Authorities say a journalist and advocate who rose from homelessness and addiction to serve as a spokesperson for Philadelphia’s most vulnerable was shot and killed at his home early Monday.

A journalist and advocate who rose from homelessness and addiction to serve as a spokesperson for Philadelphia’s most vulnerable was shot and killed at his home early Monday, police said.

Josh Kruger, 39, was shot seven times at about 1:30 a.m. and collapsed in the street after seeking help, police said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Police believe the door to his Point Breeze home was unlocked or the shooter knew how to get in, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. No arrests have been made and no weapons have been recovered, they said.

Authorities haven’t spoken publicly about the circumstances surrounding the killing.

  • halfempty
    143•9 months ago

    I’m always a bit suspicious when a Journalist is killed like this. Who were those who may have been threatened by what he published?

    • @oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
      9•9 months ago

      https://www.inquirer.com/crime/josh-kruger-killed-point-breeze-shooting-philadelphia-journalist-20231002.html

      “Either the door was open, or the offender knew how to get the door open,” he said. “We just don’t know yet.”

      Detectives believe Kruger’s death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.

      In recent months, he’d written on social media about a variety of alarming incidents at his home.

      In April, he posted that an ex-partner had broken into his home. “The door was locked, so he had somehow obtained a copy of my keys,” he wrote. He had allowed the man, whom he’d known for years “before his troubles,” to stay at his house briefly after being released from jail. He said he was able to deescalate the situation and the man eventually left, and he changed his locks.

      In August, someone threw a rock through his home window, he said. Then, about two weeks ago, he wrote on Facebook that someone came to his house searching for their boyfriend — “a man I’ve never met once in my entire life.” The person called themselves “Lady Diabla, the She-Devil of the Streets” and threatened him, he wrote.

      • @x4740N@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20•9 months ago

        This is why journalists should invest in a dead man’s switch that will automatically publish stuff I the journalists cannot check in

        One last fuck you from the grave

    • @Nahvi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3•9 months ago

      Same here.

      I have an uncle who was killed due to an article he was doing research for. Sadly, he ended up in a coma and then someone came back to finish the job. It had a large impact on my mother and her siblings, though it was a few years before I was born. I had always wondered how much of it was an exaggeration until a couple years ago when we found an article saying basically the same things the aunts and uncles always had.

        • @Nahvi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1•9 months ago

          That is a great idea, but no. He was living in another part of the country from them at the time of the initial attack. The article was written in that area.