PhillyDaily.com ran my Crime Beat column today. The column offers my Q&A with Frank Scales (seen in the above photo).
You can read the column via the link below or the text below:
Confronting Krasner: My Q&A with 22-year-old activist Frank Scales - Philly Daily
I’ve watched videos of Frank Scales, a 22-year-old
firebrand political conservative activist confronting Larry Krasner (seen in the above photo), who is
running for reelection as Philadelphia’s District Attorney.
I reached out to Frank Scales and asked him about his
opposition to Krasner and his confrontations with the Philly DA.
You can read my Q&A with him below:
Davis:
I watched your videos of you confronting Philly DA Krasner and his supporters
at public meetings. Would you please explain what happened?
Scales:
We went to the first Town Hall. We went with the intention of hearing him out
and asking questions about his policies that we disagree with. When we walked
in the door, we were greeted by someone who said Larry wouldn’t be answering
our questions directly, and that we had to write down our questions on a flash
card and a moderator would take and read to a panel. We were disappointed. We
wrote our questions down and we sat down.
But as soon as Larry started talking, he immediately
started demonizing President Trump and Republicans, and at one point, I said
enough is enough and I got up and said, stop doing this. This is what leads to
political violence. This is why Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He responded by
calling me a fascist.
At another Town Hall meeting two days
later, we were met on the steps by Larry’s LBGTQ advisor, Asa Khalif, who physically stopped us from
entering. He hurled insults at us and threatened us for an hour
straight. Later one morning, I saw Krasner at the park, and I confronted him
and asked him why I wasn’t allowed into his Town Hall. He immediately started
attacking me. He wouldn’t answer my questions. His hands started shaking, and
he was verbally and physically aggressive. His comebacks were weird.
Davis: I watched
your video on your Facebook page where Krasner is on a bicycle in the park and
he tells you to read a book about fascism and World War II, and when you ask
for a book title, he either wouldn’t or couldn’t give you one. And then he said
that Trump was trying to stop women from voting. Well, I can give you a book
title about the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, Herman Wouk’s historical
novel, “The Winds of War,” and his WWII novel, “War and Remembrance.”
Scales: I would be still
open to having a conversation with him, but I don’t think he is open to having
a conversation with me. He has the wit of a demented old man and a temperament
of a teenager. I’m not trying to insult the man, but that is what I saw. I wanted
to know why he thought Trump’s a fascist. Why does he think that Trump is
looking to take away women's vote? I don’t think he has ever been challenged,
so he's gotten away with this rhetoric that he can’t back up. Quite frankly, I
don't think he was prepared to actually give me a book title. I would read a
book he recommended.
Davis:
Have you read Ralph Cipriano’s pieces at BigTrial on his confrontations with
Krasner?
Scales:
Yes. Krasner has a habit of insulting the people who disagree with him, kicking
them out of meetings and silencing them.
Davis:
Why do you call Krasner “Lawless Larry?”
Scales:
I call him “lawless” because he puts his ideology above the law that he was
elected by the public to enforce. I’ll give you an example. When it comes to
illegal firearms, he has stated that he doesn't believe that illegal firearms
lead to shootings. As a result, he has declined to prosecute a lot of cases in
which people were carrying illegal firearms. People are breaking the law, and
he doesn’t want to prosecute because of his personal beliefs and
ideology.
He does not prosecute people with illegal firearms,
but at the same time he’s playing the blame game and blaming Republicans for
shootings by people who were protecting themselves under the Second Amendment.
So he wants to take away the rights of law-abiding citizens to have firearms to
protect themselves, while at the same time allowing criminals to possess
illegal firearms to carry.
Davis: And
some say he is on a one-man crusade to prosecute cops.
Scales:
Yes, absolutely. I've never seen anything like it.
Davis:
I was taken aback to hear Krasner say that DA now stands for “democracy
advocate” and not district attorney.
Scales:
It is a dereliction of duty. He has been elected and paid to by a district
attorney, not an advocate for the Democratic Party or for his ideology. For him
to be allowed to say that goes to show you that in Philadelphia over the past
50 years has been an echo chamber. I think we need to change that. We need to
hold these people accountable. I hope that I can inspire people to speak up and
hold them accountable and challenge their rhetoric.
Davis:
I don’t care for one party rule of either political party.
Scales:
They call Republicans and President Trump authoritarians and fascists and all
this, but who is silencing their political opponents? Who is ruling a county
with one-party rule? Who won’t allow Republicans into town hall meetings? These
are all things that fascists and authoritarians would do, and Democrats are the
ones doing it.
Davis:
You’re kind of young to be involved in politics. How old are you?
Scales:
I’m 22 years old.
Davis:
Would you please tell us about your background and how you became a political
activist?
Scales:
I would say that I was passionate about politics from a very young age, and I
thought that I had to go through other things before I could actually get
involved in politics. I went to Community College for Biology. There was a
student government election coming up, and I figured I would throw my name in
the hat, and I ran for president. I made posters and I walked around for three
days straight getting people to vote, and I won by the largest margin in
history. That's because I was the first one who actually make it extremely
serious.
I went into student government, and I worked every
day. It was a full-time job for me. But that energy wasn't welcomed by the
school's administration. They cited me for hate speech for expressing support
for the Founding Fathers of the country. So, I ended up getting fired. A free
speech advocacy group advocated on
I went into student government, and I worked every
day. It was a full-time job for me. But that energy wasn't welcomed by the
school's administration. They cited me for hate speech for expressing support
for the Founding Fathers of the country. So, I ended up getting fired. A free
speech advocacy group advocated on my behalf and the administration dropped the
charges. I continued as president of the student government. I endorsed
President Trump on my Instagram account because my eyes were open to how corrupt
the Democratic Party is. A month or two later, the school’s administration
impeached me and removed me from office. They stated that it was partially
because of my support of President Trump.
I took a few months off to gather myself and I wrote
about the incident, and then I wanted to get involved again. What happened at
Community College of Philadelphia was a microcosm of what happens in the city
of Philadelphia and broadly on a national scale. So, I and my cofounder of
Surge Philly, Ian McInnis, began making videos, talking about all of this stuff
with the goal of getting the conservative viewpoint out there, and to let
people know that they aren't alone. It's OK to speak up, zero to one. If one
person speaks up, it’s a whole different ball game. That was our goal. I loved
what we're doing. That’s my passion – it's not even work for me.
Davis:
How would you describe your political group Surge Philly?
Scales:
We are a group that is trying to energize conservatives in Philadelphia to take
back our city.
Davis: Who were your
influences?
Scales: When I was
really young, Nigel Farage caught my attention. I would say Jordan Peterson was
instrumental in me developing my beliefs around Christianity and my basic
ideology about the world, and I would say Charlie Kirk was a huge
influence.
Davis: What are
you and your group doing to advocate your views?
Scales: We are having
an open debate every Saturday at Logan’s Square from 4pm to 6pm. We want people
who disagree with us to come up and debate us. This is the most powerful thing
you can do. Surge Philly is going to be available to the public. We are going to
convince people through our words. We have a GoFundMe page to
help raise money for the group
Davis: Do you support
Judge Dugan for DA?
Scales: I do. I think we need to vote out Larry Krasner. I think Judge Dugan will do a good job.
Paul Davis's Crime Beat column appears here weekly. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com.
