Cops in Philadelphia Targets of Gunmen

Rick's Rambles

by Rick Leventhal

"In Philadelphia, gun violence has reached near-epidemic levels. People are getting shot and killed at a pace not seen in years. On average, one person is dying by bullet every single day.

Police are being targeted, too. Many have been shot at, and in the past seven weeks, six officers have been hit … all in the line of duty. One was even killed. He responded to a call at a donut shop, not knowing the disturbed person inside was armed and ready to fire. The officer had his weapon unholstered and at his side when he walked through the front door, and the would-be robber became an assassin, putting a bullet in the 54-year-old policeman's head.

The suspect was caught the next day, the same day Officer Charles Cassidy died.

I've been to Philly to cover many of the recent shootings, including the murders of two retired cops, who were working as armored car guards and were shot at close range by a career criminal looking for a big score.

Every time we go to Philadelphia we wind up at police headquarters and I find the soon-to-be-retired police commissioner Sylvester Johnson wearily answering the same questions, seemingly powerless to do much to stop the violence.

They haven't given up, of course. The department has special teams of highly trained veterans targeting high crime areas with increased patrols and aggressive stops and searches designed to limit or discourage drug and gang activity and to keep corners clear.

They've reached out to community and church leaders, launching campaigns to get more civilians involved in keeping neighborhoods safe.

Arrests and seizures are at an all-time high, but Johnson knows he can't arrest his way out of the problem, and he can't talk the criminals out of stealing or dealing or robbing or killing either.

He says there are simply too many illegal handguns on the street, and too many troubled kids with severely limited resources and opportunities who see few options. Johnson wants federal help; programs to help the young and the poor find a better future. He added that tougher gun laws are needed to make it far more difficult to buy a pistol on the street, especially for the16-year-old recently arrested for allegedly shooting two undercover narcotics cops. It was a .357 Magnum. He allegedly opened fire out the ground floor window of a crack house, hitting one cop in the hip and the other in the leg as they tried to use a battering ram to break down the door.

"Homeland Security is important," the Commissioner likes to say, "but so is Hometown Security."

Should have thought of THAT years ago, Chief. Back when the liberal politicians were raping your communities of even the remotest shred of common decency. Didn't take omniscience to see the trouble to come, hell, who WASN'T talking about it when you were a cop on the beat?

Ten percent of the state's population happens to be be black. and many live in Philadelphia, Chief. 44% of the population of Philadelphia is unemployed, Chief, and your city has one of the highest dropout rates in the nation, making it one of the least educated communities in America. Unemployed, undereducated people using illegal street drugs usually leads to one thing, Chief. I'm speaking to you and not the idiot "blogger" who wrote this magnificently stupid tale of woe, but since you believe that guns can be violent you share some of the idiotic blame as well, Chief.

So why aren't you asking the teaching community why they cannot seem to educate the kids, and the parents and relatives of the bad kids why they are making so many bad kids.

Instead, you are pushing for "tighter gun laws", which is just another way of saying that you'd like to target the people who DON'T commit any crimes because you CAN'T catch the ones that do. Before Rudy tackled similar problems in similar neighborhoods in New York, people were saying just what you are saying, Chief. That you can't arrest your way out of this mess. And isn't it ironic that you profess to be unable to arrest more people but want more laws to create more criminals? How does one handle THAT dilemma, Chief?

But lets tell the truth, Chief. You want safer criminals. Just like your liberal politicians who wanted to create a sub-race of people, you yourself want a sub-race of crooks. Taking away the guns from the ones not using them to commit murder makes good headlines because it seems like something is being done, isn't that right, Chief?

If 10% of the states population is committing nearly 80% of the states murder, wouldn't you want to look into THAT, Chief? But instead, you're asking the federal government to pump even more money into the welfare rolls, thinking that more cash equals less crime. But you know the reality, Chief. You know that more money would mean more not less guns, don't you? But you can't arrest yourself out of this problem, oh no. That'd skewer the prison statistics even more unevenly than it already is.

Bottom line is the fact that yours is one of the most difficult law enforcement jobs in the country. And that you need to get tougher with the violent criminals but cannot. That you do not have nearly as many good cops as you need because you've been forced into affirmative action hirings that have led to a lot of officers capable of shuffling paperwork and nowhere near enough street cops.

It's a dead giveaway when someone begins complaining how hard their job is, Chief. So this is a great time to retire, but you'll be replaced by another token law enforcement officer who will begin his complaints soon after taking the oath. Here's something, however, that you might want to pass along to him:

Inanimate objects cannot be violent. Stop worrying about all those legal firearms and concentrate on sending the owners of the illegal ones away to prison for the rest of their lives.