‘Philadelphia is not a safe facility’ | Morning Newsletter

It’s Thursday, or as I like to call it, Friday Jr. The sunshine is not going anywhere just yet. We’re slightly warming up with a high near 51.

A prisoner accused of jail assaults was sent to a Philly lockup. Now his 59-year-old cellmate is dead. Our main story uncovers how prison officials were given ample warning signs that Daquan Miller could pose a danger to those around him, yet he was not placed in protective custody.

— Paola Pérez (@pdesiperez, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

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Before Daquan Miller’s cellmate was found beaten to death, prison officials were aware of Miller’s volatile history with other inmates, according to an Inquirer investigation.

Despite three sets of existing charges related to jail-based violence, Miller, 25, was accepted into Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility as part of a prisoner exchange, and was not placed in protective custody. The Philadelphia Department of Prisons won’t say why.

Before he got to Philly: Last year, Miller spent time in Delaware County’s George W. Hill Correctional Facility, where he allegedly assaulted two other prisoners last year using his handcuffs and fists.

After he got to Philly: On Jan. 27, he was flagged as a behavioral health emergency, according to jail records and sources. Hours later, he assured a social worker he wasn’t homicidal, and was released back into what sources describe as a general-population unit. His cellmate, 59-year-old Mike Osborne, would be found unresponsive on the cell floor the following morning, and his death later determined to be homicide by blunt force trauma.

More charges: Miller is already facing four cases in Delaware County, including drug and gun charges, and charges related to the three violent jail-based incidents. In the wake of Osborne’s death, the District Attorney’s Office is charging Miller with murder and reckless endangerment.

A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons declined to answer questions about the incident. Miller’s lawyer in Delaware County, Douglas Smith, declined to comment on the pending charges.

What experts are saying: The sequence of events represents a serious security lapse, and reflects ongoing safety issues at the jail, where there have been at least seven homicides since 2020. Before that, the jails had gone about five years without a homicide.

Notable quote: “No facility should be transferring people into Philadelphia. Philadelphia is not a safe facility. Philadelphia should be transferring people out of this facility,” said Claire Shubik-Richards, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

Continue reading The Inquirer’s investigation into the persistent endangerment in Philly’s jails.

🎤 Now I’m passing the mic to health and science reporter Tom Avril.

For decades, Philadelphia has been a center for research on gene therapy: treating medical conditions by replacing or editing mutated genes. The latest such advance, performed at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, gave an 11-year-old deaf boy the ability to hear. A second deaf boy, aged 3, is scheduled for the experimental treatment at the hospital on Friday.

But some members of the deaf community say it’s an innovation they didn’t ask for. That’s because unlike other conditions treated with gene therapy, deafness is not a disease, nor does it prevent someone from living a long, full life.

“Human diversity should be cherished, not winnowed out for the convenience of the majority,” says Sara Nović, a novelist who lives in Montgomery County.

CHOP was chosen as a study location because surgeon John A. Germiller had developed a delicate technique to access the cochlea, the snail-shaped apparatus in the inner ear.

I was drawn to this story because I was born with a significant hearing loss in both ears. I don’t think I’m a candidate for this therapy, but the news made me wonder: Would I sign up for it?

At an expected cost of more than $1 million, it might be a tough sell with my insurance company. — Tom Avril

Keep reading for more on the debate surrounding the cutting-edge therapy.

A year after going dark, the longtime fixture along the Schuylkill will light up again with a new programmable system containing 6,400 LED lights.

Why now? The $2.1 million project to revamp the lights was hoped to be completed by the December holidays, but supply chain issues led to an extension.

These new lights will not only be able to change color in up to 16 million different combinations, they can also sparkle or “dance” among boathouses, and fade from one to the next.

You can even “book” them for a special event like your birthday. Fees would go to ongoing maintenance of the lights.

Keep reading to get the booking cost, learn how the new system was installed and more on the lights’ history.

Comcast will stop using “10G” to describe its internet network.

What does “G” stand for?

A) generation

B) GPU

C) gigabits

D) galaxy

Think you know? Check your answer.

🧧 Planning: Where to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Chinatown.

😋 Trying: Ricotta cannolis at Philly’s century-old Isgro Pastries, a James Beard semifinalist.

🪩 Reading: Pop critic Dan DeLuca’s review of Mitski’s highly stylized, brilliantly realized show (one of two) at the Met Philly.

Hint: Home to the largest Whole Foods market in the Philly area

ELM PIGMENT YOUTH

Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Dan Tureck who correctly guessed Wednesday’s answer: Nora the Piano Cat.

Thanks for hanging out with me this morning. I’m off to start my day with some cafecito and a couple chapters of “The Curse in Their Veins.”

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