Post by Bill on Jul 29, 2003 13:29:42 GMT -5
interesting article from
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 14, 1995 issue of
Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
PHILADELPHIA POLICE:
CORRUPT, RACIST CRIMINALS EXPOSED
By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia
An official investigation of police activity here has
revealed persistent racism, planting evidence against
suspects, and widespread corruption and criminality.
The investigation has uncovered a pattern of police
abuse against impoverished Black and Latino residents--
no surprise to these communities. Time after time,
people whose only crime was to be poor and oppressed--
ranging in ages from youths to grandparents--have
been framed and sent to jail.
In thousands of cases, the only solid evidence against
people convicted of crimes was planted or otherwise
created by the police. Cops also often used made-up
evidence to extort money from alleged drug dealers--
or they sold the drugs themselves.
Racism and corruption are nothing new in Philadelphia's
police force. Temple University historian Russell F.
Weigley describes the city's newly consolidated police
force in 1854 as follows: "The police were recruited
from the kind of toughs who came out of the street
gangs and were accustomed to beating up Irishmen and
Blacks. The early police specialized in legalized
violence." (Philadelphia Daily News, Aug. 30)
You don't need to go back over 100 years, however, to
find evidence of racism, abuse and corruption in the
Philadelphia police department.
In the 1970s Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo targeted
the Black Panther Party. Philadelphia cops also
assaulted and murdered members of the MOVE
organization in West Philadelphia. The May 1985 police
bombing of the MOVE house left 13 people dead and 61
homes destroyed.
This July 8, a group of cops barged into a wedding at
Zion Baptist, a Black church in North Philadelphia,
and arrested the groom.
The investigation that started with the 39th district
has been expanded to the department's showpiece unit--
the Highway Patrol, which escorts presidents and other
visiting dignitaries and provides back-up in drug
arrests.
In this unit described as the "cream of the police
department," as many as nine officers face charges.
They are accused of not only stealing drugs and money
and framing suspects, but also of selling seized drugs
back to street dealers.
COPS FRAMED SUSPECTS
In the 39th district, five white former cops have
already been convicted of framing people, lying to
obtain search warrants, stealing money, falsifying
arrests, and beating and threatening people.
Their victims, all Black, may number over 1,150. To
date convictions have been overturned in nearly four
dozen cases in which these cops made the arrests.
In late August, a sixth 39th-district officer, Louis
Maier III, also pleaded guilty.
The widening corruption probe also now includes five
murder cases. The former cops have admitted to paying
witnesses to testify in murder prosecutions, and to
planting drugs to justify illegal searches in order
to obtain evidence for murder convictions.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Aug. 31 that
federal investigators have subpoenaed the logs of as
many as 100,000 arrests over 10 years in six police
districts--the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, and the
Highway Patrol.
Meanwhile, another case revealed a lot about the
deep-set racism in the police department.
A white police captain, Thomas Thompson, was recently
transferred and faces suspension. Thompson was head of
the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Unit, which
handles community complaints of police racism.
This police official--who was supposed to be in charge
of "sensitivity" to and relations with the oppressed
communities--was overheard making racist slurs against
a Black police officer while both were on assignment
at the Aug. 12 rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal at City Hall.
THE WHOLE BUSHEL'S ROTTEN
As scandal and corruption rock the police force,
the city administration has attempted to downplay
the crisis as merely a case of "a few bad apples."
Mayor Edward Rendell says he wants to "just put
this behind us."
The population doesn't buy this argument. African
American talk show host Mary Mason told the Daily
News (Sept. 1) that callers were "unanimous in
their belief that this is not an aberration. They
were more than willing to share their own bad
experience with the police."
While the scope of the investigation is limited,
it has helped expose the role of police under
capitalism. Their job is not to protect working-
class and oppressed neighborhoods. It is to occupy
these communities.
Philadelphia City Council member Michael Nutter has
called for an independent panel to probe the police.
But many people in the community say internal
investigations and special commissions, set up by city
officials, only whitewash police crimes.
The people of North Philadelphia need an independent
community-control board--one with powers to investigate,
expose and prosecute the racist, corrupt cops.
- END -