Philly FOP President to Police Advisory Commission: “Your group poses a direct threat to public safety in this City. A threat which should no longer be tolerated by our citizens or their government.”

In a
letter sent a little more than two months ago from the
president of thePhilly Fraternal Order of Police to the Philly
Police Advisory Commission, the FOP president wrote it was
“absolutely incredible that you would engage in any attempt to
further weaken and demoralize the Philadelphia Police Department in
a time of crisis with a significantly growing crime problem in this
City. The danger your policy poses to our citizens is both reckless
and inexcusable.” The Commission’s alleged attempt to weaken
the Philly PD involved calling officers and telling them to
apologize to civilians that have complained.

The Police Advisory Commission did not respond to the letter.
Asked about it, the executive director, William Johnson, said: “the
letter isn’t factual in its content, so we’re not going to engage
in that.”

The letter from the FOP president ended by claiming the Police
Advisory Commission “poses a direct threat to public safety” in
Philadelphia. Joel Mathis at Philly Magazine’s Philly
Post blog
interpreted the letter this way:

McNesby’s attitude, then, is that
accountability—even
toothless accountability—is dangerous, that citizens who demand
it are a threat. This is scary stuff.

To be fair, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey appears to be
fighting these attitudes… But he’s fighting an uphill battle.

We in Philadelphia rightly and regularly lament the “stop
snitching” culture that allows criminals to evade
responsibility for their crimes. But we rarely talk about how that
culture is perpetuated by the evident contempt of local cops for
the city and residents they serve. The police don’t earn our trust
just because they have a badge and a gun.

Philadelphia police hate Philadelphia. Their job might be
easier—and we all might be safer—if they didn’t.

You can read the rest of this article at: http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/04/philly-fop-president-to-police-advisory

Short URL: http://www.txwclp.org/?p=10683

Posted by rbutler on Jun 4 2012. Filed under Libertarian News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry