The Melting of Trust
Patrick EdmondsPhiladelphia summers often produce a few heat waves of unbearable nature. The excessively high temperatures, combined with the intolerable humidity, usually dissuade the most avid of outdoors enthusiasts, relegating them to the more comfortable confines of their air-conditioned sanctuaries, whether it is one room or the entire house. For those less fortunate, the heat pushes them outside into the available shaded areas, the front stoops with fire hydrants cracked open, and the commiseration of others in similar sad states. Whatever one’s condition may be, the Philadelphia heat wave has the ability to melt away the most noble of pursuits- a run along Kelly Drive, a trip to the Zoo, a visit to South Street, a game of hopscotch, or a day at the pool- the Philadelphia heat and humidity can dissolve our greatest images of summer quicker than the Popsicles in our hands.
Yet this debilitating effect of certain days and weeks of the summer is not all Philadelphia’s heat is known for; no, it is also renowned for its penchant to draw out the worst in people. Acts of intolerance, impatience, incompetence and incivility percolate and often boil over into horrible scenes of domestic violence, savage assaults, tragic mistakes and brazen killings. And this heat-induced hostility knows no boundaries of race, class, or geography. At the trendy bars of Old City, the hipster outlets of South Street, the tourists rides along the river, the dark alleys of Mantua and Kensington, and now most recently, even certain precincts of our respected police department, the sweltering nature of this mind-altering heat seems capable of liquefying our most hardened principles.
The recent shocking news of three Philadelphia police officers accused of collaborating with local drug dealers to rob a drug supplier, and then, worse yet, resell the stolen heroin onto the streets of their respective communities, signifies a new low in the Philadelphia Police Department’s recent and historic unlawful exploits. And while this is evidently a case of a few rogue cops, hardly a reflection of the brave, dignified, professional majority of police who serve Philadelphia, the unfortunate reality is the nefarious deeds of a few often resonate louder than the good deeds of the many. The actions of these three police officers, who the citizens, communities, and entire city entrusted to protect from such heinous predators and not become them, will certainly serve to decay and melt away the trust of these same citizens and communities during these hot summer months and beyond.
With the remaining month and a half left in this already scorching summer, it is imperative of police and city officials to now dedicate all their due diligence to begin the repairing process and cooling the anger and distrust of this city’s citizens. While Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey stated the status and future problems of the three police officers bluntly, “We are in the process of terminating all three. Those three are history, but that will be the least of their worries”, he failed to recognize the fact that the firing of these officers will actually be the least of his worries as well. And although Mayor Nutter pontificated that the city “Does not employ criminals”, the unfortunate reality is that it does, and this is hardly the first case of such insidious acts. However, this case, for all its vile nature, must serve as the breaking point for the department and all its members to turn over a new leaf and strengthen its efforts to fulfill its promises of safety, integrity, and trust.
No more can the department allow crooked cops patrol the most vulnerable communities. No more can the police leadership condone the no snitching policy, similar to the drug dealers and their protective communities, that pervades this department and permits such criminal behavior to exist. No more can the city’s leaders tolerate such egregious failings, failings that exist in more than just a couple of precincts. No more can the city permit itself to be a cesspool of depraved corruption by its most trusted members.
As Police Commissioner Ramsey and Mayor Nutter sweat out the remaining months of summer, plotting and scheming a way to rectify this situation, they would be wise to acknowledge the core of its problem. And while Ramsey intends to melt the three officers’ badges, a symbolic action of outrage, he’d be wise to realize that such a gesture will only go so far in repairing the trust that has been melted away by these officers’ deeds and remember that there are many more weeks ahead for the Philadelphia heat to do its worst.
Reader Comments (7)
There is no way to repair the reputation of Philadelphia cops. It is true that most do good, but month after month a new story appears of corruption and crime in the very people who are meant to provide safety.
If you can not trust an organization to do the right thing, then changes must be made. Dirty cop stories are more prolific than good cop stories, and I do want to point out that cops jumped in the river to save the Duck boat passengers last week, in a great show of courage.
I echo your call for change in an outward manner. Public trust is already broken with cops. Unless you know one personally, you are pretty much on your own. Your fate is always in their hands and you can only hope they are of noble character or in a good mood.
These are the changes I would make:
1) All Police should have College Degrees in Criminal Justice or Law
2) A reward of $25,000 put up by the Police members and City for any information that leads to a dirty cop or corruption.
It is depressing that we can not trust our cops, but it is more depressing that leadership continues to misevaluate employees that leads to corruption that erodes the Public Trust.
Cripes...I saw this and thought it was a remake of "The Shield."
I may be mistaken on the numbers Dugan, but for such a low-paying job (at least to start) with a lot of risk...you will not get a great deal of applicants wanting to be city cops that are coming out of college. I know coming from NY, that they are desparate for enrollees to be cops in the city while they have year waiting lists to get on the force out in Long Island where that are almost guaranteed to make six figures by year 5 with a fraction of the danger. Working for what they do in a major city is either an act of love built in from having it in the family, or someone who may not have a lot of options. This then breeds corruption where you have people coming in with a non educated background given power but little money. Being someone who has law enforcement on both sides of the family, it is awful to believe that a few corrupt men spoil what is a noble profession. It would be the same as saying "we cannot trust female teachers around our teenage boys because some of them have been known to sleep with students as seen on the network news." Like any other job in this country, you have some employees who suck and or leaches on their employer.
Dugan, I have no problem with the education requirement, but in turn I would support a better starting wage for these guys to encourage a more "well rounded" background for new cops in the city. That is the only way it will work.
CJ,
I agree that the low starting wage and the family entitlement may create a small pool of applicants, and one way maybe to fix the quality of the character is to raise the salary, but that is impossible with shrinking budgets and the huge tax benefits that cities are offering companies to stay.
But it is more than a few bad apples. It is a horrible job, but that is why they are held to such high esteem. You ask any kid what they want to be, and a cop is usually in their list of top three. We want and need our cops to be as perfect a human character as possible, or we will have no confidence in their ability to protect and follow the law. If the citizens have no confidence, then they will take drastic and sometimes uncivilzed measures to protect their property and lives.
One cop can spoll it all for every good police man, but the city of Philadelphia, again and again, proves that the line between the criminal and the protector is being blurred. It is never in the reality, everyone knows that most cops are good people who are up against unbelievable greed and callousness, but with each story the public trust, just like it has in politics, turns cynical.
Would you send your kid to Philly for school? Would you continue to live there if you had the means to go elsewhere? For good or bad, the image of Philadelphia, for all the great aspects it holds, is tarnished and it will take one hell of an advertisemnt campaign to recover what those three cops destroyed.
While I agree with CJ that these rogue cops are in the minority, they are still a plague upon the department's image. Also, I think their actions are far more extreme and detrimental than a teacher sleeping with his or her student, which is still disgusting and reprehensible. For one, reports of cops allegedly committing crimes are far higher than the misdeeds of any other public servant or community activist or professional of any kind. Also, the crimes they are accused of committing- rape, robbery, and sometimes murder- are of a far more serious nature than any you read about amongst other professions. Worse yet, I would be willing to argue that, unlike other professions, there are far more acts of this nature that occur that the public and no one else ever learn about due to the rigid code of silence that exists amongst police, which doesn't seem to exist in other professions. I mean the fact that they have an entire department (internal affairs) dedicated to arresting their own reflects as much.
I say professions above because cops are professionals, even without a college degree, and the majority are great men and women serving their communities with pride and a genuine desire to serve and protect (sorry, it was there). But as my original argument states, this is not enough for these communities. One, it is the cops job to serve and protect, which therefore warrants less respect from these communities; and two, cops are fairly indistinguishable. They don't walk the beat like we want to imagine and therefore don't develop strong community ties, so it is only logical for communities to be wary of all cops or most cops or some cops because of the actions of a few. Finally, I don't believe the cops arrested were entirely evil individuals. They've probably served with integrity for many years, often enduring situations most can't even fathom, which probably incited their despicable decision. But that's the point, if any cop can be turned bad because of the streets they protect, who can these communities trust?
Liked the post but I want to offer some criticisms if I may. First, the heat metaphor in the first two paragraphs was a little overwrought for my taste. Other than that, your argument about the police's failure and need for reform is dead on. I just think it sounds so familiar. We've seen stories like this so many times and read/write the same complaints, and to what end? In a political environment like Philadelphia, where corruption in the police dept is just one of many flaws in a system that has been run by the same political machine for decades, why should we even hope or expect a change? If the elected officials can count on an uninformed vote from a populace who seem not to mind that they're leaders rarely help improve their constituents' lives, then how can we in the suburbs even expect our voices to motivate them to shape up. Years of little to no accountability for elected officials eventually translate into corruption. Most good people then leave and those left are even more vulnerable to poverty and hard pressed to change their situatation. Some parts of the city are really nice to visit, but seriously there is a reason people move out of Philly, and as much as I love the place, I wouldn't live there again any time soon.
I like the constructive criticism Caraway. I don't think we do enough of it on here. I tried to develop a contrast of good and bad in the beginning, and how hot weather can often destroy it or create it. I wanted to extend the idea that our romantic images of summer are often vanquished pretty quickly once it gets very hot, just like our ideal images of police are destroyed when we read stories like this one. The idea came to me as a result of hearing that the Commissioner intends to melt the officers' badges, but I thought it worked on different levels as well. Heat- Cops, etc.
Either way, what would you do? Minimize? Eliminate? Let me know.
It's a good contrast to draw and you did it with good examples and word choice, but I would cut it down to one paragraph for a blog post. I'd also make sure you get to the topic of police corruption by the end of the first paragraph. I liked the idea as you wrote it in the last sentence of the second paragraph, but personally I want to see the post's topic introduced right away to see if I'm interested or not. So maybe edit and combine the first two paragraphs into just one. That's just my personal preference though; I could see an argument to draw out the writing longer so that the image heavy style evokes the subject of oppressive heat more for the reader.