Mayor-Elect Mike Nutter, progressive's darling, has announced that he has selected former D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey to be Philly's next police superintendent. Albert Yee has some experience being on the receiving end of Ramsey's riot police:
I'm not saying that Ramsey is going to have riot police around all day everyday. But this is a taste of what he's capable of. I don't recall anyone being killed at this demonstration. This was also a nationally organized protest. The Black Flag Army (some serious, militant anarchists) were there so there was definitely provocation at times. But that didn't stop the cops from launching tear gas into random pockets of people. It was quite nuts to be on the campus of George Washington University as it transformed into a partial urban warzone. ...
How will Nutter's crime plan mesh with Ramsey's style of enforcement? Time will tell. Philly needs to change to fight the amount of crime in the 5th largest city in the U.S. - how violently it will fight crime is a different story. I'm hoping for the best, but know (partially) what to expect for the worst.
He has pretty dramatic pictures up of the D.C. police beating on people. This makes Ramsey fit right into Philly cop culture, which regards protesters as a waste management or pest control problem. Not that mass protest is even relevant to day-to-day Philadelphians' lives, but it is indicative of an attitude. Sam Dash used to tell Frank Rizzo stories, most memorably Rizzo's reaction to Dash's advice that the cops can't just go out and beat up on poor African-American residents of Philly: "But Sam, they're animals!" Did I mention that Mike Nutter wants to declare a state of emergency in certain neighborhoods?
some philly neighborhoods ARE IN A state of emergency....hell i want to see national guard troops on the streets but they were all sent to iraq.
this whole thing is a cycle....the police feel very vulnerable and powerless....and who wouldnt....the good people in the neighborhood feel very vulnerable and powerless....and they are....the thugs feel completely powerless....and they pretty much are.....which is why they have guns.....everyone is shouting at each other and nobody wants to give an inch.....lets just build more prisons and search everyone and every place for illegal guns....put them all in jail....screw the nra and screw the aclu....and screw the unions too...build the prisons with unemployed non union labor....people from the streets.....and put the crooked cops and politicians in the prisons first....let them warm the place up and get it ready for the street thugs.
and then lets use them for medical research and find the cure for cancer.
no matter what it takes.
go michael nutter!!!!
go flyers!!!!
Posted by: butter | November 16, 2007 at 11:37 AM
Ramsey's appointment is troubling, but the sense I get in my neighborhood is that people want to be reassured that 'something is being done.' I think a mixture of tough talk with rigid respect for civil liberties might be just what the city needs. As Street is fond of reporting, shootings and petty crime are down across the city. And murders, as I'm constantly pointing out at malcolmxpark, though they were pretty bad for the first part of the year, have subsequently drawn even with last year and now even dropped below. I think, more than anything, that "the whole thing is a cyle" but it's a cycle of fear, and that can be mitigated with some reassuring talk from our leadership.
Posted by: Andrew | November 16, 2007 at 12:35 PM
I think it's about economics. During the 90s, things were good and Rendell and Timoney got credit for things they weren't responsible for. Now Street and Johnson get blame for things they can't control. Since we're probably heading into a pretty bad recession, I wouldn't look for any improvement on the overall crime rate.
Posted by: Mithras | November 16, 2007 at 12:46 PM