Violence against Treetops worker raises questions about crime in Philadelphia

By Frank Visco
Collegian Editor
September 13, 2006

Former Treetops Café worker Anthony Burno’s killing comes in the midst of a banner year for violence in Philadelphia. On that night alone, eight people were shot and three were killed.

“It’s horrible,” current Treetops employee Patty Garvey said. “It just goes to show you that some of these guys on the street will kill you for nothing. That’s why I tell all these kids to watch their backs. You never know what some people will do.”

The 35th District, which La Salle is located in, has had its fair share of violence this year. According to Art Grover, La Salle’s director of security and safety, the district has had 40 robberies at gunpoint in the last four weeks alone. None of those robberies has occurred in the sector that houses La Salle’s campus, and Grover hopes to keep it that way.

“The increase of violence in our society is regrettable, and as a former police captain, and also as a citizen, I have concerns about it,” he said. “That’s why I tell you with pride, that although we are located in a high crime area, La Salle’s particular sector is of the lowest crime rates in the 35th District. We here at La Salle are doing as much as we can to make our community safer, and there are many reasons to be encouraged going forward.”

Denny Graeber, La Salle’s associate director of security and safety, echoed similar sentiments by likening the 35th District to a checkerboard.

“If you broke up the 35th District into sectors and highlighted the violent blocks in red and the nonviolent one in white, there would be a significant blotch of white in the middle, and it would be our campus,” he said. “I don’t know for sure why it’s like that, but I’d like to think it’s the staff we have here in security doing their work, and doing it well.”

While violence may be somewhat insignificant in La Salle’s sector, on the larger landscape of Philadelphia, violence has become somewhat problematic. In the Sept. 1 edition of the Philadelphia Daily News, Chief of Detectives Joseph Fox indicated that one of the many reasons for this may be a problem in the judicial system, perhaps in acknowledgement of the fact that Kevin White, the man charged with killing Burno, was on the street despite having previously committed serious crimes.

“You get the same people back on the street in days or weeks, committing the same crimes time and again,” he told the Daily News. “There’s a breakdown in the system. [Judges] need to get their head out of the sand.”

viscof1@lasalle.edu