Police reform, civilian oversight and use of force became the focus of a news organization’s coverage following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man.
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By no means did I, in 2015, observe the totality of the work done by the Philadelphia Police Department, but I did interact with the institution and its employees frequent enough for Philadelphia Magazine in their review of the year’s biggest stories to cite me as a go-to source for news on the subject of police reform.
My interest in the department, given how expansive it is, was relatively narrow: policy, civilian oversight, and community relations.
The catalyst for my year-long observation of Philly policing was not because I intend to join the force, but rather an egregious, high-profile fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man that took place several months prior to the release of a Department of Justice assessment of PPD which found that, in addition to the department’s use of force policies being fragmented which “can be a source of confusion for officers,” cops do not “receive regular, consistent training on the department’s deadly force policy.”
The timing of the assessment’s publication and the shooting of Mr. Brandon Tate-Brown, combined with the activity by the local and national Black Lives Matter movement, appeared to me as more than just a recipe for good news stories, it was an opening to investigate under-scrutinized areas of policing that were now of great public interest and, when maladies found, advocate for corrective measures through political action.
One of the first problems I noticed within the department was in February—a month before the pubic saw the report ‘An Assessment of Deadly Force in the Philadelphia Police Department’ ––when I moderated #PhillyAfterFerguson, a citywide town hall meeting aimed at improving, among many things, policing and political participation.
Outside of the church where the event, organized by Techbook Online, was held, several police cars with their lights flashing were stationary, and some officers stood in front of their vehicles, none though made an effort to greet or connect with Philadelphians as they entered the building, despite a repetitive claim by the department that it engages in community policing.
Some attendees later told me that the already acrimonious gathering – which featured Mrs. Tanya Brown-Dickerson, the mother of Mr. Tate-Brown, Mr. Kevin Bethel, a Deputy Police Commissioner, and others – was exacerbated by the less than friendly energy the police projected prior to the events onset.
It became clear that courtesy was not yet a cornerstone of whatever community policing philosophy had been drafted in the C-Suite.
During the town hall, I observed another area in which the police department here could improve: communication and outreach to the families of those killed by police. The local news media in February had more information, albeit incorrect, about the December 15th, 2014 shooting of Mr. Tate-Brown than his own mother, who found out about the incident from the radio and who didn’t receive an apology for such a malfeasance until she confronted Mr. Bethel, for the first time ever, on the night of February 11th.
Mr. Bethel pledged to, in collaboration with his colleagues, reform how they communicate news of fatalities to families, though to date no update on that topic has been issued, and Mr. Bethel this month retires, as does Mr. Charles Ramsey (on Jan. 4th), the police commissioner who held private for months the name of Mr. Tate-Brown’s killer, only to, before his tenure ends, portray himself as a champion for transparency, so much so that he spoke in opposition of a bill in the state that would keep private the names of officers involved in shootings unless they were charged with a crime.
Mr. Ramsey’s change of tune on transparency was undoubtedly a result of recommendations issued in March by the COPS (Community Orientated Policing Services) Office within the Department of Justice, who, in their report, found that “more transparency is needed to properly keep the community informed.”
In April, Techbook Online and The Declaration, two online, Philadelphia-based news organizations, hosted a Mayoral Forum on police and criminal justice reform entitled #TransparencyNow.
At the event, Brandon’s Law – community-driven proposed legislation named after Mr. Tate-Brown that would require the police department to release pertinent details of fatal officer-involved shootings, including names of officers –was unveiled.
But also at the forum, where Mrs. Brown-Dickerson served as the interviewer, another problem with Philly policing surfaced: arbitration.
When Philadelphia police officers, for whatever reason, are fired from the department, they’re often reinstated via arbitration, a process not open to the public. In fact, 90 percent of officers fired by Mr. Ramsey for wrongdoing are reinstated, according to NBC10. In essence, the Mayor nor the police commissioner of Philadelphia have the last say in who patrols their streets.
Mr. Jim Kenney, who becomes the City’s 99th Mayor tomorrow morning, said at #TransparencyNow he supported Brandon’s Law, but was unable to promise any real changes to arbitration, as the process is a state law and any augmentation of it would be considered a work-rule change, which requires negotiation with the local police union, whose President told me no reform to the process is needed.
Even the incoming police commissioner, Mr. Richard Ross, doesn’t see a clear path to immediate arbitration reform, though 2017, when the city’s contract with the police union expires, might present activists and officials with the first window of opportunity to make change.
And to be fair, it’s not just activists who want a change to the landscape of policing here in the nation’s fifth largest city. In June at City Hall during a closed-door convening entitled ‘Securing Our Future’, I, the only reporter granted access to the room that day, witnessed a good number of police officers genuinely interacting with the city’s youth and expressing ideas on how to re-imagine police and community relations.
Year-long movie nights at precincts, taking selfies with citizens while patrolling the streets and more micro-interactions with the public when there’s no conflict at hand were just a few of the proposals uttered by Philadelphia police officers on June 10th in the Mayor’s Reception Room.
Throughout the summer months and into the fall, there were several protest against the Police Commissioner and the District Attorney.
For the most part, police officers showed restraint – as compared to others cities like Baltimore and Ferguson – and, though their work was often the subject of the protest and they themselves, at times, were berated by some activists, officers kept a calm demeanor, only a small number of them did I see ever become agitated, or take on the role of the agitator.
For example, in mid-December, on the one year anniversary of Mr. Tate-Brown’s murder, a large-scale protest was held in Center City Philadelphia. Mr. Tate-Brown’s mother and family participated.
When police aimed to prevent protesters from traversing onto Broad Street heading south, activists, determined to move, began to shove. I attempted to escort Mrs. Brown-Dickerson out of harm’s way only to have a white male officer try to use his bike as a weapon on her, which caused a momentary, yet heated confrontation between one of Mrs. Brown-Dickerson’s son and a few protesters and the officer and his colleagues.
And later that evening, as protesters convened on Rittenhouse Square, a couple officers seemed to be provoking them, leading one of the activists, Mr. Asa Khalif, a cousin to Mr. Tate-Brown, to offer up a warning: “If you hit me I’m going to hit you back!”
The most outspoken activists, those who’ve been protesting police violence since the shooting of Mr. Tate-Brown, haven’t been engaged at all by local government during the policy reform process, though Mr. Kenney has expressed interest in a meeting with them once he’s sworn into office.
Reforming policy without real input from those who either have to enforce it or will be impacted by it, has been a constant criticism of the department.
In addition to the Police Advisory Commission pushing for more community input in new policy roll-outs, the assessment of the police department found that while the policy and planning division conducted significant outreach to other department personnel in revising their use of force policies, outreach “did not include patrol officers or sergeants whose position at the street level can help shape the policy in a way this is understandable, practical and accessible to such officers, as they are the most likely to apply the policy to everyday practice.”
The police department is said to be 90 percent complete in implementing recommendations and the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission, in terms of access, is in a much better space today than when 2015 began.
However, the PAC, now with greater responsibilities, remains as under-resourced today as it did this time last year.
A bill sponsored by City Councilman, Mr. Curtis Jones, Jr., would have allowed for a ballot referendum to enable voters to choose whether the Home Rule Charter should be augmented to include the oversight agency as a permanent piece of government with a budget of over one million dollars.
The bill, once a “political priority,” has disappeared from public discourse without explanation from Mr. Jones and the PAC is suffering as a result.
In 2016, what Philadelphians should be concerned with most is the progress of the 10 percent of recommendations left incomplete; the engagement and diversity of the Mayor’s Community Oversight board established to oversee the recommendations’ implementation; the status of Councilman Jones’ bill to bolster civilian oversight; how the new Mayor and Police Commissioner define reasonable suspicion since the campaign promise to end stop-and-frisk morphed into nothing more than a pledge to ensure stops are absolutely done legally; and whether, given the alarming rate of heroin use and abuse among whites, stops-and-frisks will be a frequent occurrence in neighborhoods populated largely by the aforementioned race.
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Keep a look out in January 2016 for an NPR Music documentary starring Grammy Award-Winner Mr. Christian McBride and co-starring Mr. Christopher “Flood the Drummer” Norris.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™