Police officers in Philadelphia increasingly are faced with the split-second decision of when to use deadly force. And even before cops fatally shot 15-year-old Ronald Timbers on Monday afternoon in Crescentville as he brandished a household iron, these kinds of incidents had been on a steady rise.
A Daily News survey has found that Philadelphia has one of the highest numbers of police-involved shootings among the nation's big cities.
In 2006, Philadelphia police reported 110 police-involved shootings with 22 fatalities - a somewhat higher rate than this year's tally of 45 police-involved shootings with 11 fatalities after a little more than nine months.
By comparison:
* Los Angeles, a much larger city, reported 44 police-involved shootings with 16 fatalities in 2006, and 45 shootings with 21 deaths this year.
* Chicago, also larger, reported 44 shootings with 17 fatalities in 2006, and 29 shootings with 13 fatalities this year.
* Houston - America's fourth-largest city - reported 43 police-involved shootings in 2006 with seven fatalities. The city has had 30 shootings so far this year, with seven fatalities.
* New York officials were unable to provide numbers of police-involved shootings for 2006 or this year, but said that since Oct. 1 the city has had seven fatal police-involved shootings.
While there is no clear reason why Philadelphia's numbers of police-involved shootings are among the highest, experts and officials give several explanations.
Top cops and police-union officials say the situation reflects the large number of guns on the streets and too many thugs with no respect for human life. But critics say that police training is inadequate and note that other cities are taking a more innovative approach.
University of Pennsylvania Law Professor David Rudovsky, who specializes in police-brutality cases, blamed the department's high shooting numbers on lax supervision and poor training.
