only place they feel like they don't have to bring a gun.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They're with us at events. They're saying that's the only time they feel like they don't have to look over their shoulder.
--:-- Noel King: So we're trying to create a culture where we have to find you other ways, you know, to resolve things and to feel safe without carrying a gun.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Up until March of 2020, the group was operating out of Philly's public rec centers, hosting dozens of young people every week for meals and after-school activities.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, Philly tried to continue online, but it wasn't the same.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Most of our kids and young people, they want to be seen in person.
--:-- Noel King: They don't do well logging on and doing all that.
--:-- Alec McGillis: So that was a loss, and we weren't able to reconnect with them on a deeper level until we were able to get our own space.
--:-- Noel King: With school online, rec centers locked, and even basketball hoops taken down, Kendra wasn't surprised when the shooting rate started to go up in Philly in the spring of 2020.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As that happened, more people started carrying guns.
--:-- Noel King: We know that because police were finding more guns when they were making stops.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Research shows that generally more guns leads to more shootings.
--:-- Noel King: We asked Kendra about Joe Sullivan's explanation for this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's the former deputy police commissioner you heard from in the last episode.
--:-- Alec McGillis: I don't think you could ignore the election of the new DA and the reform measures that were put in place.
--:-- Noel King: Sullivan thought that because the conviction rate for gun possession has fallen under Krasner, the DA has created a sort of culture of impunity, where more young people were carrying guns because they figured they had a pretty good chance of getting away with it.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Kendra doesn't buy it.
--:-- Noel King: I don't think they think that far.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think that it's really about them protecting themselves.
--:-- Alec McGillis: And we talk about that too.
--:-- Noel King: A lot of them don't understand how the system works, even the ones that are in there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They don't understand, you know, what the numbers are or what the process is, even for their own cases.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Kendra blames the pandemic and what came a few months later, in late May of 2020.
--:-- Noel King: George Floyd!
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That is right! George Floyd!
--:-- Alec McGillis: We did so much processing with our young people around that.
--:-- Noel King: You know, they're watching Instagram videos of George Floyd being killed how many times.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They're in the midst of all of the protests and uprisings that are happening in their neighborhoods.
--:-- Alec McGillis: George Floyd!
--:-- Noel King: In Philly and a number of other cities, some people looted stores and set police cars on fire.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thick black smoke billowing in the air.
--:-- Alec McGillis: That's because at least four police cars have been burning after protesters.
--:-- Noel King: Some of the worst looting happened in Tiffany's old neighborhood.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The police SWAT vehicle started dispersing the tear gas in the residential areas before it even made it to the intersection at 52nd and Arch.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Allies of the police, people like Joe Sullivan, they blame local officials for not doing enough to support cops through the protests.
--:-- Noel King: Oh, it destroyed morale.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It really did. It destroyed morale.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Krasner's office actually charged two officers for their behavior during that period.
--:-- Noel King: One for pepper spraying an activist in the face, the other for hitting a protester in the head with his baton.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Officers are saying, man, if they're getting locked up that easily, I don't really want, I don't want to get involved in this.
--:-- Alec McGillis: I've got a mortgage to pay and tuition to pay.
--:-- Noel King: During all of this, tons of cops are retiring early or just quitting altogether.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At the same time, city officials decided to close the police academy, the pipeline for new recruits.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Due to the pandemic.
--:-- Noel King: The rate of police stops in Philly had already fallen off when COVID first hit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Officers were told to avoid low-level arrests altogether to try and slow the spread of the virus.
--:-- Alec McGillis: After the protests, the number of police stops fell even further.
--:-- Noel King: Officers were stretched thin, dealing with protests and looting and enforcing a curfew.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But some of that decline might have also just been the police choosing to make fewer stops.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Maybe they don't get out of their cars and walk through the neighborhoods.
--:-- Noel King: Maybe they don't chase every lead.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Maybe they take their time responding to a call.
--:-- Alec McGillis: I'm sure that some officers have pulled back.
--:-- Noel King: Police stops fell in cities across the country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And gun violence spiked in almost all of them.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Criminologists generally agree that having more cops walking around just seeing and being seen helps deter crime
--:-- Noel King: But activists like Kendra say blaming the police pullback for the surge in violence misses a bigger point
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That big city departments have done a bad job at solving gun crimes for years.
--:-- Alec McGillis: In Philadelphia, police make arrests in fewer than 50% of homicide cases.
--:-- Noel King: The rate for non-fatal shootings is even lower than that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Just about one in four result in an arrest.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Kendra says people living in areas with a lot of violent crime understand that viscerally.
--:-- Noel King: So if a person is taken from you and you don't believe in that system to solve that murder, they'll say, we'll just handle it ourselves because they're not going to solve it anyway.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After all the high-profile deaths at police hands in recent years, Tiffany's been wary of working with the police too.
--:-- Noel King: Like my era of teens, like we've been like cautious around cops, but like it got worse.
--:-- Alec McGillis: It kept happening. It kept happening.
--:-- Noel King: And nothing was being dumb about it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I was like, okay, at this point, we're like, we're fed up.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Tiffany says she's had a dozen family members and friends get shot.
--:-- Noel King: Most of them since the pandemic began.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She told Miles that Philly police finally arrested a suspect in the murder of one of her friends this spring, a few years after it happened.
--:-- Alec McGillis: I actually cried.
--:-- Noel King: That's the first time I actually heard someone, like my friend or any of my friend's killings being solved.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Was it weird to, like, have that feeling of not happy, but just sort of, like, appreciative of the cops?
--:-- Alec McGillis: It was, I don't know.
--:-- Noel King: My feelings will not change towards the cops.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't care.
--:-- Alec McGillis: I'm not about to thank you for doing your job.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, no.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You did your job.
--:-- Alec McGillis: It took you long enough, is what I will say.
--:-- Noel King: It took you long enough.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This distrust, it can help fuel a cycle.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Of retaliation that can be nearly impossible to stop.
--:-- Noel King: Someone sees a friend or family member get shot.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They don't see the police as an option, so they don't return a cop's call during the investigation or agree to testify.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Instead, they take matters into their own hands.
--:-- Noel King: They get revenge.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That crew retaliates in return.
--:-- Alec McGillis: A lot of this now plays out on social media, ramping up the tension.
--:-- Noel King: On and on it goes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Criminologists say these two things, the police stepping back and the communities growing distrust of the cops, they're like two sides of the same coin.
--:-- Alec McGillis: But they both played a role in fueling the gun violence spike.
--:-- Noel King: And this brings us back to Larry Krasner.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hold that thought.
--:-- Noel King: We got to do a break.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Chime.
--:-- Noel King: Nobody likes fees and complicated banking, says Chime.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Chime gets that, says Chime.
--:-- Noel King: Chime is a financial technology company that says they understand that every dollar counts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So when you set up direct deposit through Chime, they say you get access to fee-free features, such as free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, so much more.
--:-- Noel King: Chime says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft, up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Plus, they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees.
--:-- Noel King: You can work on your financial goals through Chime today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can open an account in two minutes at Chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Noel King: That's Chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Chime feels like progress.
--:-- Noel King: Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A.
--:-- Noel King: Members FDIC.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply.
--:-- Noel King: Timing depends on submission of payment file.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Fees apply at out-of-network ATMs.
--:-- Noel King: Bank ranking and number of ATMs according to U.S. News and World Report 2023.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Chime checking account required.
--:-- Noel King: We'll see you next time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Visit Sierra.ai to learn more.
--:-- Noel King: We're back with Alec McGillis from ProPublica.
--:-- Alec McGillis: But Alec, before I hand it off to you, I just want to recap here.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We've got a lot of gun violence in Philadelphia, a pandemic that's making it worse.
--:-- Noel King: There's a reformer DA who wants to take a different approach.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's also being blamed for the increase in gun violence.
--:-- Noel King: And he's up for reelection against a more conventional prosecutor.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Yeah.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The city had to decide whether to stick with Larry Krasner and his promise to transform the criminal justice system.
--:-- Noel King: I mean, this is a showdown between the past and the future.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is a showdown between criminal justice reform and the kind of criminal justice that is in an old, brutal, and racist policing.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Or whether to vote for his challenger, Carlos Vega.
--:-- Noel King: Mr. Krasner, you have blood on your hands.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's a former homicide prosecutor.
--:-- Noel King: Larry Krasner had actually fired him, along with a few dozen other career prosecutors, when he took office in 2018.
--:-- Alec McGillis: On May 18th, primary day, turnout started slow.
--:-- Noel King: Both of the candidates had busy schedules today, trying to make sure their supporters cast their ballots for an election that is being watched beyond Philadelphia.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We need a change. We need safety and reform.
--:-- Noel King: We can do both. We deserve both.
--:-- Alec McGillis: You cannot blame the prosecutors or the police for the fact that the pandemic shut down so many things.
--:-- Noel King: So I'm going to move out of the city if Krasner wins again.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I want to stay in Philadelphia.
--:-- Noel King: But I can't live under Elias Krasner another four years.
--:-- Alec McGillis: We're taking illegal guns in record numbers, but there's no consequence.
--:-- Noel King: We're asking the DA's office, like, what are you doing?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Go vote for Vega! Go vote for Carlos Vega for District Attorney of Philadelphia.
--:-- Alec McGillis: In the end, not that many people did go vote for Vega.
--:-- Noel King: Larry Krasner has just declared victory.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Here are the latest results.
--:-- Noel King: Krasner leading challenger Carlos Vega with 64% of the vote.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Krasner won the Democratic primary, which in Philadelphia is the only race that really matters.
--:-- Noel King: He won big with the middle class progressives that helped propel him to office the first time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We in this movement for criminal justice reform just won a big one.
--:-- Noel King: And just like in his first election, Krasner also won handily with voters in the city's Black neighborhoods, with the residents most affected by gun violence and by the excesses of the criminal justice system
--:-- Alec McGillis: The Krasner Coalition held
--:-- Noel King: And Nikesha stuck with him too even as she grieved the loss of her son
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I have to still stand on civil rights and not just my own personal plight.
--:-- Noel King: We're tired of our families being dismantled by the justice system.
--:-- Alec McGillis: I have to say I'm really impressed with your ability to think about the broader system in light of what happened.
--:-- Noel King: How do you think you were able to do that?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't know.
--:-- Noel King: I'm a mom.
--:-- Alec McGillis: And my nurturing and love doesn't just end with just my children.
--:-- Noel King: In the end, Nakisha and many others in Philly didn't see the DA's race as a choice between reforming the criminal justice system or stemming the rise in gun violence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They bought into the pitch that Krasner and other progressive candidates across the country are making.
--:-- Noel King: That draconian prison sentences and overly aggressive policing are both unethical and unhelpful in reducing violent crime.
--:-- Alec McGillis: And that getting at the root cause of the violence requires investment in longer-term strategies, opening more rec centers, improving schools, and creating good jobs.
--:-- Noel King: But so far this year, Philly's been kind of an outlier.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Associated Press projects Eric Adams as the winner of the Democratic primary in the race for New York City mayor.
--:-- Noel King: New York City went to the polls to pick its Democratic nominee for mayor last month.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Eric Adams is a former cop who campaigned on stopping gun crime.
--:-- Noel King: For 22 years, I wore a bulletproof vest and stood on the street corners and protected children and families in the city of New York.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Adams beat out a bunch of progressive candidates, Larry Krasner types.
--:-- Noel King: You yourself have said you're the new face of the Democratic Party.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Explain that.
--:-- Noel King: Because we have abandoned our cities, and you're seeing the Democratic Party, basically they've thrown up their hands, and we're continuing to see the same problems in our inner cities.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We need to turn it around.
--:-- Noel King: And it's not just New York.
--:-- Alec McGillis: In Los Angeles County, residents are gathering signatures to try and recall the progressive DA there.
--:-- Noel King: And in Atlanta, the mayor abruptly decided not to seek re-election last spring.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She had been taking heat for presiding over a sharp spike in gun crime as well.
--:-- Alec McGillis: So it seems like we're in this difficult moment.
--:-- Noel King: On the one hand, from what you've been telling us, the roots of the surge in violence over the last 18 months is not as simple as like one program that got canceled or one policy that got changed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's the pandemic and the protests and the police and probably other things on top of that.
--:-- Noel King: And in Philly, at least, people are not convinced that they should react to all that by ditching criminal justice reform.
--:-- Alec McGillis: But structural change takes a long time, and this problem is affecting people's lives right now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Are there solutions that could help in the short term?
--:-- Noel King: It's hard.
--:-- Alec McGillis: These cycles of retaliation are really tough to break.
--:-- Noel King: But a lot of people are now trying to figure this out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's been a growing recognition that something changed for the worse over the last year, beyond the root cause problems that have existed for a long time.
--:-- Alec McGillis: People see that stopping the bleeding requires acknowledging that and rebuilding the social connections that ruptured during the last 18 months.
--:-- Noel King: You can see this new focus in Philadelphia, where leaders are pouring money into anti-violence programs, over $100 million.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Philly's doubling down on that program we heard about in the previous episode, the one that targets government resources to those most likely to shoot or be shot.
--:-- Alec McGillis: This kind of spending is gaining steam on the national level, too.
--:-- Noel King: Cities experienced an increase in gun violence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're able to use the American Rescue Plan dollars to hire police officers needed for community policing and to pay their overtime.
--:-- Alec McGillis: We know this stuff can work because it's worked before.
--:-- Noel King: It's just going to take a lot of money and time and effort.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's the sort of effort Tiffany Rudolph knows all too well.
--:-- Alec McGillis: I don't know.
--:-- Noel King: Like, I just want to get my life big.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tiffany's doing much better than she was last winter.
--:-- Noel King: But when we last met up, she told Miles she was exhausted.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Okay, I'm going to tell you why I was up until 6 o'clock in the morning.
--:-- Noel King: I was on the phone talking someone out of shooting someone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, I, like, and that's not the first time I did that.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Like, I actually do this.
--:-- Noel King: What was the situation?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I guess the guy killed someone we know.
--:-- Alec McGillis: And my friend found out.
--:-- Noel King: And he was looking for retaliation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I understood him 100%.
--:-- Noel King: However, I don't have time for you either getting shot back at and dying or getting a case and now you have to go to jail.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Do you think he heard you?
--:-- Noel King: He better heard me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: His mom was there too.
--:-- Alec McGillis: He gave his mom the gun.
--:-- Noel King: So that's what made me feel okay with hanging up the phone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just didn't feel comfortable hanging up the phone until I know he understood me.
--:-- Alec McGillis: But he passed the gun to his mother.
--:-- Noel King: I felt comfortable enough to get off the phone with him to know that he's not going to go out here and do anything crazy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tiffany will take her wins where she can get them.
--:-- Alec McGillis: She stopped a shooting.
--:-- Noel King: It was a small victory.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But she can't keep staying up all night.
--:-- Alec McGillis: She can only do her part.
--:-- Noel King: We made these two episodes on The Great Regression in collaboration with Alec McGillis and ProPublica.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can find Alec's written piece at ProPublica.org.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Just look for his byline.
--:-- Noel King: Alec had production and reporting help from Today Explains, Jillian Weinberger and Miles Bryan.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Editing from Matthew Collette and Nick Varshevar.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Fact-checking by Laura Bullard.
--:-- Noel King: Engineering from Afim Shapiro and Hannes Brown.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Special thanks to Thomas Abt, Katerina Roman, Liz Kelly Nelson, and Lauren Katz.
--:-- Alec McGillis: The rest of the Today Explained team includes Will Reed, Halima Shah, Victoria Chamberlain, Emily Sen, and Amina Alsadi, who's our supervising producer.
--:-- Noel King: We had extra help this week from Paul Mounsey and Christian Ayala.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We have music from Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld.
--:-- Alec McGillis: Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
