Kensington Beach founder spoke at the RNC. Did he have his facts right?
Part-time Kensington resident Michael Coyle told the Republican National Convention that Donald Trump would be the one to “end the urban nightmare.”
In a brief but vivid speech in which he described Kensington as a dystopian wasteland, part-time neighborhood resident Michael Coyle told the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night that, if elected president, Donald Trump would be the one to “end the urban nightmare.”
Coyle, 42, is the creator of the controversial “Kensington Beach” Instagram account, which posts pictures and videos of people using drugs and struggling with addiction on the streets of the neighborhood. He has said he strives to depict how opioids ravage individuals along with an entire community.
During his presentation, Coyle made statements about Kensington that were checked by The Inquirer for accuracy and truthfulness:
“In the last years, things have gotten much worse.”
Statistics show that crime is declining in Kensington, as it is around the nation.
The number of shootings in the area that had doubled during the pandemic have since dropped more than 70%, according to Philadelphia police statistics.
Conversely, Coyle was right about accelerating troubles related to overdose deaths, which have been increasing in the 19134 zip code spanning Kensington and Port Richmond, according to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
This requires some explanation.
Coyle was making the point that conditions in Kensington were better during the Trump administration than President Joe Biden’s. Data show, however, that there were 203 overdose deaths in Kensington during 2017, Trump’s first year in office, according to the health department. That’s the highest number on record through 2022.
However, overdose deaths declined during the remaining three years of Trump’s presidency, while they’ve been on the rise during Biden’s time in office.
Coyle was partially right.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the ones who opened our Southern border and allowed Chinese fentanyl to pour in unconditionally.”
This statement qualifies as misinformation, said UCLA anthropologist Jason De León, an expert on the Southern border and on drug smuggling.
“Fentanyl is not being brought in by migrants,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “Those are brought in by Americans or by smugglers using trucks.” Cargo as valuable as fentanyl is not entrusted to undocumented migrants on an already risky crossing into the United States, De León said.
Coyle’s statement about the Biden administration opening the border is also incorrect, De León said.
“Biden actually promised a kinder, gentler hand when it comes to migrants, but that’s not happened,” he added. “Trump’s and Biden’s policies at the border are largely the same. It’s not open.
“But the Biden administration uses language to make it sound like they’re helping, when they aren’t. Very little has changed since Bill Clinton was president. People trying to come here have been dying everyday in the Arizona desert.”
And, De León added, Biden has recently pledged to be tougher at the border to increase his chances of reelection.
Coyle was incorrect.
“Now [drug users are abusing] something called tranq, which literally rots the flesh.”
As gruesome as it sounds, Coyle’s statement is basically true.
“Tranq” or “zombie drug” is a street name for xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Used in combination with fentanyl or by itself, xylazine causes ulcerations on the body that erupt with a scaly dead tissue, according to the National Institutes of Health. Doctors do not know exactly what causes the serious wounds that show up on xylazine users, The Inquirer reported in 2022, noting “it’s possible that its effect on the vascular system makes wounds quicker to open and slower to heal.”
Unfortunately, Coyle was right about this.