From this week's print edition: City officials' story of entire neighborhood that won't snitch on behalf of 2-year-old girl is disturbing - and probably not true.

City, media are quick to blame "stop snitching" culture in shooting -- maybe too quick.

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From this week's print edition: City officials' story of entire neighborhood that won't snitch on behalf of 2-year-old girl is disturbing – and probably not true.

POSTED: Thursday, August 2, 2012, 2:50 PM
Filed Under: News

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When a two-year-old girl was shot, among three others, at an outdoor party and police were unable to find suspects, city officials pointed fingers at the community in which the crime took place, accusing residents of clamming up and not helping police. 

Philadelphia public safety director Michael Resnik described a “total apathy” on the part of neighbors, “plus, maybe, an acceptance that this is the way it is.” He was sure, he added, that “word’s out on the street” as to who committed the crime.

Negrin was even more blunt. The lack of information was “inexcusable on the part of that community,” he told the Daily News. “Everybody there knows who the shooters were.”

Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky weighed in. “If they don’t care about their community, why should we?” he began, leaving the they/we distinction to the imagination. He concluded, “I can understand why people who live in civilized communities might want to wash their hands of those who have thrown in with the thugs.”

An entire neighborhood unwilling to come forward even to find justice for the shooting of a little girl — it’s a harsh, provocative story, a real teaching moment. 

Except there’s almost no evidence it’s true.

Click here for the rest of the story from this week's edition.

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