Posted on 12/03/2007 1:06:02 PM PST by Daffynition
Expect Michael Nutter's new police commissioner to start out of the gate next month at a sprint.
Charles H. Ramsey, Nutter's choice to replace Sylvester M. Johnson, fully agrees with the incoming mayor's promise to declare a crime emergency in some parts of the city on his first day in office, Jan. 7.
"Declaring a state of emergency is fine with me," Ramsey, the former Washington police chief, said in an interview Friday. "Crime is at an unacceptable level. . . . It's certainly something we have to get a handle on real quick."
How Ramsey will carry out the emergency response is less certain. He spent much of last week getting his bearings in his new city - meeting with Johnson and the department's command staff as well as attending several district roll calls to introduce himself to the rank and file.
"One reason I came up now, even before I take over, is to start the process of getting that sense and that feel of what's going on," said Ramsey, 57. "I think you have to rebuild the airplane while it's in flight. That's the nature of the business.
"If I wanted an easy job, I certainly would not have chosen Philadelphia. I was looking for a challenge. And that's what this is."
Taking command of the 6,700-officer department is not the only thing on Ramsey's mind. He and his wife, Sylvia, a school psychologist, are shopping for a house. They've already toured Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill, Fairmount and Rittenhouse Square.
"My wife wants a home, a single-family home," he said. "A Realtor is taking us around. Half the time I don't know where I'm at."
In time, the city's landscape will become more clear. And so will Ramsey's crime-fighting strategy.
Ramsey, who worked in Chicago for 29 years before he took over Washington's troubled Metropolitan Police Department in 1998 and served until the end of last year, met Nutter about three months ago when the candidate sought him out in Washington.
"We had dinner together and hit it off immediately," Ramsey said. Nutter offered him the job in the days after the election and introduced his commissioner-designate to the public Nov. 15.
Ramsey said he and Nutter were in agreement on Nutter's crime-fighting strategy, including Nutter's promise to employ a controversial "stop, question and frisk" policy to target illegal weapons.
Though outgoing Commissioner Johnson has warned that Nutter's stop-and-frisk strategy could risk "disaster" by alienating the public, Ramsey said the aggressive tactic was a "valuable tool" as long as it was conducted within the law.
"You need reasonable suspicion in order to stop them," Ramsey said in an interview the day his selection was announced. "There's a way in which you interact with people - you don't want to alienate folks by being rude and abusive. Usually when people get stopped by policemen, what they complain about is not the initial stop, they complain about they way they were treated and disrespected by the police officers."
Ramsey said the Philadelphia Police Department is in good condition compared with the force he took over in Washington in 1998, which was demoralized, under-equipped and scandal-ridden at the end of Mayor Marion Barry's term.
Upon arrival in Washington, Ramsey took immediate action to restore the department's tarnished integrity. He put an end to uniformed officers working part time in strip clubs and bars (off-duty Philadelphia officers are prohibited from working in establishments that serve alcohol).
"That doesn't make you popular with people who have those jobs . . . but you have to have a department that people have respect for, that the integrity of the department is intact. It's very, very important. It's more important than anything, quite frankly. Because if you don't have that, you don't have much of anything else, you know."
He said the Washington force had a reputation for the "indiscriminate" use of force. Eighty percent of the officers had gone more than two years without firearms training. "We totally revamped our training, and our shootings dropped 77 percent," he said.
While he has not analyzed the large number of recent civilian shootings by Philadelphia police - officers have killed about three dozen people in the last two years, the largest number since 1980 - he noted that that six Philadelphia officers have been shot in the last two months - one fatally - and that the environment was much different from Washington's.
"The bottom line is that there's an awful lot of force being used against our officers," Ramsey said. "I'm not going to have them sit there being sitting targets while somebody's taking shots at them."
In Washington, he was able to impose his will quickly by appointing his own command team. He won't have that freedom in Philadelphia, where the city charter limits him to pick only members of his command staff. While Ramsey said he supported a proposal to change the charter to give him more flexibility, he is prepared to work with the system he has.
"I have to assemble my team now and work with them," he said. "But hopefully that changes in the future, not just for me, but for future police commissioners."
Though the Philadelphia department is swirling with stories that Ramsey will disband certain units or jettison established practices, the new commissioner said he was still learning his way around and had made no decisions.
"Rumors always start," he said. "When I took over the Washington, D.C., police department, the first thing they thought was I was going to bring checkerboard caps like they have in Chicago. . . . We'll take a look at those kinds of things; those are minor tweaks. The biggest challenge I have to get my hands around first is crime-fighting strategies and how we're going to approach crime."
“Declaring a state of emergency is fine with me,”
Pretty close to declaring martial law. This is what happens when you let things get so bad that even martial law sounds better than living in this hell hole.
I don't need to read any further to be against this d--kweed. Since when did it become the job of our schools to provide mental health services?
Parents should be contacted and a suggestion should be made that they "MAY WANT, BUT AREN'T REQUIRED" to seek mental health care for their child. The schools should not be in the position of evaluation children on this level, period.
There is vast room for inappropriate actions when these services are provided in school, and I object as strenuously as I possible can to it.
PHILLY, PING!!!
Well, at least the new Mayor cannot make things worse. The last Mayor should have wound up in the Big House for being crooked as a dog's hind leg.
Congressman Billybob
Amen. Also, guidance counselors are just there to funnel kids for services.
It's all those dreadful murder-death-kills!
Makes ya misty fer good ole' Frank Rizzo, don't it?
I am surprised the ones that can afford a new home have not moved to Virginia along with the rest of the Northeast!! Virginia is a tragic situation. This is how to make a red state blue!! And yes!! They bring their politics also
Exactly. How do you justify your useless job if there are no "problems?" I had one in middle school trying to talk to my daughter and told her in no certain terms that she would cease immediately or face legal action.
I don’t know about Virginia, but in Rizzo’s day there wouldn’t be much declaring, though crime would go down.
I know some people whose child was having a hard time in the first grade. The teacher was getting very frustrated with the child. She was giving the parents a hard time. It came to the point that the parents pulled the kid out of the school.
The teacher had the audacity to tell them they couldn’t do that. Imagine, you can’t pull your child out, it’s against the law.
They pulled the kid out and had the kid start the first grade again the next year. At that time the child did much better. The issue was resolved.
Good for you. If I were in public office, that is one area where I’d rip the lungs out of the education complex. Spend those dollars on education and get out of the health care business. NOW!!!
Wow! Why didnt we think of this before? Reduce the crime rate by clamping down on the rights of the people!
Incompetent idiot.
LOL! Good God, that should DISqualify him, not qualify him.
Hey, I’m from Chicago and I’m here to clean up your city...
worked in Chicago for 29 years before he took over Washington’s troubled Metropolitan Police Department ...
LOL! Good God, that should DISqualify him, not qualify him.
My thought too, I sure wouldn’t brag about it.
Jack
Hey, it’s not so bad. If it nabs a potential terrorist (or has the potential to do so), the program can be expanded nationwide.
Oh come on M.Street, Lets continue as it was with your do nothing term so that the death rate can grow to 1000 per year.
If you did your job the rate would have gone down and there would be no need for this type of control.
IIRC, Philadelphia is one of two places in the state where the state issued concealed carry license is *not* honored. Maybe before effectively suspending the fourth amendment, they could try obeying the second, and this provision of the Pennsylvania constitution:
“The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.” Article 1, Section 21
Clearly the criminal aren't obeying their unconstitutional laws, why should the law abiding be subject to their restrictions?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.