The tragic news of Josh Kruger’s murder this week sent shockwaves through our community, leaving many of us grappling with an unsettling sense of disbelief.
The media landscape in the Delaware Valley can be described as somewhat insular, despite being part of a sizable market. Many of us who wield the pen either have personal connections or have crossed paths in some professional capacity. Josh Kruger’s name had been on my radar for over a decade, and, at times, it wasn’t for the most harmonious reasons.
Permit me to use his first name, although we never formally met. Josh was someone whose political stance and personal beliefs stood in stark contrast to my own. He once characterized himself as a Democrat with Socialist leanings or, alternatively, as a Socialist with Democratic “moderating” tendencies. Our perspectives were polar opposites.
Where I saw a blue sky, Josh perceived magenta.
Our exchanges on social media were often marked by my incredulity at something he had written. Our most recent interaction centered around a piece he had penned, criticizing the convenience store chain Wawa for “abandoning” Philadelphia. He argued as if Wawa had an obligation to subject its employees to shoplifters, drug-related issues, confrontations, and homelessness.
Josh might have chosen the term “unhoused people” and would have likely reframed the term “drug addict,” possibly sharing his own experiences with substance abuse. He might have countered my concerns about criminal vagrants by underscoring their underprivileged status in society, and he could have contended that pilfering a few Tastykakes and a Red Bull didn’t make someone inherently bad.
In other words, our viewpoints were at odds, to say the least. Throughout most of my career as a columnist, we navigated around each other, pretending as though the other didn’t exist.
However, on Monday morning, when news broke that he had been shot to death in a home invasion, I could no longer feign ignorance. It was a tragic and shocking reality that I couldn’t ignore. Initially, I hesitated to comment because of our past disagreements; it didn’t feel appropriate.
But as I perused social media, I encountered sentiments that left me deeply disturbed, realizing that silence could equate to complicity. Remaining silent in the face of what was transpiring among those who shared my political leanings and affiliations would be tantamount to condoning their actions.
Though I may not have been a friend to Josh in life, his passing has prompted me to offer this in his memory.
Josh Kruger was an ardent advocate for the city of Philadelphia, as I am, yet he seemed to turn a blind eye to the gun violence crisis unfolding in our midst. He was unwilling to acknowledge the rising homicide rates, unwilling to entertain the notion that Mayor Jim Kenney, his former boss, might be an ineffective and inadequate leader presiding over this surge in violence. He appeared to mock those who voiced concerns about children’s safety in certain neighborhoods.
One of his last public posts was a retweet from Scott Adams, the former Dilbert illustrator, who suggested that if Joe Biden were elected, Josh would be killed. Josh cheekily referred to Adams as “Nostradamus.” That very night, he was fatally shot.
Adams, devoid of empathy and in the worst of taste, posted a response upon learning of the murder: “Oops. Did not realize he was shot to death yesterday for not getting away from the hellhole in which he lived.”
This comment was relatively mild compared to some of the other reprehensible posts I encountered on Josh’s timeline. It’s astonishing how some individuals crawl out of the woodwork when they perceive no risk of pushback.
Cowardice and a lack of decorum are not unexpected traits in such instances. However, they become soul-crushing when you consider that some of these individuals were the same ones who normally “liked” my work and sent emails extolling my writing prowess.
There exists an unspoken line that we must not cross when someone dies in a tragic manner. We should never blame the victim for their own death at the hands of a criminal, regardless of the victim’s support for policies that may have heightened the risks.
Here’s the thing: the scant information available about the murder suggests that it wasn’t a random shooting related to robbery or other unrelated criminal activities. It appears that the victim may have known his assailant, and the motive might have been linked to a domestic issue. In the days leading up to his death, Josh had posted about vandalism at his home and receiving strange mail. This doesn’t appear to be the type of violence we disagreed about—random, nihilistic criminal behavior that plagues our streets daily.
This underscores the need for those on the right to refrain from making snarky and callous remarks. Sadly, most of these insensitive comments emanate from the right, with some seeing this tragedy as an opportunity to score political points.
Even national figures like Mike Cernovich, a right-wing pundit, had the audacity to suggest that individuals who had mocked Josh’s speech impediment had mysteriously died. As if this somehow justified Josh Kruger’s murder because he had decried the escalating tide of gun violence.
Death demands, at the very least, sobriety if not sympathy. As our grandmothers wisely advised, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
To my fellow travelers: Displaying inhumanity only results in the loss of allies.
