By Dustin Slaughter Rob Bielunas has served as the Government Affairs Liaison for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office External Engagement and Government Affairs Division since 2025, where he helps manage relationships between the DAO and elected officials at both the city and state levels....
By Dustin Slaughter Before joining the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in 2021, Pittston, Pennsylvania native Stephen Girman had been quietly laying the foundation for a career in prosecution, clerking for Judge Frank Palumbo, and becoming more familiar with the nuts-and-bolts of the...
By Dustin Slaughter Assistant District Attorney William Fritze has built an unusual career path within the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, rising from a victim advocate role to Chief of the Gun Violence Task Force through nearly two decades of service. Fritze was raised in a small farming...
By Christopher Oluwole, Ciara Sheerin, & Betsey Carroll We Embrace Fatherhood is a nonprofit, community led organization that aims to promote and facilitate intentional transformation of families. The organization was founded in 2020 and hosts services and programming with a focus on...
By Christopher Oluwole, Ciara Sheerin, & Betsey Carroll Philly Truce was founded in 2020 by childhood friends and schoolmates, Mazzie Casher and Steven Pickens. Mazzie and Steven were discouraged and highly concerned about the state of Black and brown communities in Philadelphia,...
Authors: Meaonka Agers, Ciara Sheerin, Betsey Carroll The Education Culture Opportunities (ECO) Foundation was founded in 2018 by Kyle Morris. Morris is a survivor of gun violence in Philadelphia and has known many others who have survived or been victim to gun violence. To combat this,...
District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics (DATA) Lab Two monthly charts, the “IAC Sankey” and “Case Outcomes Sankey,” highlight 1) the number of crime incidents reported to or observed by law enforcement, arrests made, and cases opened, and 2) case outcomes. For more...
By Dustin Slaughter At the intersection of mental health, treatment, and criminal justice, Arona Gur has built a career defined by a belief that legal systems work best when they focus not only on punishment, but on long-term human outcomes. Long before becoming Supervisor of the Mental Health Unit...
By Dustin Slaughter Jody Dodd brings decades of experience in peacebuilding, social justice, and restorative practices to her work at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Trained in restorative practices by Quakers in the early 1980s, Dodd describes her professional path as “an...
By Jenine Pilla, Ciara Sheerin, & Betsey Carroll RAWTools Philly is a Kensington-based non-profit that aims to take guns off the street by destroying and repurposing them into art, jewelry, and gardening tools. Shane Claiborne founded the organization in 2011 at the same time...