Servo’s terrifying solution to rising problem

Neil Patel, operator of a Karco gas station in North Philadelphia, told the local FOX29 affiliate he had recruited Pennsylvania S.I.T.E Agents clad with Kevlar vests and AR-15s or shotguns, after incessant crime threatened his employees and customers.

“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level,” Mr Patel said. “We are tired of this nonsense – robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs.”

Mr Patel said the final straw came after his business was vandalised by young people and an ATM was stolen.

He said the decisions to beef-up security was met with mixed reactions.

“I listen to them, but according to some people, violent people, they carry the guns, they’re not afraid of them?” he said.

“This is the protection for the neighbourhood and the customers.”

Mr Patel said since hiring the guards, his business had been free of loitering and other crime.

“We wear Kevlar, we are trained, my guards go to training every other week, they’re proficient with [their guns] and with their taser, they know the law,” chief Andre Boyer told FOX29.

In an online poll, 93 per cent of readers said they would feel “safer about guards with AR-15s at gas stations”.

Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania, has been gripped by a wave of violent crime, with a record 562 homicides in 2021 and similar pace so far this year.

Last week, dramatic CCTV footage showed a Philadelphia petrol station clerk in a shootout with an armed man suspected in a violent rampage that included a carjacking, home invasion and store robbery.

Police say petrol stations have become a magnet for violence, with crimes against customers – including shootings, armed robbery and carjackings – rising steadily over the past five years.

“If you’re looking to carjack somebody, it’s much easier to get somebody that’s getting gas, standing right outside their car with their wallet and keys in their hands, than it would be to yank somebody out of their car at a red light or stop sign,” Inspector Charles Layton told The Trace.

“I don’t think the public is aware of this because they may think of shootings usually happening at bars or nightclubs, certainly not at gas stations,” lawyer David P. Thiruselvam, who has filed nine lawsuits against gas stations, told the website.

“But it’s becoming an epidemic, and the gas station industry is aware of it because it’s in the news all the time. But they are not doing anything about it.”

Last month, Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled House voted to impeach Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, alleging his policies had led to the spike in violent crime.

The unprecedented 107-85 impeachment vote paves the way for a Senate trial that could lead to his removal from office – although it would require a two-thirds vote in the chamber where Republicans only hold a slim majority.

The 22-page resolution claimed Mr Krasner’s policies, including reduced sentencing plea deals and not requesting cash bail for misdemeanours and felonies, had led to “catastrophic consequences”.

“While incidents of violent crime are increasing, prosecution of crime by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has decreased during this same period,” they wrote.

In a statement after the vote, Mr Krasner said the Republicans had not presented “a single shred of evidence connecting our policies to any uptick in crime”.

“Every decision I make as District Attorney is with the goal of seeking justice and improving public safety,” he said.

“Public safety has always been my primary goal, and I have never deviated from more intensely focusing on the most serious and violent offences.”

He added that “in the hundreds of years the Commonwealth has existed, this is the only time the House has used the drastic remedy of impeachment of an elected official because they do not like their ideas”.

“History will harshly judge this anti-democratic authoritarian effort to erase Philly’s votes – votes by black, brown, and broke people in Philadelphia,” he said.

frank.chung@news.com.au