“They, you know, they’ll be missing flesh all the way down to the bone in some cases.”

Michael McCarrick, the Chief Inspector for Philadelphia Police Regional Operations Command North, made the above chilling comment as part of his disturbing description of a Philadelphia neighborhood plagued by homelessness and rampant drug addiction. In many cases, McCarrick added:

You can see just the body of individuals completely deteriorating before your eyes.

New video footage from the distressed Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia — previously referred to by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials as the “East Coast’s largest open-air drug market” — has been obtained by Fox News Digital. The disturbing video shows desperate addicts injecting heroin and other potentially lethal drugs, such as synthetic fentanyl and xylazine (a drug used by veterinarians to sedate cattle and horses) in broad daylight, unfazed by passersby or traffic in the busy streets.

Incidentally, as my colleague Bob Hogue reported in January, “soft-on-crime” Kensington has been in a downward death spiral for years.

Overdose Deaths Skyrocketing

In addition to a sharp rise in fatal overdoses, according to Fox, by the time the medics arrive, infections associated with xylazine use have progressed to the stage that some addicts face amputations or permanent disability.

The below image shows a young unconscious woman moments before medics arrived. There were countless other people in the same desperate condition, while others sat slumped over or aimlessly wandered around.

Hard to watch, for me, anyway, even if the life-threatening actions are self-inflicted.

At least one Democrat councilman says enough is enough.

Councilman Mark Squilla, who represents Pennsylvania’s first district, said that while the city’s “outreach teams” do their best to curtail homelessness and runaway drug abuse, various (Democrat) policies continue to hold the city back, and “the more we allow that behavior to happen,” he added, the worse it gets.

We have the heroin is now mostly fentanyl. The fentanyl is mixed with xylazine which is tranq on the street. We see the open wounds and sores. So, the more we continue to allow that behavior to happen, the worse it is for those folks that are in addiction.

And so I would like to say, all right, you don’t want the services, but you have to move on from here. You have to either leave this spot that you’re in. Or you have to take the services necessary to get you help.

If we’re just going to clean up around a problem like we do on Kensington Avenue every day, then we allow the same behavior to happen. We got to constantly clean up every day. It looks good for a couple of hours, and then it’s back to how it looked before. We’re spending a lot of resources and money that’s not addressing the problem.

So, it’s like having a pig and putting lipstick on a pig. Still a pig. We’re not really dealing with the crisis at hand, which is the unhoused people, the opioid epidemic, the open-air drug markets, and the violent crime that comes with that.

I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that if Democrat city mayors and more city councilmen believed the way Mark Squilla believes, we’d see rampant homelessness, out-of-control drug abuse, overdose deaths, and violent crime rates decrease sharply.

And while I lightly applaud the councilman’s acknowledgment, the reality of large Democrat-run cities runs the gamut to the contrary. Jail cells might as well have revolving doors, as repeat offenders are returned to the streets multiple times, in many cases resulting in preventable violent crimes.

Addicts also roam the streets in parts of San Francisco, Portland, New York City, Chicago, and multiple other troubled Democrat-run cities, as well.

And what are the chances of Councilman Squllia’s advice gaining traction anytime soon? Somewhere near zero.

This video contains graphic images that may be disturbing to some people.

The Bottom Line

I’ve been a political writer for some time, but I’m pressed to remember the last time I was as deeply disturbed as I am by the self-harm done to the minds and bodies of desperate people — who should not be allowed to live the way they live by “compassionate” Democrats who are more concerned with so-called “systemic racism” inherent in “white supremacists” across America.

Joe Biden was unavailable for comment.