Police Brutality

A coalition of 30 civic, religious and political groups this week sounded a public alarm about police brutality, an issue that has not been in the forefront of public debate since department reforms six years ago. The coalition charged there is a "widespread perception in many of our communities . . . that routine abuse and harassment of citizens by the police has been increasing and becoming more violent in recent years. " The standard measure of police abuse - the number of complaints filed by citizens with the department - would appear to contradict the coalition's contention.

Considering the size of the crowd that filled South Street Saturday night, police say that things didn't turn out all that bad. But four teenagers charged with assaulting police officers are alleging that they were victims of excessive force. Police said that five officers were injured and 19 revelers were arrested Saturday after thousands of young people swarmed South Street. Cops had bulked up patrols on the street after "flash mobs" appeared on at least two weekends earlier this year.

Police Commissioner Kevin M. Tucker yesterday rejected a call for an independent investigatory panel with Hispanic community membership to look into allegations that police officers used unnecessary force while arresting three North Philadelphia residents - two of them pregnant women - on Feb. 12. Tucker said that he hoped the normal 45-day Internal Affairs Division investigation could be accelerated and end in 30 days. "I left the meeting with mixed feelings," said David Sambolin, an attorney and spokesman for the local chapter of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights.

The videotaped beating of Thomas Jones by Philadelphia police officers is yet another incident that calls attention to the nationwide, systematic problems of police brutality and racially discriminatory policing. I am a former U.S. Marine and police officer who has come under gunfire and confronted many fleeing suspects both armed and unarmed. Regardless of the severity of Jones' alleged actions, his having been set upon by a mob composed of law-enforcement agents indicates cowardice and a lack of professionalism by the officers involved.

AIDS activists lambasted the police commissioner yesterday for appointing a panel to review a department probe of allegations that police brutalized protesters in Center City last week, claiming that its job is merely to cover up the truth. But a member of the panel said that based on TV news footage he's seen, it appears that police used excessive force in quelling a protest by ACT UP, a militant AIDS group. "It looked like a police riot," said Larry Gross, one of the panelists.

The city yesterday agreed to pay $325,000 to a brain-damaged North Philadelphia youth to settle a hotly-contested case alleging police brutality. "It certainly doesn't admit any wrongdoing. Frankly, we don't believe there was any," said City Solicitor Stephanie Franklin-Suber. The settlement between the city and Kareem Glass, 18, ended a jury trial that had been in progress before U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno. The city's top lawyer said she agreed to settle the case to avoid a risk of the jury awarding much more to Glass, who had been seeking several million dollars in damages, according to court records.

Nearly three weeks ago in New York City, 30-year-old Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was ensnared in a confrontation with police that even Los Angeles' Rodney King could never have imagined. Two officers at Brooklyn's 70th Police Precinct were accused of the physical and sexual abuse of Louima, a married security guard with no prior arrests, after a skirmish outside a nightclub. He was allegedly beaten by police on the way to the precinct. He was taken to the men's room, he said, where 25-year-old officer Justin Volpe allegedly used the handle of a toilet plunger to sodomize him, then jammed the stick into his mouth, breaking a few of Louima's teeth.

The outrage was immediate and the response of government was swift to the widely viewed videotape of the police mini-riot by white Los Angeles Police Department officers against a black suspect they had stopped after a high- speed chase. The amateur photographer's pictures of Rodney King writhing on the ground while being clubbed with police batons and shocked with a stun gun were powerful symbols that the LA district attorney, federal officials and opinion writers, liberal and conservative, could not ignore.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and 15 others were arrested yesterday when they attempted to cross the East River Drive during a march protesting local injustices to blacks. The arrests came about 5:20 p.m. as Sharpton, along with lawyers Alton Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason, led about 500 people on a march from Harlem to a rally outside Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence. After his arrest, Sharpton vowed to "agitate every week until we get (Mayor Edward) Koch out. " Sharpton announced he would take Tawana Brawley to Washington today to meet with Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.

Five Upper Darby police officers will go on trial this week in federal court for allegedly beating an 18-year-old township resident who had punched a daughter of one of the officers and left her with a swollen lip. "This is what you get when you f--- with my daughter," one defendant, Sgt. Peter Rorke, allegedly screamed at Edward Smith Jr. while beating Smith with a "slapjack" outside Smith's home as other officers watched on Sept. 26, 1988, prosecutors contend. In addition to Rorke, the defendants include Gary Vinnacombe, 35, Dennis Keegan, 31, and two officers who were rookies at the time of the incident, Richard Smythe, 29, and Paul Kelly, 25. U.S. District Judge James McGirr Kelly has scheduled jury selection to begin today.

Officer's acquittal roils in Houston HOUSTON - A jury's acquittal Wednesday of a former Houston police officer in the alleged beating of a 15-year-old burglary suspect during a videotaped arrest upset black community leaders who criticized the verdict as unjust and racist. Andrew Blomberg, 29, was the first of four fired police officers to stand trial for their roles in the alleged beating of Chad Holley during a daylight arrest on March 2010. The incident involving the black teen, now 18, prompted fierce public criticism of the police department by community activists who called it another example of police brutality against minorities.

BEFORE THERE WAS a New Black Panther Party, there was an old Black Panther Party. Launched on the streets of Oakland, Calif., in 1966 in response to complaints of widespread police brutality against African-Americans, the Black Panthers become an icon of the turbulent 1960s in a remarkably short time. Its leaders — including co-founders Bobby Seale, Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver — were nationally known figures at a time when it appeared that the American social order might come undone.

Rodney King makes a dashing first impression when we meet in the lobby of an Old City hotel to discuss his new memoir, The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption. Tall, strapping, and disarmingly good-looking, King initially projects a confident tranquillity, as though he's at ease with himself and the people around him. I'm thinking, this guy has got it going on. But he doesn't. Not really. It's been 20 years since the not-guilty verdict for the four Los Angeles police officers who beat King to within an inch of his life, touching off the most devastating riot in U.S. history.

Aid worker found dead in Pakistan QUETTA, Pakistan - The body of a British Red Cross worker held captive in Pakistan since January was found in an orchard Sunday, his throat slit and a note attached to his body saying he was killed because no ransom was paid, police said. Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, was managing a health program in Quetta, in southwestern Pakistan, when armed men seized him from a street close to his office. The identities of his captors are unknown, but the region is home to separatist and Islamist extremists who have kidnapped for ransom before.

A Waterford police sergeant has been suspended from the force after he was charged with threatening a resident with whom he has had a long-running dispute in the eastern Camden County township. According to police accounts and court records, Sgt. Joseph McNally was off-duty at Starky's Pour House in nearby Winslow Township on March 15 when he confronted Tracey Miller. Miller had sued the Waterford department last summer, claiming McNally and other officers beat him and his father during a stop for alleged drunken driving.

In the first full courtroom trials of Occupy Philadelphia, protesters arrested during their two-month campaign in the city, all 10 defendants were acquitted Thursday on charges of obstructing a highway during an Oct. 23 protest outside police headquarters. "I think the judge was recognizing the validity of their expression of First Amendment rights," said lawyer Paul Hetznecker, who represented several of the Occupy protesters who appeared in Municipal Court before Judge Patrick Dugan.

THE OCCUPY Philly movement showed up yesterday in a municipal courtroom, where a judge acquitted 10 members of obstructing-a-highway charges stemming from a protest outside police headquarters in October. Occupy attorneys hailed the victories as a boost to the First Amendment. "I'm thrilled. It's wonderful to see that free speech still lives in the cradle of liberty," said Lawrence Krasner, one of the attorneys who represented the protesters pro bono. The 18-hour protest against police brutality unfolded Oct. 22 and 23, and featured protesters sitting in the street and tying up traffic around the Police Administration Building, at 8th and Race streets.