Mr. Richard Ross provides context on statement about stop-and-frisk made during interview with The Philadelphia Tribune’s editorial board.
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Appropriately, it’s been Philadelphia’s black media outlets that have, since a contentious April 29th stop-and-frisk town hall meeting featuring the Mayor and the Police Commissioner, kept the controversial policing tactic that disproportionately impacts African-Americans in front of their audiences.
Since the late April event – that was organized by Techbook Online, a news and event company, and P.O.W.E.R, an interfaith advocacy organization which ranks racial justice among its top priorities – the topic of stop-and-frisk has gained momentum: 900am-WURD, Pennsylvania’s only black talk media outlet which is headquartered in Philadelphia, featured Rev. Mark Tyler of P.O.W.E.R and I, representing the organizers cohort; Mr. Asa Khalif and Ms. Shani Akilah, who spoke a week later on behalf of the advocacy community that was perceived as the disruptors of the evening; and, as of yesterday, Mayor Jim Kenney, who campaigned on ending stop-and-frisk and who since taking office has been accused of breaking his promise to black voters.
Additionally, Techbook Online, which I founded in 2009, has published stories on the subject, one which called on Philadelphia City Council, who in 2007 adopted a resolution to listen to public testimony on expanding the use of stop-and-frisk in the wake of increased gun violence, to hold hearings on reigning in the practice, which was the cause for a 2010 class action lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia, alleging that pedestrian stops are being executed without reasonable suspicion and with racial bias.
And The Philadelphia Tribune, the nation’s oldest newspaper continuously owned by African-Americans, published a post reviewing Mayor Kenney’s first 100 days in office—which centered almost exclusively on stop-and-frisk—and just days ago, the institution published a wide-ranging interview with police commissioner Richard Ross, which, too, dealt with stop-and-frisk, though not exclusively.
It was the latter story, which quoted Mr. Ross as saying that a person stopped by police who isn’t found to have a gun on them could still be guilty (this wasn’t the exact quote but rather a summation of his sentiment), that caused some stop-and-frisk critics to look, with eyes of shock, twice at the post. Some who saw it feared that the police commissioner was implying that citizens, particularly black ones, are guilty until proven innocent.
Before tensions were exacerbated by the article, I reached out to Mr. Ross to seek clarification, and he was happy to oblige. Mr. Ross, who spent more than an hour last week with the newspaper’s editorial board, contends that his statement was printed without proper context, though he doesn’t believe there was any malice intent.
Here’s the example, as told by the police commissioner, which was left on The Philadelphia Tribune’s cutting room floor: If a Philadelphian was robbed at gun point by a man whose description was communicated succinctly to authorities and that man—upon a patrol of neighborhoods with the victim in the car – is spotted by the victim but the gun is no longer on the person of the accused, that man is no less a robber and the stop, though it didn’t immediately turn up a weapon, was, indeed, valid.
I agreed with the police commissioner’s example, given that many suspects may be inclined to toss their firearms after a crime, but there’s still a larger issue at play: most pedestrian stops, which are intended to get guns off the street and prevent crime, don’t yield dividends.
When asked whether he would sign off on a stop-and-frisk cost-benefit analysis, Mr. Ross didn’t completely rule out the idea, though he informed me that he has no jurisdiction over that type of process.
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