Political Cartoon: Fireworks for Philadelphia’s new police commissioner

Welcome to Philadelphia, Danielle Outlaw! With two murders on New Year’s Eve and three more on New Year’s Day, we’re giving you lots to clean up, which is probably why Mayor Kenney smartly chose a woman from Portland as the city’s next Police Commissioner. That’s what women do. Clean up. In this case it’s cleaning up after the young men (almost exclusively) who are creating the mayhem with their indiscriminate shootings and occasional stabbings that have left 356 people dead. It’s about time someone gets out in front of the carnage to focus resources on bringing those number down.

She’ll also have to clean up a department that in 2018 cleared a skimpy 47 percent of that year’s murders--apparently leaving 53% of murderers out on the street. She won’t be able to do it alone. We will soon see whether city politicians are ready to give the support she needs, financially and structurally, so she can get the job done. If she succeeds, she’ll live up to the Daily News great front page which called her the “Portland Trailblazer.” Wishing you well, Danielle.

Editorial cartoons from this week include: