We don't want the incinerator reopened, don't get me wrong, but I was just curious about that.
I am sure the Streets Department would be better able to answer your question about that.
Yeah. I will raise that again, but since we were on the question of lots, I just wanted to raise that with you. Thank 472 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 you. No further questions. Thank you.
I would like to follow up. I could point to the Streets Department, but I have observed something Mr. Managing Director --
Good morning. I have observed something that you might want to address. I have noticed that it is not short dumping, but many landscape companies are collecting leaves from private property. They are then hauling those leaves to locations on the street and dumping them by the truckloads, and then having the Streets Department responsible for hauling them away. I observed one -- one of these, I call it short dumping operations where they actually dumped them under a bridge. And if those leaves were ignited, they would have taken out this whole SEPTA bridge. So I pass that on to you to let you know 473 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 that even though it isn't perceived by many people as short dumping, in my opinion it is a private contractor for profit collecting leaves on private property and taking them out by the dump truck load, dumping them on the street for you then to have to haul them away.
But, Councilman, if you remember almost a year ago when we had severe wind storms and we had a lot of tree branches come down, that was also the tactic taken by private homeowners as well as contractors who went onto private property to remove dead limbs and trees that had been broken and fallen, that they did not take those to dump sites and pay the tipping fees. What they did was they moved those items, those branches and those trees, to city streets. And it necessitated a special operation that we had to put together with elements of the Streets Department, L & I, and Fairmount Park, to cut them up and then take them over to the recycling center. And that is why we had such an overflow of that kind of material all through the Spring and Summer, and that is why we have so much mulch over there now. 474 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
Well, in this one particular incident, they had actually dump trucks dumping them. And I called -- I, realizing that this is something that shouldn't be going on, I called the Streets Department, and they immediately must have sent a supervisor out there to get the information. And in a couple of days I noticed it was all cleaned up. So I assume that they put the fear of God into whomever the contractor was, and they went back and cleaned them all up.
Well, no, I think they may have caught them in the act.
They may have caught them just in time, yeah. But, no, you're absolutely right. That happens with yard waste and that kind of material, in addition to the trash.
This was a half a block of leaves. I mean, this was where they used that basically as a dump. And they were just, truck after truck after truck just dumping there. So I just wanted you to be aware that 475 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 that's not in my opinion short dumping, but it is an abuse of our taxpayers.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
Thank you. One of my favorite subjects: abandoned cars. What are we going to do about the abandoned cars? You and I have had this conversation.
Councilwoman, we sure have. I have had this conversation every single day with somebody. We work very closely with the Philadelphia Police Department in the Managing Director's Office. We have initiated from time to time special programs like the one we have in the area targeted for Operation Sunrise. It is based on some things we have done in the past in previous administrations where we would conduct a sweep, designate a particular lot, a 476 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 location, a city owned lot, where we could do a sweep, and bring all of the vehicles to that lot for the salvagers to come to that lot and take those vehicles away. More and more the vehicles that are left on the street are in some cases set on fire or in other ways are not as valuable to the salvagers as they would have been had they been left intact. And salvagers are reluctant in some cases to respond to the abandoned vehicle officer for the districts. Now, each police district has an abandoned vehicle officer whose responsibility it is to move around the district and identify abandoned vehicles and process them for removal by salvagers. In some cases, what I've heard lately -- and this is no reflection on the Police Department -- in some cases the abandoned vehicle officers from time to time don't have access to the kind of transportation that they need to move around the district on a regular basis because those cars are put in use for patrol functions. Those are some of the reasons that I have heard from the abandoned vehicle officers. 477 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 In other instances, the AVOs may not be as aggressive in doing that work as they could be. We have tried and will continue to try to work with the districts and the abandoned vehicle officers and the Office of Fleet Management to move into an area once the vehicles are identified, and pull them out, be of assistance to the police host squads in pulling those vehicles out. It is just that a huge number of vehicles are brought to certain areas of the City and dumped there. Many of the vehicles are not because of residents in that particular area, they are being brought there. For every ten vehicles that we clean up in the area targeted by Operation Sunrise over in the Kensington area, right now, we can say 12 or 13 reappear within a matter of days.
Let me ask you a question: What is the process -- what is the process for the salvager to remove a car? And is the system computerized? Suppose the officer assigns a salvager to a car. Is it possible for the salvager to remove the car, get paid for it, move it someplace else, 478 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 and move it more than once?
Oh. I'm sure -- I'm sure that that's a possibility. Councilwoman, if I may, Madam President, if I may, Deputy Commissioner Tom Estel from the Police Department is here who can probably respond to that. And the Police Department has testimony coming up right after mine, I believe, and that might be better put to him.
That is the first time I have had that one put to me. But I am sure that that is a possibility that may happen from time-to-time. I don't know. I doubt very seriously because of the paperwork. There is a 30-day processing period. There are certain amounts of paperwork that the abandoned vehicle officer, as well as the salvagers, have to process before a vehicle can be removed, which sometimes contributes to the delay in removal. But I have not heard of an instance 479 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 where a salvager would remove a vehicle, take it somewhere else, and place it. But I am sure anything is possible.
Well, I don't know what the process is. I don't know how -- whether you have all of this information computerized, so that if I have an abandoned car in the 35th District, it is on the abandoned car list, someone in West Philadelphia could go into the computer and see if that car is on the list. But if they have no idea that this car has been removed from Mount Airy and taken to West Philly or removed from West Philly and taken to Mount Airy -- I am not saying that the salvagers would do this, but is there a possibility it could be done?
It could be. I just don't see how it would be economically feasible for a salvager to engage -- I mean, they have their overhead, gas, all of the work that would go into doing something like that would be a little difficult in my estimation. But I will say that the amount of money that they are receiving now for vehicles may not be 480 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 as high as it was before. And it may be more trouble for the salvagers to respond in a timely manner to the abandoned vehicle officer's request for removal.
Well, it has been a problem ever since I have been on Council. And, you know, we've got to find a way to deal with it. I went out last Election Day and I went to -- every polling site I went to, the only concern that was raised -- and it happened to other councilmembers, because we came back that Thursday and all three of us introduced resolutions to have hearings on abandoned cars. Because that was the number one and the only complaint I got all day long about cars that have been sitting for months, in some cases a year. And the neighbors couldn't get any response to get them removed. And so Councilwoman Miller, Councilman Ortiz and Councilman Mariano, we all came in with the same resolution, because that was the complaint we had, and we are all in the 35th Police District.
Yeah. I must say, Councilwoman, that I know in the Managing Director's 481 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Office and with what I know of the Police Department operations in the area of abandoned vehicle removal, they do an excellent job in the areas that I've worked with them with limited resources. We, as I said before, from time to time we try to augment their efforts by asking the Office of Fleet Management to provide additional tow trucks to go into areas to help the abandoned vehicle officer with the kinds of removal that you are talking about. We call them sweeps. But as soon as it gets done, as soon as we do it and are proud of our effort, within a week or two weeks, we can ride through the same area and see it recurring at a -- sometimes at a faster rate. But it doesn't mean that we would diminish our efforts. And I am sure if the police department had some insight on some additional help that they could use in getting this done, we would be more than willing to consider it and help them out with it.
Thank you. 482 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Are there any other questions from members of the committee? Mr. Certaine, thank you very much.
The Police Department is next to testify. Good morning, Commissioner, please identify yourself for the record, and proceed with your testimony. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes. Good morning. I am John F. Timoney, Police Commissioner. With me today is Deputy Commissioner Tom Nestel and the Fiscal Officer, Tom DeWaele. If I may, Madam President, before I begin the formal testimony, on the submitted testimony, obviously why I am testifying today, is a synopsis of the formal submitted written testimony. There are two typos or mistakes that I would like to correct for the record. One of them is on , dealing with the Quality Assurance Bureau. It says the Quality Assurance Bureau is set up for the sole purpose of ensuring accuracy of crime statistics. 483 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 That is one of the purposes. It also does a whole host of other quality endeavors: making sure that the districts are up to snuff with regards to policy, and a whole host of other things. So the word "solely" is kind of misleading. Also on , in the areas of homicides. It says that 70 percent of homicides were committed with guns. The actual figure is 80 percent. It has never dropped below 80 percent in the last ten or years, so that 70 percent is a 12 typo. It should read 80 percent. So with those two corrections with the official submitted testimony, I will begin. The Police Department's General Fund budget requests for FY 2000 is $388 million. The General Fund Request will provide for 6,903 uniformed officers, 974 civilians, 1,000 school crossing guards, as well as three classes of 100 recruits in each class. In addition to the above personnel levels, 105 officers in the Airport District will bring our total sworn force to 7,008 police officers. At this time last year you may remember 484 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 I was introduced to you and the City of Philadelphia. At that time I stated that working for Mayor Rendell would be fun, and so in March of 1998 I began my tenure as Police Commissioner. Well, my assumption about working for Ed Rendell was correct.
Has it been fun? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: It has been more than fun.
Okay. I won't ask you to elaborate on that. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Some would say funny. At any rate, my assumption regarding Mr. Rendell was absolutely correct; his energy and enthusiasm for the City is contagious. And I quickly learned to love the city that loves you back. When I started, it was a difficult time for the police department, and it still is a difficult time for the Police Department. We have severe problems dealing with homicides, robberies, burglaries, assault, which often are fueled 485 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 primarily by illegal drugs, and this has left the people of Philadelphia sometimes fearing of being unsafe in certain parts of the City. It has become obvious to me that changes have to be made to deal with the fallout from the illicit narcotics activity. One of my first tasks as police commissioner was to evaluate the entire department, its personnel, how it was organized structurally, the resources for some of these. And, yes, also, its will to do the job it has been required to do. I found the department comprised of intelligent, energetic, and motivated, as well as competent personnel. Yet in many cases their talents were not being fully utilized. I have changed that, I think, in some respects. The personnel reassignments: We have created new assignments. We have empowered our commanders. These are just some of the hallmarks of this administration. Today the Department has a new organizational structure. All field operations are now under the responsibility of one Deputy Commissioner of Operations. 486 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 We have a Deputy Commissioner of Science and Technology who is appointed with the charge to integrate all science, computers and technology. We also have a Deputy Commissioner of Internal Affairs who reports directly to me. In other words, to unify the three internal affairs units that existed as I took over. We have reduced the patrol divisions from nine to six, the detective divisions from seven to six, and we have coordinated and collated and centralized all detective operations underneath one chief of detectives. Today's department can boast of a new organizational structure, which fights crime much more effectively, I think, and also, much more efficiently. Since arriving I have changed the Department's infrastructure to support increased communications, the sharing of information, and continued learning. With mandatory attendance at weekly COMPSTAT meetings where the Department's top managers use computerized statistics and detailed crime maps to evaluate the effectiveness of a police 487 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 district's crime fighting strategies, we are becoming more proactive in our approach to fighting crime. Further, we have begun to review changes in our department's policies and procedures along with our discipline and training. And rather than go into a whole host of areas, we can spend the rest of the day going over some of the changes, some of the goals, objectives, some of the changes we've done, looking to do. Let me just highlight some of the significant programs, some of the accomplishments, some recent changes, and I really have goals and objectives for the future. I am happy to report as 1998 went down, homicides were down a significant percent. The 18 real significance for me is that this is the first 19 time since going back to 1987 that the number of homicides in Philadelphia went below 400. Prior to that it had always been between 410 and 430 and higher. It came in last year around 340 homicides. But we have a long way to go with the issue of homicides and guns. And I will address that later, and I'm sure it will come up in some of 488 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 the questions. Because we need in addition to what the Police Department is doing, we need help if we are to get further decreases in homicide. This year I am happy to report the ever present problem of stolen cars.
We, through our successful efforts of about three or four different programs, have reduced the stolen cars by 9 percent, a significant 15 percent last year. 10 As you are all aware, our emphasis 11 coming in was in the narcotics game, and our 12 narcotics arrests has increased by 70 percent, which 13 is a huge number, from around 10,500 to over 18,000 14 narcotics arrests last year. 15 Operation Sunrise is a program that we began in the east police district in mid-June that, in my opinion, has been successful to date. However, we are not, I don't think, even a third of the way through that targeted area. We are still in Phase 2, we still have Phase and to go. S. currency. So the program I think has been a success, but a qualified success, 489 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 because as I say, we are not even halfway there. As you are well aware, you may have seen the papers, we have the new aviation unit that came on-line in fall. And I must say from personal experience up in New York, the way we are using the new aviation unit in the Philadelphia Police Department is much more imaginative, much more proactive than we did in New York. And they've got already, just in three or four months of operation, a great number of success stories in crime fighting and recovering over $1 million worth of stolen cars. And being actively involved and actually taking charge of 15 police chases, which as you are well aware are inherently dangerous not only for the police officers involved, but for innocent citizens that may happen to be on the present street where a police pursuit is getting involved. So I will be quite honest with you, I had my doubts about the aviation unit before I came on board based on my experience in New York. I am happy to report that I am absolutely thrilled and excited so far by the performance of the aviation unit. 490 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 We have been quite successful, thanks to Inspector McJanick in securing a lot of funding through a variety of federal and state and local grants last year to a tune of about $112 million, including the Cops Ahead Program. 1 million program to upgrade the technology in supporting the City's 911 system. And then in December of 1998 the department took delivery of computer hardware needed to create computer mapping the system from 911 calls. And again, I would venture to guess that the 911 system in Philadelphia is equal to and in most cases would surpass 911 systems throughout the United States. Again, just a personal comment: I've made it clear that there are lots of problems that we need to deal with within the Philadelphia Police Department, a lot of things that have been left neglected. But in the area of science and technology, most people don't believe this, but the Philadelphia Police Department is equal to and actually way ahead of most police departments in this country. 491 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 So there are some good things that are going on in the Philadelphia Police Department. We hope to make a lot more improvements. But before I got here, in the area of science and technology, this department was way ahead of most police departments, including the one of NYPD. We are in the process of upgrading many of our police facilities. The narcotics division has expanded some of its headquarters to Frankford Arsenal on G Streets. We have relocated some very important units. The EEOC unit, the Gun Permits Unit, Community Relations Unit, Civil Affairs Unit, the Conflict and Prevention Unit from that dilapidated building down there at 319 Race Street, and we have moved our 911 training from 1600 Arch, along with some of those other units, to a new revitalized facility at 990 Spring Garden. Additionally, our Internal Affairs Unit is moving from dual locations at Race and 1700 Pattison to a modern office space at 7790 Dungan Road.
In addition, you are aware that the plans are on the table now for the new construction 492 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 of the new 24th and 25th Police District. Additionally, I will add, which is of extreme importance to me, we have in conjunction with the Capital Program Office, which has been designed with a new laboratory, which will be located at the old Wister School at 8th and Poplar Street. The construction of this fully-funded lab in the year FY 2000 Capital Budget will be a state-of-the-art and nationally accredited forensic laboratory when it is completed. We have a good number of people involved in this, including people from the academic community. And we think by the time we are finished with this lab and some of the changes we are making regarding how the lab is operated, that we will have one of the finest scientific facilities in the nation. Some of the more significant department programs, obviously the COMPSTAT program existed before I got here, the meetings once a week, but I think we have now refined them to a greater extent. And I think they are much more meaningful and much more productive when we bring in 493 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 department leaders, our commanders once a week, where they are grilled by the top brass of this department regarding what they are doing to deal with issues of crime, quality of life, disorder and things of that nature; in other words, they are being held accountable for what goes on in their districts. We have the Crime Analysis and Mapping Unit. And I am not exaggerating when I say this: Our mapping unit, I would invite anybody here to come view the mapping unit within the Philadelphia Police Department. The mapping unit in the Philadelphia Police Department is being run by three graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania. And they have taken this whole issue of mapping to a new level, that we are far ahead, I think, of almost every police department in the country in the area of mapping. That's thanks to having qualified civilian people who have degrees in Computer Science doing what computer scientists do as opposed to pulling a sergeant or a lieutenant in from the street who may be a computer hacker and asking him to develop these rather sophisticated 494 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 programs. So in the area of mapping, I defy anyone in the country to come up with a comparable program. And I invite anyone in the council chamber to come view it for yourself. And we have had people all over this country come view it, including Lorie Robinson just two weeks ago. She is the number three person at the Justice Department who was quite literally taken aback by not just the computer mapping, but coming to COMPSTAT and seeing how it is done. And so there are a lot of people in the area of COMPSTAT and computer science in Washington or places like that looking at the Philadelphia Police Department. And we invite people to look, because we are proud of the work we are doing. The MDTs, the MDT program that got underway under Commissioner Brennan as a result of that unfortunate incident with Eddie Polec, is well underway to meeting all the set-out criteria at the end of the year. By the end of November, we had 550 MDTs installed in police cars and more cars throughout the City. That number is now up over -- around 495 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 650. A lot of money has been spent by the Rendell Administration in making sure that this program is up and running, and it is. And I ride in the police cars myself, and they are in there and they are being utilized. And they are saving very valuable airtime running license checks, running criminal checks. And that whole program has been quite successful. But it was done at great cost, both monetary and personal effort, by the Rendell Administration with the police department. It is something I think they can be proud of.
Recovered stolen vehicles, we're about to implement a program using private towers when we recover a stolen vehicle as opposed to an abandoned vehicle, a stolen vehicle out on the streets of Philadelphia. We will notify the private towers and they will be taken to a secure location so that they are not further vandalized or damaged or have parts stripped before the owner can rightfully come and reclaim his or her stolen car. The Anti-Truancy Program we began in 496 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 October under Inspector Fox, a citywide program. While we had a truancy program before I got here, my sense was it was not a citywide program, that it depended from neighborhood to neighborhood and different parts of the City got truancy programs, other parts didn't. There was an uneven enforcement of the truancy laws, and so we have come up with a much more comprehensive citywide program in conjunction, by the way, with the Board of Education and Dr. Hornbeck, who has been very cooperative from the get-go. And our offices are reporting back to us now, which we expected, that it has become increasingly difficult to find the kids. It doesn't mean that they are not still playing hooky or being truant, but that they are not hanging out in the malls and in the subways and in the public spaces. They are actually -- if they are playing hooky, they are staying home or going to friends' houses. So the idea of lots of kids out on the streets, out of school, it is still happening. But not in the numbers, for example, that was happening 497 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 in September and October. But we have not taken our eye off the ball. We will continue to increase our efforts or keep up our efforts in that area. Some recently implemented changes I had mentioned earlier: We established the position of First Deputy Commissioner; we also established the position of Commissioner Mitchell as the Executive Officer for Operations to help Commissioner Johnson run the day-to-day operations. I had mentioned we have a new Deputy Commissioner of Science and Technology, Charlie Brennan. Again, a new Deputy Commissioner of Internal Affairs, John Norris, seated behind me, also. And so those changes have been welcome. We have unified all detective operations under a single Chief of Detectives. Now, that goes and flies against some of the more recent changes in some departments throughout this country, where it seemed to make sense, at least on paper, that you have a division inspector responsible for the uniform and responsible for the detectives in a given area. It seems to make sense on paper because it looks like the inspector has the wherewithal to 498 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 move detectives if and when needed, and it always looks good on paper. When you look at it in actuality, running three or four districts that these inspectors are expected to run, what they wind up doing is devoting 99 percent of the time to uniform problems, which are enormous, and kind of neglecting the detective area. And so having tried it both ways on numerous occasions throughout my 30-odd year history of policing, I've come to a conclusion that when it comes to detectives, they are better off having a unified detective division underneath Chief of Detective who I can hold responsible and accountable on a daily basis on what his detectives are doing. And so far Chief Inspector Maxwell has done a remarkable job in completely revamping the entire detective division and also getting more and more out from behind the desks, from routine clerical work, to getting them doing actual proactive investigations. There are a few other things that we have established. I mentioned earlier Quality Assurance Bureau, which addresses issues of quality, 499 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 to making sure that programs and policies that we send forward are actually being implemented.
They've done of necessity a remarkable job of counting the crime statistics for 1998. Because we realized that -- it wasn't my intent when I first had that unit to actually count the numbers one by one, but it became increasingly clear to me that it was going to have to be done with the Quality Assurance Bureau to make sure, at least, for 1998 you had a good base year. And so they engaged in a lot of labor-intensive efforts. We hope to not have to repeat that process in 1999. And we are looking, with assistance, with Professor Larry Sherman and some people who were trained in sampling, to train our Quality Assurance Unit in doing scientific sampling to be able to make sure that our data is correct and it is accurate. I can let you know that we have done some sampling for the first month of January, and depending on what Police Department, there is always a degree of -- an error rate of any sampling that is tolerated. If it is polling, it is about 5 percent; 500 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 if you are doing more scientific stuff for crime, it would be 3 or 2 percent. But so far our error rate is under 1 percent, and so we are quite happy. We think we are on the right track, but we are not going to take our eye off the ball. There is still vast improvements we need to make in the whole crime reporting system, but that is much more of a long-term goal for the department along with reviewing the whole issue of 911. Let me quickly just mention some other things: I appointed a special adviser. Actually, my very first week upon taking office, a special adviser on the whole issue of education and training reported directly to me, and that is Inspector Cooney. And he has done, along with the academy staff, a remarkable job of helping to revamp the curriculum up there. But even more important than that curriculum, actually attempting to instill in this department a recognition for the need of formal education not just to better the officers themselves, which it will, but also to give them a better view of the world in which they deal with, 501 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 the very diverse world, a multi-complex world. I think formal education for a police officer in this day and age is just -- it is just a must. And so I am real happy with the efforts that Inspector Cooney has done. I am also very happy with the response on the part of some of the local colleges who have been terrific in their response toward us. And last September up at the Academy we began numerous college courses. And we have hundreds of police officers going to college for the first time, others returning to college having dropped out some years ago. And we have still others, particularly in the senior ranks, enrolled in a variety of masters' programs, Master's of Criminal Justice and MBA programs. And so I am quite heartened by that. We have established in the last contract negotiations a whole new work schedule that we think is much more efficient. It gets more officers on the street when we need them. We have developed a career path, which in some small way -- I would like to say a large way, but in some small way, given the constraints of a one union town and a Civil Service System and an 502 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 arbitration system run amuck, but in some small way try to develop a system, a career path that rewards good workers. That in some small way begins to develop a meritrocity where the Police Commissioner or the Chiefs or the Deputy Commissioners can actually reward people for doing good work as opposed to justifying every move you make to a union or to an arbitrator or a Civil Service Commission. We have really increased our allocation of our -- not only our money, but our personnel in the war against drugs. If we are eventually to succeed in getting violent crime under control, we have to go after the issue of drugs, drugs and guns. And we've made a good effort.
Commissioner Johnson has completely revamped how the Narcotics Division is structured, how it is organized. It is more of a turf-based modular team lead, one sergeant, five or six investigators, two undercovers. It is a much more professional model. But I still think -- we are still in the process of reassessing personnel throughout the department. And while I don't want to make a 503 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 commitment publicly right now as far as to numbers I would like to reach, I still think we need to put more people in the Narcotics Division. But before we can go and do that in a safe, equitable manner, we need certain help in other areas of freeing officers from patrol and hiring civilians, and things like that. We may not necessarily need more police officers, but we need to find more police officers that may be doing things other than police work. I won't bore you. Some of the other changes you may have read. In July we went to videotaping confessions now in very serious cases, particularly homicide cases. It is a move that was long overdue. And if you don't think it's important, I will point you to a case up in New York just last week where a confession was gotten by New York City detectives in a very prominent case where a young high school teacher, Jennifer Levin, by the son of the head of Time Warner, was killed in his apartment. And the detectives up there got a confession from one of the killers, allegedly one of the killers. 504 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 And when that trial went to the jury, the young man was found not guilty because the confession was not taped. And the jurors -- I hate to say this, but throughout this country, police departments and police officers are suffering from a deficit of community confidence, of public trust. And it is something that every -- not just this department, but every department in this country has got to work towards. There has been some issues over the last ten and years, whether it is Rodney King or a 13 whole host of things like that, where we have, under 14 the glare of cameras, police misconduct, whether it 15 is corruption scandals or Rodney King or something like that that has eroded public confidence, public trust in the police department. And that is not just in polling data. That starts to reflect itself when you go before juries, men and women of your own peers. People say, you know, I read in the papers that the cops are corrupted, they are brutal. And it has a very damaging corrosive effect on the believability or the credibility of the police officers. And it starts to show up in decisions 505 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 that on the face of it seem not to make sense. I mean, so I think the department, not just this department, but other departments, we have got a lot of work to do as far as enhancing our image and improving our professionalism so that we can regain the confidence of people. And finally, let me just -- some of the goals and objectives of the future: We are looking to continue our efforts in reducing crime, especially violent crime. But at the same time -- and I know there are certain members that don't believe me on this, but I actually do go out to the roll calls and try to emphasize to our police officers that, yeah, we've got to get the violent crime and the robberies and the burglaries and the serious crime, but at the same time we also have to deal with quality of life. And I have not forgotten my commitment to deal with quality of life. But let me just say that it is a lot harder doing than -- it is easy to get cops jacked up to go out there and answer the sexy radio runs and the robbery in progress and shooting in progress. It is a lot harder to get them out there 506 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 and understand that graffiti and abandoned autos and things that men and women face on a daily basis also affect their perceptions of crime. But trust me, it has not fallen on deaf ears.
The complaints I get from councilmembers, from community meetings, from community groups, we have had some modest success in that area, but not enough for me. And we've had meetings as recently as yesterday, but even two weeks ago, where we are going to come up with a citywide strategy and hold officers' feet to fire in the area of quality of life, because it is something that needs to be done. Finally, if we are to do really significant good things with regards to violence in this town, clearly we have to deal with narcotics. But just as important as the narcotics is the availability of guns in this city and this state. It is just -- in my opinion, we need to do something. We need some help from Harrisburg. There are -- we are quite fortunate that we can actually point now to other states; for example, Virginia, the state that five or six years ago you 507 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 could buy a gun across the counter, buy as many as you want. When I was up in New York and I conducted an analysis of the guns confiscated in New York. About 90 to 95 percent of all guns confiscated in New York came from five southeastern states. But as a result of the changes of laws in those southeastern states, particularly Virginia -- Virginia was accounting for about 60 percent; I think that was the number, 60 percent of the illegal guns coming to New York. That figure -- I spoke to Commissioner Shaffer at a conference last week, the figure is like under 10 percent. So when people pooh-pooh the idea of one gun a month, they do not quite literally know what they are talking about. One gun a month is what the Mayor has been trying to get accomplished in Harrisburg. It is not an attack on the Constitution; it is not eliminating the right to bear arms. What it is trying to do is bring some reasonableness and some common sense into the whole issue of buying guns, not just in Pennsylvania, but in Philadelphia. 508 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 I could go on and on and on, but why go on and on and on when I am sure we will get much more done by pertinent questions and more interesting questions from members of the Council. So thank you, Madam President, for your indulgence.
Thank you, Commissioner. If you don't mind, I just have a couple of questions that I would like to ask. Your FY 2000 budget reduces General Fund uniform overtime by over $900,000. Can you tell us how you are going to be able to accomplish this reduction, and will it impact your ability to meet your mission? Will the security of the Republican National Convention impact your department's overtime budget, and if so to what extent? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. A couple of things: One, the issue of overtime. We had promised the Administration last year, last June, that we would make every effort to reduce the overtime budget, which I thought and still think there is plenty of room for improvement; however, 509 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 there is nothing like speaking out of ignorance, and I do that a lot. And so I just assumed there were certain things I could do by myself to get that number down. It has now become quite clear to me that some of my assumptions may have been faulty then, particularly in the area of court overtime --
I am so glad that you mentioned that. Of the more than $24 million in overtime, how much of that is in court overtime? I think it is astronomical. And I don't know why we can't work something out between the DA's office and court system and the Police Department. I worked in the DA's office many moons ago, and I remember that police officers would be on call. I understand that they no longer do that. I mean, there are a lot of issues -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: There are, trust me.
-- that should be addressed. I think that court overtime is astronomical. How much is it? The last -- I would like to hear your figure. 510 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTEL: Councilwoman, Tom Nestel, Deputy Police Commissioner. Our court overtime -- if you remove reimbursable funds, our court overtime accounts for better than 50 percent of our total overtime cost. As the commissioner mentioned, we have been working very, very closely with the District Attorney's Office for the last few months. We think we are making some inroads into that court overtime, both in-house and with the district attorney. We are both working very, very hard to reduce the number of people of going to the court, to ensure that only those necessary are subpoenaed and to ensure that only those necessary appear on the reports to go to court, on the arrest reports, because it starts right at that level. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. If I may just jump in, also. One of the things, you know, it is very easy for me to criticize the DA's office, to criticize the judges. But I think before you can take that step, I have to criticize myself and my own management staff and look at what improvements have we made before we go complaining to Lynn Abraham and then go to the judges. 511 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 And so we have made as may changes as we think we possibly can by ourselves as sole actors. We got the district commanders involved, reviewing -- I mean, I hate to waste their time, but they are reviewing subpoenas at 5 or 6 o'clock at night, but I mean, that's what it has gotten down to. So we have set up systems in-house, but that is only part of it. We now have met, and we are meeting on a regular basis with Lynn Abraham's people, Arnie Gordon. And I have met with Lynn myself. And now we are putting -- she is fixing up her house; I am fixing up my house; we are fixing up both of our houses. And then together, we are actually going to go over and meet. We have set up an appointment to meet with the judges, because we also need the assistance of the judges. But we think we have a program in line that will help us get this overtime monster under control. But let me tell you, it is a lot more difficult than I assumed. And let me also be quite frank, it is also part of the culture of Philadelphia. And I tell you how it is part of the 512 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 culture. We get arbitration cases time and time again where a police officer may have been transferred from one assignment to another assignment, and so the arbitrator rules against us, and says that Officer Timoney has got to go back. And guess what, you also have to give him that overtime he would have earned. What overtime he would have earned? There is a presumption that you are going to make overtime. That is a ludicrous presumption, but that is a presumption that even arbitrators make. And I think that is part and parcel to the culture surrounding this whole issue. I mean, it is just -- it is -- overtime is like a God-given right as opposed to a management prerogative. That is part of the thinking we have got to change.
Well, I am very happy to hear that you are looking into that matter, because as I said, I think it's running away with us. I really do. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I wanted to comment on the Republican Convention. And it is -- we think we can handle any operation. Clearly, 513 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 there is going to be operational impact, but we can handle it through overtime. Now, I ran the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York, and I was given an overtime budget of $6 million. I handed back at the end of that convention $3 million to Mayor Dinkins. I was very proud of that. But recognize that the ability to manage the New York City Police Department and the ability to manage the Philadelphia Police Department are two entirely different monsters, if you will. There was a lot more management prerogatives up there that I could do. The second part that compounds the issue here for overtime -- it was something that we tried to deal with in the last labor negotiations. Even a rookie coming out of the academy, even a rookie coming out of the academy gets a piece of the summer as vacation. It is an insane situation. We tried to win that in the last labor negotiations and we lost it. In other police departments, if you are a rookie or even three or four or five years, you wouldn't even think about getting part of the summer 514 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 off. Here, the minute you get out of the academy, you are guaranteed a part of the summer. Well, the summer is only a few months. And if everyone gets a piece of the summer, it means there are more people off during the summer than are absolutely necessary.
For the first year, do they get a week's vacation or -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: They get a piece of the summer. Is it a week or two, Tom? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTEL: They get two weeks vacation. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: So when you do the math -- let me just give you an example. And I am not using New York City as a way to do it, just as an example. In New York at any one time -- and most police departments are like this -- no more than 12 percent of the force can ever be off at the same time. Well, here when you actually do the math, in the summer it's up over 20 because of that. And so -- and so what we need to do in the summer then is offset that with overtime, which, 515 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 again, drives up the overtime bill.
Sure. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: So that is the operation implications for the Republican Convention.
Commissioner, when is it expected that the Police Information Control Center will be implemented? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Is Johnny here? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BRENNAN: Madam President, I'm Charles Brennan. I'm a Deputy Police Commissioner. We have just finished the requirements for that system. And we have submitted a preliminary draft of those requirements and an application to the productivity bank and we are still working out prices. So we are in the very beginning of that process.
Thank you. Commissioner, in your testimony you state the mission of the Police Department. Does the FY 2000 budget that is before City Council provide you with the necessary funding in order to accomplish your mission? 516 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I think so. I think, again, are there -- I think the better question -- I think the money is fine. I think the better question is, can the department be run more efficiently, and the answer is, yes, without a doubt. But, for example -- well, let me give you one example: Commissioner Estel, as part of our complete look at the Philadelphia Police Department, how it is set up, personnel deployments, we were able to identify, Commissioner Estel's staff, at least around 500 what we consider civilianizable positions, where officers are performing jobs that can be otherwise performed as a civilian. During the last labor negotiations we tried to get permission to civilianize some of those positions. We lost. An arbitrator said no, these are God-given rights that have accrued down from the mountain. And even though it is a mundane, clerical task, that is a God-given right for a uniformed police officer. So that doesn't help in running the Department.
That's crazy. 517 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Point of information. If I may, I have a speaking engagement at o'clock, and I have one brief question, and I 10 was wondering if the councilman would be kind enough 11 to yield to me for that one question? 12
Good morning, Commissioner. My question has to deal with quality-of-life issues and primarily the issue of theft from auto, which is a quality-of-life issue. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to Councilmember Rizzo's talk show, and there was a caller who was a former Philadelphia resident who was complaining about his car had been broken into on several occasions. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
He has since -- now 518 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 moved to the King of Prussia area. And when the caller hung up, Councilman Rizzo commented on those kinds of quality-of-life issues and the effect it has and the impact it has on the residents in the City of Philadelphia. And he further went on to say that: Not only is it a problem when your car is broken into, but the fact of the matter is that it takes -- when you call 911, it is not like it used to be; the two- minute response is now one hour. I would like your comments on that. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, there was about three questions there, so we will start off with the issue of car break-ins, and then the other issue of 911 response. The car break-ins, believe it or not, we've actually had quite a bit of success in the last year on the issue of car break-ins. But -- and I think Inspector Tiano gets him and Lieutenant Schmidt and the people who work in the 6th and 9th District -- because a lot of this stuff is not confined to Center City, but like 98 percent of it happens in those two districts. What we started to do -- the importance 519 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 of doing a crime analysis is, it kind of sends you to where you want to be; it tells you what are the questions, and what are the problems. And we started to look at the whole issue of car break-ins, where they were happening, and who we were locking up. It turned out that there were at least five and six -- at least five or six people who we had arrested at least and 30 times for car 11 break-ins. And these people were getting no 12 significant time whatsoever. 13 Now, I am not advocating that you lock 14 somebody up for the rest of their life for breaking 15 into a car. By the same token, they shouldn't be 16 cut loose because they are poor unfortunates or 17 so-called homeless or something like that. You 18 still have to be responsible for your criminal 19 behavior. 20 So, what we did is we created a data 21 base of the known car break-in offenders, a 22 recidivist list, if you will. And when we do arrest 23 those people, Inspector Tiano actually -- I mean, 24 this is a full inspector -- actually goes to court 25 and speaks to the judge. Almost like an amicus 520 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 curiae saying, you know, Your Honor, we need some relief, you know, I'm not saying send him away for the rest of his life, but like give him three or six months, so we can have a respite. It actually has had a very good effect on the car break-ins; that in conjunction with a lot more officers in unmarked cars in the Center City area and in other neighborhoods, by the way. It's not just Center City, but the predominance of car break-ins is in Center City. And let me tell you -- you know I run, Councilman; I run quite a bit. And I have my route that I run over by the Parkway every morning. And when I come back, whether it's in seconds or in 16 20 minutes, if I see that glass, I go wild, because 17 I see that cars were broken in overnight, and it 18 just drives me crazy. 19 And I am on the phone and I'm screaming 20 at Tiano or the district commander, why aren't we out there; why didn't we have a cop at the Library looking out the window. I mean, I get as frustrated as the next person. But trust me, it really is a top shelf, front-burner item. As far as the response, the 911 521 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 response, clearly, I understand the frustration. If my car was broken into, I would be furious. But at the end of the day, it is a property crime, and it is not a crime in progress. And so sometimes depending on how, depending on when it happens and how busy that radio is or if there is a backlog, it may affect your -- you're right, it may take an hour for an officer to respond. It wouldn't be normal -- it wouldn't be surprising.
But by the same token, let me tell you right here and now, it never happened in Philadelphia, it never happened in New York, it never happened in any police department in this country where a car was broken into and the cops got there in two minutes. Trust me. Trust me. We looked at -- our response to crimes in progress, I just looked at them last week. We're at about seven and a half minutes. Up in New York it is ten and a half minutes. This is for the Category class. So yeah, they may not get there as fast as they want, but we are still better than other police departments. Doesn't mean we're satisfied, 522 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 but we are in good shape. For the crimes in progress, where people's lives are in danger, overall we are getting there in seven and a half minutes. But my sense is, knowing how police are, it is even less than that.
I guess that is the heart of my question, I had a concern. I didn't think that we could expect police officers to respond within two or three minutes for a theft from auto. I understand that perfectly well. But when this message is put out over the airwaves and thousands of people are listening to it, I think the message is misinterpreted that Philadelphia is not a safe place, is not a place you would want to live. And I fully appreciate the effort that the police department has always made, and under your leadership, I personally see a great improvement everywhere I go. And I am not patronizing you; I really do see the improvement. But again, when I hear this, to those people who don't know and to those people who are just chronic complainers, no matter what we do, for some reason they need to talk down about 523 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Philadelphia or to criticize what we do here. For that kind of message to get out, I think is very detrimental to all of us, and all of the hard work that all of us are doing. So I wanted to make it clear that it isn't that it takes an hour for any 911 response, it is just in certain types or levels of crime or calls that would prompt an hour or so. But for high crimes, Category 1, we are within that seven minutes or so, would you say? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: We are better than most. Exactly. Yeah. But the other thing is, it doesn't always take an hour. It takes an hour if it is busy, but sometimes it wouldn't. I mean, if you called -- for example, if you happened to come out at 4 o'clock in the morning, you are going to work and your car had been broken into and you called 911, I am telling you right now, the 9th District would be there in less than five minutes. I mean, there would be nothing else happening. But if it was a Friday night and things are hopping and you call, a couple things: one, the report may be taken over the phone by the 524 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 differential response if the person is on a list for the police. But recognize that you may have to wait an hour.
Thank you. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Thank you, Councilman.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, could you make sure that your photo is available to all of the various news organizations throughout the City so we can make sure we have enough photos of you floating around, so I don't have to -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Is that a complaint or compliment?
No. It is a compliment to you. They obviously want more. I would like to talk a little bit about drug issues in Philadelphia. My recollection of when you came on board in March is that you had primarily designated one of the deputy commissioners to be responsible 525 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 for drugs; is that correct? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, when I got here, Deputy Commissioner Johnson was responsible for drugs. He still spends, I guess, the best part of his working hours still involved in the drugs, but he is also involved in a whole host of other operational areas. But what he has done is appointed Chief Inspector Ray Rooney to head up the Narcotics, but the whole Narcotics Division has been reorganized under Chief Inspector Ray Rooney, who works directly for Commissioner Johnson.
Okay. Approximately two years ago at this time of year in a budget hearing I had asked the question, and I would like to see if I might do better at getting the answer, how many known drug locations are there in Philadelphia? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: There's 4,000; as of yesterday 4,669, of which 3,230 are inside and 1,439 are outside.
I'm sorry, give me those inside/outside numbers again. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Inside location, 526 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 3230. Outside location, 1439. And that comes from a variety of sources. By the way, it's not science. It literally changes on a daily basis. The number comes from a variety of sources. And so it is not perfect, but it gives you a pretty good idea of the extent of drug activity throughout the City. And when -- by the way, I am going to share this with you. When you plot the locations out on maps, surprise, surprise, there are certain neighborhoods that it is concentrated much more so than others. And then when you start to overlay shootings and things of that nature, surprise, surprise, they're in the narcotics area. This isn't rocket science. But anyway, these numbers come from a variety of sources. One, obviously, the arrests made not just by our Narcotics Division personnel, but any officer that makes a narcotics arrest. Complaints from the general public, whether they are given through a councilmember and it gets to our office, or somebody calls 911. You called 911 -- we do not encourage 527 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 folks, by the way, to call 911 for drugs. But I go to community meetings and I understand the frustration, you see drug dealers and you call, and you call 911. Those are actually better handled going through the district captain. But I understand the frustration. In any event, if you call 911, in addition to sending a uniformed car there, they also make out a slip, which also gets routed down to the Narcotics Division. In any event, everything is put on a computer database of all the locations. And it lists, in this case, one to 4,669, but then also the number of complaints you've got. So there are certain locations -- you have got over 40 complaints in certain locations. Where did it come from? Did they come from the Narcotics Division, or citizens, or what have you? And then we can collate them and break them down and desegregate them district by district and block by block.
Well, I appreciate that. (Addressing the press) And I appreciate 528 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 that, also. Deputy Commissioner Johnson and some of the other deputies who are here and other staff personnel will have a great appreciation for, I guess, the irony of the moment. As I said, a couple of years ago I asked that question, the response was we don't know. And so it's certainly comforting to know that we actually do know. And I appreciate that the number changes, probably by the minute. But the fact that we have some estimate of what's going on out there does give us a greater comfort level.
But a couple of years ago when we asked how many narcotics officers we had, I don't think we got an answer to that either. So I think we are making progress. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: 429.
His hearing is getting better and better. But now, Commissioner, something you said did give me a little pause about what people should do when they see alleged drug activity or drug dealers out on the street. 529 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 We have been at some level trained, it has become a part of a mantra, that if you need police officers to come somewhere, you should call 911. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
Your statement a couple of minutes ago was in some of those situations you should call the district. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
Now, I, as a part of that training and if not indoctrination over the past seven years, we have been told to discourage people from calling the district about live, active situations because you want to call 911, because you want it to go in the system, and you want someone to be dispatched and that the commanding officer is in no position to dispatch anyone to any particular location for something like that. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
Has there been a change in policy? And could you tell me what I should tell folks when I am out at the same meetings that you are out at and we're both getting our heads handed to us? 530 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right. Again, I am not minimizing and I do understand the frustration. But if you look at the 911 system, not just here, this is every major city in America. There are far too many phone calls to 911. There are far too many radio cars dispatched to things that they can do nothing about. And so I will go to meetings -- and I am not blaming women, but it is often women saying: I called 911 last night, and a drug dealer was on the corner and the cops never came, or they came to do something and I called 30 times. I say: Ma'am, you shouldn't have even called once. Now, of course, I get heckled when I say that. I can't offer people not to call 911 unless I offer them an alternative. And what we've done here as part of the reorganization of the department is really to empower district commanders to set up their own narcotics teams. And we've trained them. We've had them up at the Academy; you select your commanding officer, you select your best people, five, six or seven with the Sergeant, we have them up at the 531 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Academy. I just trained another bunch yesterday. I went up and spoke, too, myself and Commissioner Johnson. They can deal with the outside locations on the corner, because here is what happens: If 911 sends a radio car, there is nothing a police marked radio car can do regarding narcotics locations, except tell them to get out of here. There isn't much you can do. If they make an arrest and you bring them to court, the judge says, Are you kidding me? You expect me to believe that story? And they are going to throw it out. even when you make a constitutionally, legally sound narcotics arrest in uniform, people don't believe them. So why even do this dance? Why not -- let's get officers that are trained, supervised in plain clothes working, working. This is in addition to the people who work for Chief Rooney. Working though, directly for the district commander, helping him deal with those narcotics problems on a day-to-day basis. But it also requires -- it also requires not to pander the people and to be honest with 532 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 people. So when somebody goes up to you at a meeting and says, you know, I have this narcotics going on here, you say, yes, ma'am, or madam or sir, whatever it is, give me the location. I can't promise you we will be there tomorrow. I can't even promise you we will be there this week. But what I will promise you, someone will go in there, the Narcotics Division is going to get there. It will be part of the overall strategy. You know, it didn't get like that overnight. But I promise you something will be done; I just can't promise you tomorrow. Far too often we say we will send a cop over there right away and it just doesn't work.
Are you going to pursue the same line of questioning?
Thank you. You full well understand though the inherent conflict in that. Because if the people in 533 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 the neighborhood have been calling about 59th and Lebanon, 56th and Master -- I mean, I can go through a laundry list of locations on a regular basis. What we are creating here is somewhat of a distinction. And at some level it is a good distinction between our uniform officers, of which we have many, as compared to the team. Now, I have been out with the team, for instance, over the 19th District. Rode around all night long in a ratty van; it was great, surprised a lot of people, ran into the house, had people jumping out of second floor windows. It was a wonderful evening as evenings go. But the average, regular citizen who has these knuckle-heads outside their house, they expect to see a blue and white come down their street and actually do something about the ten guys that are standing out there. And they really can't afford to wait for a week until the special trained anti-drug team gets finished dealing with some other knuckle-heads somewhere else and gets over there a week, ten days later. And so the citizens, you know, who at 534 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 least in my district tell me everywhere, they pay the highest taxes in the City, feel they are not getting an adequate level of service because now they are wondering, what are all of the guys and women in the blue and whites doing, if they are not dealing with these people who are blocking my sidewalk, and having activity going on in front of my house until 2:00, 3:00, 4 o'clock in the morning? What is their job if the other people only deal with drugs? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right. No. By the way, and I don't mean to mislead that it's wrong to call 911 or that there isn't a useful role for police officers. As a matter of fact, it is in your district -- I don't think you were at -- I was at two or three meetings in a two-week period in your district. And I was kind of taken aback by the common complaint that, and you could just see the frustration, that not only did they call 911, but when the police came they just drove by, they didn't do anything.
You heard that at the town meeting at the 34th District? 535 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes. Not only did they just drive by, but it looked like they hit the gas and drove by faster. I have come up with a new term, it's called passive policing.
Right. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: And I have actually gone out to the roll calls and into the night with the rest of them and told them, listen, you have got an obligation. All right, you may not be able to make a legally, constitutional, signed arrest, but you have an obligation to inquire. At least stop and confront them and say: What are you doing on the corner? Take a walk, take a hike. So I am not discouraging that, whatsoever. But I am also trying to be realistic to say, listen, if we are talking about an arrest situation as opposed to a public disorder situation, then the arrest situation we would be better off having the officers in plain clothes making bona fide, constitutional, legally-sound arrests before disorder -- to get the knuckle-heads off the corner. "Don't sit on the stoop, move," that is an appropriate venue for uniformed officers. The 536 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 problem is you have to be truthful with people and tell them. But I have never --
Commissioner, are you convinced though, even the "Stop; get out of the car; what are you doing; move along; clear the corner; it is my corner; don't be here when I come back," I mean, is that message filtering down to the person in 1913 car when they are out either driving around, or they have gotten a call from the district to say, there is a problem out at such-and-such location? Because the complaint is an inherent one and it continues. When they come, we don't see any action. Now, maybe they are doing something and maybe they're not. But in some known location, if ten guys are standing on a corner, more than likely they are not talking about what the Flyers did last night; they are probably doing something else. And we would at least like to know that the person is going to get out of the car, ask a question. You never know what the answer to the question may be, or what you will run into, and I understand that that is a dangerous situation. 537 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 But, I mean, we have to provide people -- I am not saying that we are going to guarantee that that corner is going to stay, you know, as in a previous testimony, "varmint-free" all night long. But at least they will move for some period of time and we keep some level of the commitment between us and our citizens, that when you call you have a reasonable chance that something may actually happen. And if it gives you one peaceful night out of the next three or four, your city has done something for you. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, we could record your voice and what you just said and my voice and give it to the roll calls. It's the exact -- because what you just said is the exact thing that I am doing at the roll calls. But I need to take this a step further, because being a cop, I recognize some of the feelings that maybe the average citizen doesn't. But sometimes, especially in Philadelphia where you have one-officer cars, to confront ten or 15 guys on a corner, hey, you know. I tell them: I am not asking you to 538 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 jeopardize your life. Pull over, get a backup and then go in. And if you have a sergeant, get the sergeant over there and go in, but by all means, don't drive by. You can't drive by these locations. This is the message going around roll calls. Mr. Nutter, I am not fooling myself for a second, it is a hard road to hoe. We are trying to impress that message at the roll calls. We tell them: You just can't drive by; when people call 911, they are looking out the window at you, they see you; they say, where is he going, why is he driving by, I called. And so if it is because there is ten or 15 guys at the corner, and you say, whoa, I'm by myself...
Okay. Fine. Then it's that gang versus our gang. And I think our attitude has to be, is that any day of the week our gang can beat the other gang, whether it is 15 of them and three of us? We will kick your butt every day of the week, we will take back this neighborhood and this location. You cannot win. If you don't have that attitude, then it 539 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 doesn't matter how many people you show up with. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
I mean, I think that that is as much a part of it as anything else. There's an attitude in this business -- and, I mean, I don't have to tell you, you're in the business -- that says: This is my area; anyone walking or talking or doing anything wrong in this area has to deal with me; and if you think that you are going to overwhelm me because there are of you, I will be 12 back and I will have five of my guys. And then we 13 will see who stays here tonight. 14 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. Trust me, 15 there is absolutely no disagreement. If you came to the roll calls that I do, I mean, those are some of the issues that I talk about. But I also address the issue, especially in one-officer cars, the issue of fear. It's a real issue.
I understand. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: If you are afraid, can you imagine living in the park?
The Chair 540 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, just to follow up on your comments about the community calling the districts, the police district's numbers aren't published. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
And I'll tell you, the telephone network that supports the Police District leaves a lot to be desired. And I know you are the kind of guy that would probably pick up the phone and call the Operations Room, and it's very difficult. And I don't believe the officers there, at least my impression, have the time to really deal with a person that's got a problem. It appears that they are always under a severe amount of pressure in that environment to get off the phone. Or I have had people report to me that they bark out: You shouldn't be calling here. Call 911. So I hope what you are saying has communicated to -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: By the way, just 541 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 so I'm clear on this, this is a vision for the future. We are nowhere near -- before I can actually go around and get into -- what I eventually want to do is to demarket this 911. Before we can actually do this with any kind of credibility, we have to have something in place that handles those things. I mean -- and it's the district. Well, I don't hear from the district, I'm too busy for that. What do you mean? You can't be too busy. So we have got to make the systems work. But we have -- there is a committee up and running. And this is -- and every city should do this because the problems with 911 are not limited to Philadelphia. Every major city, you go to these conferences, that's all they talk about. Somebody for the first time has got to, one, examine, and we are in the process of examining the whole 911 system. It is going to take months to do this from the time we take calls, to the time we get a disposition back, everything between: the numbers; the codes; what are -- what we've looked at as the priorities; do we need to shift the 542 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 priorities to make sure we are doing it efficiently. There are some hard decisions that have to be made. But the -- I mean, the system needs to be improved. Not just here, I am talking about all over, all over the country. And it is not okay. You know, often -- and I don't know how to say it, but certainly in New York there was an attitude on the part of cops that when citizens called them with complaints, especially the district, that somehow you are bothering them. Really? I mean, cops have to get rid of that attitude, also that the citizen who is complaining about drugs is somehow bothering them. I mean, what did you hire them for is my question. And so we are in the process -- and it is going to take a while to change the attitude, not just here but in most major police departments, that you do, in fact, serve the public, that they are not bothering you. You know.
I want to follow up on something that I picked up from Commissioner Nestel's comment and also to focus on education and 543 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 the enhancement of the Police Academy. I've noticed personally, and I've talked to some Assistant DA's, for example, they stop a car and they do a drug pinch, a drug arrest, and four officers are on the report: one looks in the trunk; the second looks under the seat; another one looks in the back seat. Four officers' names show up on the 48 and it winds up being four officers called into court. So I am hoping, and I think I picked up from the Commissioner's comments, that part of your education is to streamline that process where when officers make an arrest and it doesn't involve four officers, but five, that it involves a minimum of officers. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: The word is minimization. You do minimization with two things: from a selfish perspective, you look at the minimized overtime, you don't want the whole world going, but from a purely altruistic criminal justice perspective. For example, you are hitting a search warrant in an apartment or a private house, and you go into -- obviously because of guns and everything 544 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 else, you have got to go in there with six or eight or ten officers. To search that apartment or that building should be limited to one officer and then the recording of the search should be limited, and that is the two to testify -- Timoney found it in this drawer and Rizzo recorded it here. It was found in the dresser drawer here -- where you don't have eight officers going in eight different directions, really violating good evidence gathering techniques. Because then you go to court and you have eight people and you have some lawyer ripping them apart, Well, listen, you're Timoney and you said one thing and Rizzo said the other, O'Neill said this, Brown said that, and you look like -- and you're not lying, but you look like you're lying.
Commissioner, in your effort to get more police on the street to have a more efficient police department, which you admitted all organizations could be more efficient, I would like to discuss briefly with you the relationship 545 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 between the Philadelphia Police Department and the School District Police Department and the Housing Police, specifically, the School District. I hear from officers that when a School District police officer in the middle of the night finds a building open, because they are not sworn officers and they don't carry guns, the first thing that they need to do is call Philadelphia police to get a backup. Could you please look at the relationship between the Philadelphia Police Department and the School District Police? Because we have a few hundred officers out there that work for the School District, that appear that they have a total dependency on the Philadelphia Police Department, and that officer that is tied up at an open building, or two of your officers and a sergeant possibly, could be out there doing other things if we had a School District Police Department that could act as a police department. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I will speak with head of school safety.
Thank you, 546 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Councilman.
Commissioner, what was your answer to the question? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I said -- I believe his name is McClish, right?
John McClish. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I will meet with him with regards to that. I was not aware of that problem until the Councilman just brought it up.
I don't know what powers they have there. They're out there at night; they are out on patrol; they have no weapons. And I can understand a School District police officer not going into a vacant building, an open school, without a police officer with a gun. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: My sense is that's what it is. You are calling for basically -- what it is is a backup. They are basically guards checking school facilities. And you have an open door, and I would think it would behoove you to call the Philadelphia Police Department.
But, Commissioner, they are not called school security guards; they are 547 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 called the School District Police Department. And they are compensated as if they were police officers, but they don't have the police powers that a police officer has. Especially -- I am not suggesting that the School District police that are assigned to the schools walk around the schools with guns, but the police officers that patrol should have the ability to do what your personnel does. The same deal: You talked about the truancy problem. I have had people tell me that they have seen School District police officers ride right by a location where there was obviously truants, ride right on by and don't do it. Your people are tied up doing it, but we have a School District Police Department of almost, I believe -- don't hold me to the number -- 300 officers. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
I would hope, trying to make this operation more efficient, that those officers would be doing what they are supposed to do and not dumping on you. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. I will 548 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 speak, I will make sure for the next two weeks that I have a meeting with McClish.
Thank you, Commissioner. Is Councilwoman Tasco in the room?
How about Councilman -- I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
Councilwoman Tasco left some questions and asked me if I would ask them for her.
Commissioner, on behalf of Councilwoman Tasco, she has a great concern about what priority the Police Department assigns to tractor-trailer parking in residential communities, the enforcement of the tractor-trailers parking. She is getting a lot of concerns placed. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I mean, just think about it, it is probably limited to one or two or three districts in the City. And that -- she should have the ability of dealing with District 549 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Commander to get to the problem. If she is not having any success with the District Commander, then she can get back to me and my office or my staff or Commissioner Johnson saying, listen, I called up Captain Timoney, he did nothing about it. Then let me know, and I will make sure we do something about it. But by all means, you have to deal with these District Commanders. I mean, something like that is a local problem. And in some other area it may be some other issue of bars opening late at night or something.
She recognizes that her case might be somewhat unique, but she said: I need some assistance with the increase of parking by trailers in neighborhoods. Can we devise a procedure and a strategy to eradicate this practice in the community? It is not only awful to see, but I believe they cause a safety hazard for pedestrians and drivers. So will you take this as notice of her concern in her district? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I will reach out to her. I know that issue -- at one of the meetings 550 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 out of the 35th District that issue came up. And I got Captain Johnson from Highway to go over there, and we ticketed because it is zoned for residential parking and we had tractor-trailers overnight. And Captain Steve Johnson's people, the Highway folks, went up there and ticketed. And I think we even towed one out. But I will get back to the Councilwoman.
Thank you. She says: I received a letter from a constituent who reported a (unintelligible) since January 12th, 1999. Can you review for me the procedure that is employed to investigate a missing person report? Or more specifically, how deep is the investigation if there are conflicting accounts regarding the possible whereabouts of the individual? What should I do to assure that the investigation satisfies all of the members of the family? She has got that kind of response. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilwoman, Madam Chair, (unintelligible) Johnson, Deputy Commissioner of Operations. 551 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 There are certain criteria that have to go along with being a missing person, especially different from an adult to a juvenile. If it is a juvenile it is assigned to a person, it's assigned to our JAU, Juvenile Aide Unit. And there are two people who are continuously assigned just to investigate these juveniles. If it is an adult, it is given to a detective. Now, he is supposed to be in constant communication with the parents or with the relatives at least monthly. They are supposed to check all of the hospitals, check all of the prisons, and check all of the other locations that this particular person may be. But he is supposed to be in constant communication with that particular person at all times. What I will do, and I will contact the Councilwoman today to get that name, and I will have a follow-up on that particular case.
Thank you. My next question: You will recall that last month there was a serial robber in the 552 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Northwest area and a pattern was detected. I was disturbed that no attempt was made to contact my office, so that I could get better cooperation from the community and we could persuade women to be more cautious. So what are you doing about the robber, the serial robber in the Northwest? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: We did just that: I have, since getting here -- and this issue comes up at COMPSTAT all the time. Most police departments -- maybe I shouldn't say that. I firmly believe that any time we have any kind of a serial crime, whether it's a robbery or, God forbid, a rape pattern or something like that, that as soon as we know we have an obligation, legal, moral, ethical obligation, to notify the public. And I have encouraged the District Commanders to go to their local levels of community meetings, the detectives. And then if I get it I will let them know. Interestingly enough, that was Captain Estel who made that announcement on television. 553 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 By the way, I was caught by surprise, also. But it was a pleasant surprise for me; I didn't take offense or umbrage that why didn't Estel call me to get permission. I thought he did a great thing, that they come up with this information regarding -- he wasn't just a robber/purse snatcher, he was violent; he had slashed some people. And he would go to a community meeting and he let the press know as soon as he could discern this was a real live pattern. Now, I happened to see it the same time she did on the 11 o'clock news that night. But I didn't take umbrage to it. I thought: Good for, Tom Estel. That is exactly what I have being doing. I do not want them withholding information. Now, sometimes, having said that, we may have a very super-dooper secret investigation that out of necessity has to be kept quiet. But by-in-large, by-in-large, 99 percent of the time if we find the pattern in the neighborhood or the neighborhood that crosses borders from one district to another, I want the 554 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 people, especially in the area of sex crimes or violent crimes, I want them notified as soon as possible. And I don't care who notifies them. By the same token, we should recognize that we also can get some assistance from council people. And by all means, as part of touching bases, we should touch base with Council. I am all for that. And if we have neglected to do, that I apologize, and I will make sure it's done in the future.
The tone of her question is -- as I picked it up was not that you should tell her instead of acting, but when you have acted, what other steps might there be? To notify her as the local elected official, she has a network that she can ring and people can be more careful of themselves, reducing the necessity of putting themselves in harm's way. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. I don't think we have any disagreement. And her comments are well taken.
Thank you. Did Councilman Ortiz also leave his 555 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 questions with you?
Thank you. How soon, sir, will the computerized crime mapping be installed at every patrol district? And how significant of a reduction in crime do you expect this to have? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTEL: Councilwoman, we have rolled that out into two divisions: Center City, the 6th and 9th District, as well as the Inspector's Office and the Detective Captain's Office within the last two weeks. For the last couple of months, Southwest Division, the 16th -- I'm sorry, the 18th and 19th Districts have had it. Right now I need more equipment to roll it out farther. But the information from the maps has been available for many months to the 556 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 districts. We are now producing 600 maps a month that go out to our various districts and units. The difference in Center City is they can sit down right at the inspector's desk and pull up today on a map what happened yesterday in the city. So that is the one difference. I expect that I will have that rolled out citywide within the next six months.
All right. So that issue is almost an instantaneous opportunity to respond? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTEL: It is almost the quickest we can get crime information out there to everyone. So as I said, right now with Inspector Tiano in Central, he is looking at everything that happened in Center City yesterday, he can see today.
Okay. Much has been made about Operation Sunrise, and I am pleased with all that I have heard. Can you tell me what your plans are to expand it? What is your assessment of what its 557 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 success has been? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Commissioner Johnson will address that since he is intimately familiar with Operation Sunrise and where we want to go from there. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Based on our statistics and from my evaluations, it has been very successful. And we base that not so much on the amount of arrests we made -- although since June we made approximately 2,200 in Operation Sunrise from buyers and sellers. We base our success based on the least amount of crimes that happened in that area.
Reduced number of crimes? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That is correct. There has been percent less 20 homicides. I believe 19 percent less aggravated assaults. I think it was 21 percent less robberies in the particular areas that we have already been. We look at Operation Sunrise as a type of thing -- the reason why we -- basically, why we went there in the first place is that 70 percent of 558 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 the growth that was coming in the area of Philadelphia was coming in that particular area. 48 percent of our arrests for drugs in 1997 was in that area. And over one third --
You said "that area" before, but would you describe where that area is? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, ma'am. It is the 24th, 25th and 26th Police Districts in Philadelphia. Basically, from Delaware Avenue over to Broad Street, Germantown Avenue and approximately from York Street up to Hunting Park in the East Division. So the area was so big and there were so many problems there that we had to break it down into four different sections. Let's say, we are in Phase 1. We were in Phase from June 10th -- I mean June 15th to August the 10th. And we stayed there for approximately seven weeks. We went to Phase 2 on August the 10th, August the 15th. And we are still on Phase 2 because of the amount of the drugs that is over 559 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 there right now.... The reason we started on Phase 1 was because we had more community support in that particular area and because of the citizens over there and the community that we had over there. Working along with the federal agencies and the other agencies, it became a little more easier there than it was in the other areas. As we go from east to west, it becomes a little more harder. One additional thing is that drugs being used in West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, normally it originates in each division. And we used the example where if you have a leak in your house and you have radiators in five different rooms and you turn off the leak in one room, you turn off the leak in the second room, and the third room, by the time you get to the fifth room, the leak in the first room is leaking again. Our thing is, if you turn off that main faucet, you can turn off all of the leaks in all of the different rooms. And the main valve for the drugs of Philadelphia was East Division. Although, we're in East Division mainly, 560 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 we still have narcotics people -- we've taken no 3 narcotics bill unit people from any other parts of the City. And we still are operating, for drugs anyhow, in all other parts of the City. In North Philadelphia it became -- with Operation Makeover, which we assisted in, other captains have come up with different programs. I think one of the good things about Operation Sunrise, there is no time limit in it and we planned on doing this in all parts of the City. But we feel as though if we can stop it in the East Division, because that is where most of our drugs is coming to, then we will be successful in other parts of the City.
How can citizens who live in North Philadelphia help you with Operation Makeover? What specifically can we do? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Well, one of the things that -- I think there were a few meetings there. And I think one of the important things, not just in North Philadelphia, but in other parts of the City, I think once they found that the Police Department was sincere and honest in what they were doing -- they had the impression that we 561 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 were coming there as an invasion force to volley people's rights. One of the things Commissioner Timoney originally said when he first came here, we weren't going to break the law to enforce the law. And I believe we have not. We are not going to bother anybody's constitutional rights; that is not our intention. We have gone out there to make the quality of life better. But the other thing we wanted was zero tolerance, which only means that any law that's on the books we are going to enforce. So with the cooperation of the community and to help us out, we have been out there in droves. Much of the community came out with us. They have given us more information than they ever have done before. And at one time, at least when I first went to Narcotics, they would call up with a certain amount of information. But right now what they're doing, they are not only calling with information, they are being very specific: they are giving a specific address; they are giving a specific name. And when they are using their 562 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 intelligence that we get to help us -- and it has helped us. The other thing is, everybody who has been arrested for drugs at this point, especially the sellers, if they are only selling drugs, then what we are doing is debriefing. We have debriefed every single person who is arrested for drugs. In the 3rd District we try to get them help. The main focus of the Narcotics Unit at this point is one of organization, which is somewhat different than we had in the last four or five years. We feel as though we can bring the organization -- that we can solve the problems here. The other thing, we are trying to be a lot more proactive by going to the schools and talking to the kids, going to other places and talking to the community groups, going to churches, getting the community involved, get the churches involved in it. So we feel as though the Police Department by itself will never solve the problem, but with the Police Department, with the community, the clergy and everyone else involved in, it can. And I think in the last nine or ten months we really 563 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 formed a strong liaison in the group with the federal sector and with the city agencies where we all have a -- where we go in there and we have law enforcement. The city agencies have wanted to do abandoned houses. License and Inspection is involved in it, the Streets Department is involved in it, every city agency is involved in it, where in the past a person would call up about a drug seller, we would go up and arrest him, they would see him out there the next day. So they couldn't really see anything happening, where now they can go out there and they can see houses being, you know, fixed; they can see abandoned cars being removed. And one of the things, too, that is surprising, if we get a dealer or a supplier, we're not taking them to the local court, we are taking them federally, with the federal assistance. And I think that has really made a big difference.
Thank you. Is there a Makeover hot line? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, ma'am. 564 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
How -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I am not sure of the Makeover hot line.
A hot line where we could call. You mentioned that North Philadelphia was considering -- you were calling this Sunrise Makeover. How can we share with you what we know about known drug houses, crack houses, shooting parlors, whatever they are called? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: 685-DRUGS. And someone mans that hours a day. 13
Thank you. 16 At the request of the stenographer, we 17 are going to take a ten-minute break. So we will 18 stand in recess for ten minutes. Thank you. 19 (Brief recess.) 20
We are now 21 back in session. 22 The Chair recognizes Councilwoman 23 Miller. 24
Thank you, Madam Chair. 565 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
Commissioner Timoney, in my district and lots of districts around the City, the school crossing guards seem to be an issue. And I guess I am just going to directly ask you: Is there some way that you can find additional dollars for school crossing guards? I think when I first came on Council there were 1,200 guards and now it is down to 1,000, but the need has not decreased. Can you tell me why there is a decrease in the number of school crossing guards, be it 1,200 or 1,000? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTEL: Councilwoman, Tom Nestel. Councilwoman, as far as funded positions, it has remained at the 1,000 mark for many years. I believe where the 1,200 number came up is there were different opinions of how many crossings actually exist. And there was -- and there was a number that was in the 1,200 area, 1,200 or 1,225 or 1,250. But as far as funded positions, it has 566 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 been 1,000; that number has remained constant. And we will make every effort to fill those vacancies as quickly as possible with what occurs.
I think the demand is probably based on -- or the increased demand is probably based on the fact that traffic lights have been taken down in high traffic areas; that stop signs don't seem to be working. Because I note in my district many of the additional requests are made for high traffic streets that I've traveled to. So I always have a feel for where the traffic is, the volume of traffic. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTEL: Yes. And if you have specific corners that you believe there should be a crossing guard at, a crossing guard at that location, and if you give those corners to the District Commander, then between the District Commander and the School Crossing Guard Headquarters, they will have those corners evaluated. And it is very possible that there are other corners that aren't quite as busy that we could reassign the guard from the location where he 567 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 or she presently is to a busier corner.
Okay. I will do that. Operation Sunrise, I have a question about its expansion, or maybe it doesn't have to be a full Operation Sunrise. There is something in the form that is for entire neighborhoods. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think what we are trying to do is eventually -- we have a certain plan and we really don't want to go away from that plan, but at the same time, all of the other areas in the City that's, you know, that's suffering, the field units are still operating in other parts of the City. Most of our strike force is combined with the Operation Sunrise area. We are trying to find some way to bring some of our units, the uniformed people, into different areas, north, south, west and other parts of the City. But if -- I will be meeting up there tonight at 7:30 to talk about this issue. We are going to try to get everything in tonight to help as many citizens we possibly can. I know being up there -- I was up there 568 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 last week with the drug march. I was up there the week before with the drug march. And as I said, some time in the near future hopefully we will come up there again. As I said previously, the drugs in the northwest, from our research, comes from East Division.
I have a continuation of a narcotic question. I am trying to understand all of the components you have in the drug unit. Now, if a house has been reported for about a year that there is drug activities going on in that house, is that when you send your Buy and Bust Team to see if they can do an undercover buy? And if that doesn't work, what is the next step? Because it is my understanding that we have a house and the captain is now Captain Dorsey. And other people know about this particular house. But it has been about a year, and I don't think anything has happened. And one of the reasons was because people -- some police officers told some neighbors they couldn't find -- they have not been able to purchase drugs. 569 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: What we found, again from our experience, was that other kinds of people sell to people they know. If you give me that location, Ms. Miller, I will look into it. And I will investigate it today. And I will see whether other people have been up there. If not, I will be sure they will be up in the near future.
I think they have been up there, but I think just in the neighborhood purchasing. Two really quick -- do I have time? Just to response time and prioritizing around the response. I told the Commissioner that I called in a stolen truck, and a police officer came to my house about 4:30 in the morning to get a report from me. We were at a community meeting, which we were having a side bar conversation. To get the report to me on my stolen vehicle -- and certainly at 4:30 in the morning I could have cared less about giving him all of the details I needed to give him regarding the truck. Has that type of response stopped, you know, coming to people's houses at 4:00 in the 570 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 morning to get a report for a stolen vehicle filled out? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: How long ago was that?
About maybe two years. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Oh, yeah, it has definitely stopped. One of the things -- it went from one extreme to another. They went from the extreme of waking you up at 4:00 in morning to not calling at all, and so we've changed that. We have been handling stolen cars or stolen trucks or anything on a differential response mode. In other words, if your car is stolen or you call 911, they hook you up with an officer down there and we take a report over the phone. When we looked into that, that is not the best way of handling stolen cars. If your car is stolen, you have every right to expect a police officer to come and take a report. But more importantly, it is the fundamental belief of mine that you go to the scene 571 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 to take a report but not just to take a report; there is actually information you can glean from the scene, whether it is interviewing neighbors or checking to find out where the car was stolen from. Because we can estimate maybe percent 7 of stolen cars are reported stolen for fraudulent 8 means by people trying to -- for insurance scams. 9 And if I am going to try to go down in 10 my car -- for insurance purposes it is a lot easier 11 to do it over the phone as opposed to having an 12 officer knock on my door asking me all of these 13 questions. 14 Additionally, we get information from 15 the scene with regards to patterns of how cars are 16 stolen. If It has been up the block, couple of 17 blocks, then that helps inform us in how we are 18 going to employ our resources. 19 And in the case of certain areas of the 20 city, we start to find out when we do get the information where quite a few cars were often the first car on the block, and it was clear they were being stolen by otherwise legitimate tow truck operators. And we are in the practice now, we have 572 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 reasonable suspicion to stop tow trucks, particularly after dark in Philadelphia. And I can't believe, I can't begin to describe to you the number of tow trucks we have confiscated with stolen cars on board that the people didn't even know. We call over to the man and he says: No, my car is downstairs. And we say: No, it isn't. We have it over here. And we have the tow truck. And the one classic example, back in the first two weeks with the -- with our helicopters. They followed a tow truck, a flatbed truck who got away from the police patrols, and found the flatbed truck with two stolen cars on board down in a certain neighborhood where you couldn't see from the patrol. The helicopter called in patrol units. They grabbed the guy with a double flatbed truck with two stolen cars, three of the stolen cars, and they were all stolen that night. There were five cars just in this one junkyard that were stolen that one night. And so the bottom line is, we have changed how we deal with stolen cars in 573 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Philadelphia.
Councilwoman, at least you got a response. When it was 4 o'clock in the morning and our car was stolen, we never saw or heard from a policeman.
Yes. I appreciated the response, but at 4:30, I couldn't deal with it. I thought something happened to somebody. A couple other questions. And I just want to do a couple of questions regarding abandoned cars. We have been talking to various police districts about the abandoned car problem because it has escalated. And we thought that in talking to the police at districts that if you can computerize, if you could put a database together per district that information is entered into each time there is an abandoned car that comes in. And I think the e-mail is working very well. I know my office has been very satisfied with the e-mail system. I don't think the general public knows too much about the e-mail method of reporting the abandoned cars. 574 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 But we believe that if the cars, if those cars could go into the database, it would save on duplication. Because it is done by -- it is done manually now. It is my understanding that sometimes the abandoned car officers may be on call, I will report a car today, someone will call tomorrow and report the same car, and then it ends up they have to remember whether this is, in fact, the same car they've seen; there might have been five or six calls about the same car. And we believe the database will cut down on it. And we also would like to try something different at the 14th District where it will involve five hours versus just the one abandoned car officer. And we are hoping that will have a better impact on getting the cars removed. And what happens when the salvager comes out and the car is in the condition that you stated earlier, that they don't want to take it; who gets that car off the street? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: There is a couple things; and you are absolutely right. This abandoned auto issue is -- whether it is growing in leaps and bounds or the complaints are growing in 575 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 leaps and bounds, something is growing in leaps and bounds. And let me tell you, we are committed to coming up with a solution that shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out. One of the things we came upon in the 14th District, one of the things we want to look at -- I had this issue up in New York about years ago, 10 and it's pretty simple, but there's an awful lot of 11 duplication, triplication 12 One of the things we should be doing is, 13 whether it's the abandoned vehicle officer or any 14 officer, we should be -- if anybody finds a vehicle 15 like that, the report should be made. And a sticker, a day-old sticker should be put on the side of the vehicle facing the street so that the Streets Department employee or another cop or someone else who comes by knows that has been reported and then we've got to set up the correct mechanisms for follow-up. I have had this conversation three times now. We keep getting acquainted, as you are saying. We got information from Mr. Certaine. The allegations are that the tow truck companies aren't 576 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 picking them up, but when I spoke to Commissioner Estel about this, it is like I didn't get the information. And we are going to meet with the commanders now. If that's the case, they have to let us know, let Commissioner Estel know, and we will speak to L & I as far. You don't get a choice of what you want to pick up. And so rather than deal with things, and we do really need to settle this system without telling stories or sharing true -- we have heard them third-hand. But there is a huge problem. And there is a problem being committed, and we have met three times. We have a meeting next week. Commissioner Estel has all of the data available. We just have to make sure it is stopping. And it is silly now.
Thank you. In your testimony on , second paragraph, it says that you are continuing to build a plan of action based around the assurance of police integrity and increase public confidence. 577 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 And down at the third-from-the-bottom paragraph, you make reference to "The Department's strategy involves hiring, training, and disciplinary standards of sworn personnel and working with officers, community organizations..." et cetera, so the public can have confidence in the City's police force. One question: Has it ever been agreed this statement, and I guess I need to -- when you state that you have -- when 266 officers have been dismissed, how many of those officers have been reinstated because of arbitration? And because -- I am glad that you have this in here, because I believe the Police Department does need to deal with these issues, because it is a very serious issue internally within the Police Department. And there are some other issues, too, such as racism and other things that are going on in the Police Department. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: A couple of things: One, that number, by the way, actually is a conservative number but it doesn't take into consideration those officers that resign, that we are getting ready to dismiss. They say forget about 578 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 it, I'm resigning. So they are not captured in those numbers. So the number is actually higher than that. While FOP does in a lot of cases arbitration, they maintain -- I've had conversations with Rich Costello. For example, we completely revamped the department's disciplinary system in conjunction with Mr. Costello. Because I think, and I don't think people disagree with this, I think it is in the best interest of management and in the best interest of the Police Union that we have a well-disciplined, professionally run organization. It is easier for me. It is also easier for him. It saves him on the lawyer costs, but it also allows him, if he has a well-running, planned organization that is professional, it allows him to come with a great deal more credibility to the bargaining table when it comes down to bargaining for additional salaries and things like that and say, hey, listen, we are a notch above everyone else, we are more professional, more this, a lot more is expected of us. And if he has got public confidence and high public ratings, that helps him. 579 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 So it is not just a management issue, it really is a Union issue. Another thing Rich Costello agrees with, he knows it is in his best interest that we have a corruption-free, as much as possible, a brutal-free, a more professional police organization.
To continue along those lines, is there some type of intervention that happens when the officer, say like Chris DePasquale, who has a whole list of complaints against him, doesn't something go off? Like, for instance, where I always worked, we get a warning or you get written up, and I know your complaints because they are written complaints. But police people are there to help protect the citizens. And when people -- his case, actually, brought a lot of things to people's minds just regarding the public confidence and public safety. And I just want to know, is there a system in place that a red light goes on or something flashes and says, hey, we better take this guy off the street, something is going on here? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: There is a system 580 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 in place that Internal Affairs has put together that we monitor what we consider -- and any comments I am making now are not in reference to Officer DePasquale. Because I think in fairness to Officer DePasquale, while there may seem like there is an inordinate number of civilian complaints, when you look at them, when you examine them case by case, quite a few of them just fall by the wayside. They are frivolous and unsubstantiated and unfounded comments about Officer DePasquale. The system we are talking about, is there an at-risk officer policy? And the answer is yes. It is the obligation of management, of us in top command to make sure if we have an officer out there that we are aware of there should be a program in place to do something about it. Commissioner Norris spoke of the program where these officers will be brought in, they will be offered for counselling. The FOP, by the way, has not objected to this. They understand this is not in the business of punishing officers. It is in the business of 581 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 correcting behavior, of showing them the right way of doing business, of seeing if we can't -- stress related or what have you, of looking to solve problems, not necessarily punish officers. Having said that, I will not hesitate for a second punishing officers I think deserve it. But we do. In fact, Commissioner Norris put together a program, a counseling program, with the commitment of the FOP that they understand it and they also go home with it. They see there is no 12 disagreement. Again, the whole idea, it is also in their best interest that we have a well-run, professional organization.
One more question. I think someone said that it would be better if the police officers didn't join a union for six months so that looking at training and education -- because in your testimony it makes reference to recruiting military personnel because they're used to following orders and respecting command, but that doesn't detect out this behavior. So in the recruitment, what was filled in -- 582 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, in the recruitment there is a few things. One of the problems, the horrendous problem in New York -- and we run into it in Philadelphia all the time -- when you hire officers that are too young, they haven't had -- they come with no pedigree, no background. They get out of high school and all of a sudden they are a Philadelphia cop. You don't know what they are all about. You don't know if they've had the possibility of screwing up, making mistakes and making bad judgments because they are right out of high school and on the police department. One of the things we are looking to do, especially since there is no military draft now, where a young man years ago had a possibility of maturing in the military, they now mature in the police department, which may or may not be the best way of maturing, we are looking to raise the age from 19 to 22. That gives you a four-year period between your high school and maybe you get out there and have one or two jobs. That way as we do background checks, we can begin to inquire with employers on what kind of person is this person Timoney? Is he dependable? Does he show up at work 583 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 on time? What are his work habits? The problems with year olds is that 4 they haven't had a chance to screw up. They come 5 out of high school, they live with their parents. I 6 mean, they become police officers; they have no 7 background, no pedigree. So one of the efforts we 8 are looking to do is to raise the age to 22. 9 By the way, you brought up the 10 military. It was offered as an avenue of getting a 11 few good men and women to commit to the police 12 department. They've been in a military 13 organization, have survived that, and come out with 14 an Honorable Discharge. They often make real good 15 candidates. 16 They are not going to be getting anyone 17 by the thousands. But thanks -- actually, thanks to 18 Councilman Cohen, who had come up with the existing 19 loophole in the Civil Service System, we were able to implement that. We have been in touch with the -- with the military bases. We have been advertising in the military magazines and newspapers. We have gotten -- and this is only in the last two weeks. We have gotten responses from 20 people or so. So what 584 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 happens is we are responsible -- As I testified six months ago on this issue, we are not talking about thousands. We are talking about a few good men and women and that is it.
One other question, and you don't have to take the time and answer in a manner -- but what are you doing in the area of recruiting African Americans and other minorities, and in their moving up the ranks through the police department to some higher level positions? I think in my district I have one African American captain in a predominate African American district, and that is Captain Dorsey. And really she is an executive officer. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, where I can really help out is in the recruitment area where we bring officers in. And we have completely revamped the recruiting unit that has been taken out of -- where it resided and it now resides with Commissioner Estel in the Academy. And I think we get highly qualified, highly qualified candidates of all sorts and types 585 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 and all races and genders through the aggressive -- for recruitment campaign. If we can get the best qualified candidates that way, my sense is then you have to work your way through the Civil Service phase. But a lot of the problem with the Civil Service System is the Civil Service System. In other words, there is only one way of navigating your way through the top, and it is through an exam process that may or may not necessarily be the best predictor of what is a good sergeant, what is a good corporal and what is a good captain. And clearly, you know, I made my feelings clear on this: When you get above the rank of captain, I think I am in a better position than any examiner to determine what makes a good leader.
I will probably call you to set up a meeting to further discuss this. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. No more questions.
Thank you. 586 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 The Chair recognizes Councilman Ortiz.
Thank you, Madam President. Commissioner, recently -- and I know we've spoken previously to the question of Operation Sunrise.
Yes. Recently a community group came out of the survey, and I would like to clarify the findings that they found: That they were dissatisfied with the results of Operation Sunrise. They claim the nature of the work that you have been implementing, the absence of some type of a set of -- lack of police force. And I would like you to clarify for the record your answer to the claims in that survey. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, I was taken -- I was really taken aback by that, because I will tell you what, I met those folks. I met with them before Operation Sunrise in the churches up in North Philly. I met with them. They gave me a sneak 587 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 preview of that survey, and they also came down to my office and sat there for a couple of hours. And I went over and I told them, you know, it is probably a good study as far as getting people's opinions of the police force; that is certainly valid. But I think the conclusions are flawed, because you are asking them about people who live outside -- in this case there were 2,100 people -- there were 2,000 which live outside of the area of Operation Sunrise. What do you think about Operation Sunrise and the effect on the area? I mean, it is like asking people in Brazil, what do you think about the American economy. It has no bearing. It doesn't mean that it wasn't a valid survey regarding people's attitudes, and I will accept that. I just don't like the idea of taking those conclusions on those 2,000 people and applying them to the Operation Sunrise there. I think you have reached a faulty conclusion. You reach a faulty conclusion. And it may be based on, by the way, good data. I don't know how this survey was conducted. 588 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 And then we see -- so we discussed that, by the way, and they agreed with me. And then they went to the press. And I said, Hello. And I was scratching my head. And I just did not understand. And so I made my feelings known that my sense is -- and I go into the Operation Sunrise area. And it seems like Commissioner Johnson has had many turns there. It is not perfect over there, but the sense I get from the community meetings during drug marches is that people feel pretty good about what we are doing. This doesn't mean that they are perfectly happy. But the results I get, at least from my interpersonal relations with folks over there, is a lot better. I even went into -- for example, in July I went to one of the schools, a Catholic school, and then a public school. And even dealing with the kids in that area thought they saw an ultimate improvement. So my -- the opinions and feedback that I am getting contradict the findings in some respects of that study.
Operation Sunrise, as Commissioner Johnson said, has been one part of 589 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 this. We haven't traveled west to Hunting Park. And I keep getting calls and I keep going to meetings and saying, when are we going to have something happening here, although we do have things happening. And how do we take the case in Hunting Park and those areas of 5th Street that Operation Sunrise is there that is becoming more miserable? How do we let the -- because I think that is part of the report. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. But let me answer that quick and then I will let Commissioner Johnson answer, who is much more familiar than I am. The quick answer is: We have made a commitment to that area from Day 1. The one thing we are after is honesty. We said listen, that day we didn't get -- we've had these conversations privately. It didn't get like that overnight.
The very first day -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: But the very first day I got here I discussed that with you. It has been neglected for years and years and years. It is going to take a while to retain some of those rights and to maintain that commitment. We have been -- at least been honest about it, it may take 590 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 up to two years. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: February 22nd we are going to 5th Street. We are going to Phase 3. And I think it is important that when we are at certain phases we still have other police officers, the sector cars and uniformed police officers from the strike force in the other two phases. And as uniformed people are going east to west, the non-uniformed people are coming from west to east. So we are in this Hunting Park area. We are in the area. And we've made some millions of arrests up there from our organization in the Hunting Park area. So all we can visibly see is a large amount of strike force also in uniform. The non-uniformed people are working every day up there on a continuous basis.
But you can see that frustration. Because even before you got here, Commissioner, Commissioner Sylvester and I had been speaking. And we had been pushing for something like this to happen in this division. And finally, it starts to happen. And then people expect quick 591 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 results overnight. And do we have any data of the main -- because as you said, it is the main supply of drugs for the western vicinity. Do we have any data of suppliers, big dealers that can keep on putting out to the people in the community and get these guys off the street? These gangs and these cartels have been removed from certain neighborhoods. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I can give you a list today from June 15th up until the present that we have taken down of ten major organizations that I can give you. Now, there are other organizations that we are still involved in because of confidentiality, because there is an ongoing investigation that I can't give you. But I know for a fact that there is ten organizations that we have taken -- as far as sending their name over there, that we have taken down. Some community organizations -- most of the suppliers don't live in that area. We have some stash houses in that area. Most of the dealers and suppliers live outside that area. 592 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 I can give you today ten organizations between DA, FBI, ATF, that we have already taken down as recently as two weeks ago.
Can we get that, Madam President, so that when I go to the neighborhoods I can have that and I can say, look, this is part of the results of Operation Sunrise, this is part of a phase that has been implemented and achieved during the last eight months of the operations? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Today I can give you the status, statistical status of what has happened there. And I have to give it to the Police Commissioner and then I'll give them to you. But again, they would only be organizations that we have already taken down. But there are still numerous amounts of organizations that we are still involved with.
I would appreciate that. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: My brother is a lieutenant in the NYPD. Since I became a commissioner here, I worked closer with him here than I did when I was up to New York. That is how 593 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 often he has been down in Philly with these big cases that are coming in.
Commissioner, in terms of the hiring practices and the fact that we have to go outside, I have a list of cases that come into my office, and I see one that perhaps exemplifies part of the problem that we have in terms of the process. It is a young man, Latino, with a criminal justice degree. Passes the test, everything that goes. For one reason or another he fails -- the first time he fails the polygraph and then he passes the polygraph; comes from a good family; highly educated; highly committed to police work. That is why he had his degree in criminal justice. The type -- to me he fits the profile that you are looking for except he was Philly-born, Philly-raised, college educated. You don't have to go to an Army base to find this guy. He is here. He gets rejected because of something way back when he was a kid out with his friends, a shoplifting thing when he was 14, something like that. To me that is inconceivable. 594 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Based on that I couldn't agree with you more. And one of the things we've done and a few things -- as you are aware, I am not a huge fan of the lie detector test. I think it is kind of crazy and shouldn't be an elimination. It should be used as an investigative technique. But also on a kid, a or or year 10 old kid that gets into some minor trouble, nothing 11 heavy, that should not be counted against you for 12 the rest of your life. And one of the things we are 13 trying to do -- 14
I can show you cases. 15 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, without 16 having the time with you now, I will sit down with you and go through it. But let me just tell you the changes we have done just in the last two or three months. We have completely changed the matrix of how a person gets disqualified. Because, you know, if somebody screws up when they are 15 or 16, they are teenagers, and now they are 21 or 22 and they basically have stayed out of trouble for the last two or three years, I am all for redemption, and 595 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 giving people a first and second chance. That should not automatically be held against them. And so with those rare exceptions I will tell you there are no more automatic rejections unless, of course, it was a serious felony. Because you're automatically -- But the things that a year or two years ago were automatic rejections are no longer automatic rejections. There are still automatic rejections for drug dealing, involved in a shooting or clearly robbery. But on the other things, on a minor thing, for example, some 14, 15-year-old kid once experimented with marijuana in high school, why should that be held against you for the rest of your life? I don't think it should. So I think what kids need to do is say, yeah, we did -- if you do the lie detector test and be honest, yeah, I tried it when I was 15 and 16, I just tried it, but I haven't -- you know, I have been clean since. Fine. And then I will pass you. Trust me, I understand all the problems with the system. We are in the process of trying to -- 596 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
(Unintelligible.) COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: (Unintelligible.) This could be in conjunction. I will sit down and discuss this with you or anybody else on any of these cases.
I discussed it before with you and Commissioner Johnson. And it seems that on a lot -- it happens to a lot of minority African American people.
It happens to everyone. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: It happens to everyone.
I understand. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: You have to be a Philly cop --
It could happen to everyone, but it doesn't come to my office --
Well, it comes to my office, and I have spoken to the Commissioner about that. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: You are not the only one to speak to me, by the way.
How can we be geared 597 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 so that an individual like this one can come back if he still wants to be a policeman? So that he moves to a town, Orlando, to become a policeman down there, right, and if he moves within the system, he moves within the City? And to try to prevent this type of incident from happening, you know, across the board, how do we begin doing that? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, I think I answered that. I think we have begun to look at the whole of who we qualify and don't qualify. I really don't believe personally in automatic rejections. I really don't. And I think people should be allowed, especially young ones who screw up, to be forgiven by adults. You know, I don't think it should be held against you for the rest of your life. And so as long as you have indicated in the last couple years, okay, you have gotten your act together, we've all grown up. We all grow up in different stages; we all grow up in different backgrounds. And if we don't give people a chance, a chance once or even a second chance, I mean, what kind of an organization are you?
(Unintelligible.) 598 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I'll take your phone calls.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Cohen.
Thank you. Is there a no smoking policy in the police department? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I don't smoke.
Do you have a general no smoking policy throughout city buildings? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. I see those poor people in my office every day all out there smoking. I mean, there is -- I've never seen anyone smoking in headquarters.
And this morning I had a routine medical checkup and the nurse said, I am glad I got you. It boggles me -- she had two problems she wanted to discuss with me as a city representative. One was these bicycle paths. Who paints those white lines? Is it painted on? Is it the police department? 599 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
Are there any rules -- are cars permitted to use those bicycle paths when not being used by bicycles? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Being a biker, they're not supposed to. But I know they do.
She comes in from Jenkintown to the Philadelphia office. She has never seen a bicycler ever on York Road coming into Broad Street in the northwest part of the City. And York Road is fully painted. What has happened is that what used to be two lanes of traffic now becomes one lane of traffic, and the traffic gets jammed up two or three blocks -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
-- for it to move freely. I'm just raising it to see whether 600 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 someone can look at that because I favor the concept of bicycle paths and also to keep motorists, you know, from throwing bricks at bicyclers and vice versa. And that battle goes on when they appear. But I am just wondering whether anyone has really examined that picture. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: That issue has come up somewhere, and it may be at a community meeting up in the 35th. But someone brought it to my attention before. And Charley -- there is somebody. I think we are looking into that. And maybe, maybe there is another provision where during rush hours from 7:00 in the morning to 10:00 and then after, from 4:00 to 7:00, it is open to cars. We will check it out.
I think that would be a good thing. And on the no smoking policy she raised the question of the appearance of police officers who are in cars smoking and throwing them out in the street. We have a general no smoking philosophy 601 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 in the City that we have been carrying on for years to reduce the amount of smoking. Most of our city buildings are no smoking buildings. And I am just wondering, I know the police work under special pressures -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I could not agree with you more. One of the things that has really upset me, and I have been known -- I sent a memo out and we have spoken. And I have had Chief Pryor speak -- There is no prohibition within the regulations that forbids Philadelphia police officers to smoke in uniform. I think it is disgusting. Apparently, I can't do that unilaterally, because again (unintelligible.) To begin with, you would not be allowed to smoke in uniform. You would probably be fined if you did. But here to do that prohibition I would have to sit down and work it out with the FOP; and it doesn't look like that is possible. So I've used a volley to tell officers, listen, be aware of your image. It just looks awful. You see this guy walking, hanging it out of the lip; it drives me nuts. And I stop him and 602 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 say: Get rid of this thing. Are you kidding me? It's a phase of life. The other one, throwing a cigarette butt out of the car -- any type of garbage out of the car is another disgusting habit. The one good thing is that you don't see it like you did or years 8 ago. 9 One of the great ad campaigns that 10 worked for America is littering. And they should 11 be -- again, it is like when somebody calls 911 and 12 tries to tell the officers, you know, people are 13 watching you. 14 So whether you go by a drug location or 15 you are throwing wrappers or cigarette butts out of 16 a car, people are watching and they are basing their 17 impression and the whole problem upon your 18 individual actions. 19
Particularly police 20 officers, younger police officers, are models to 21 young people. And we want that to be. 22 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: There is no 23 disagreement there. 24
And there are special 25 campaigns of no smoking involving youngters. It 603 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 gives a contrary message when that exists. Can you explain briefly what is the difference in duties between the two captains in the police district? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes, sir. Before you get to duties, let me explain the rationale for the executive officers. When I was running around, if you remember the day I was sworn in, I said I would visit every district within 30 days. And I did it within 29 days. As I was going around, I turned the troops out and go back to the captain's office and sit down and "tell me what's going on," and when did you get that and when did you get that. And out of the 23, it seemed like there was about eight or nine of them all got there last August 17th. So I thought there was this huge scandal, they cleaned the heads of the departments out, all these people. And they said: No, we were promoted August 16th. I said: Okay, you were promoted August 16th and you took over August 17th. Yeah. (Unintelligible.) I was five 604 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 years at the Academy. I was five years in narcotics. So you have spent five years in detectives away from patrol and you got promoted to captain and then you were given the most difficult job in the Police Department as a district commander without any training or break-in period? I mean, that is insane. And to help us get past that, we designed the executive officer. The executive officer is only in those A districts, the real tough districts. They help the commanding officer run the day-to-day operations but they also help run the administrative functions within the district and learn how to do a job. The theory is that they will do that for six, nine months, and then they will move into a B command. I am happy to report the very first one started yesterday. I am sure Mr. Nutter will be upset about this but we will have somebody good take his place. The executive officer in the 19th, who has done an outstanding job out there, is being rewarded. He is now taking the new commanding officer of the 17th 605 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 District, the good work. He will be replaced by another executive officer. And what we are trying to do is let people know, one, when you train with the B commanding officers but also as executive officers, if you do good work and you get rave praises from City Council, from the public, from your commanding officers, from your bosses, we are going to take care of you. And so that is what the whole issue is of developing executives officers. To develop fine commanding officers, that is the ultimate goal.
Ultimately, you go back to the policy of a single captain in the training or -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No. Those ten or eleven districts -- by the way, because it is a fluid situation, you never have all eleven districts with two captains. Sometimes you have nine. You lose two captains -- you are full with eleven but before you know it, three or four months later, two or three have transferred somewhere else. The idea though is to develop as used in the A houses -- an executive officer to develop 606 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 their skills as captains, to do that job. They go to a B house, they do a good job, in two or three years they move to an A house. It is rewarding people. And as you are well aware, the Mayor was very good. We have given those district captains now -- they are the only ones that get extra money. Because we recognize they have a hard job. And narcotics captains do great work, but there is no harder a job than running a district. When You are running a district, you have to report to Timoney and Johnson. Guess what, you also have to report to Cohen and Blackwell and all of the heads of the community. I mean, they are the ones that have to deal on a day-to-day basis -- they are held accountable to run those districts and volunteer with the politicians, with the police, with the brass and the deal with problems. Cops do it all. They do it all. They deserve the recognition.
Let's talk for a moment about abandoned cars. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: My God, can we just forget it? The horse is dead. 607 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
There is a resolution 3 that passed City Council several months ago that is probably going to be heard by the Public Safety & Law and Government Committee, maybe even the Streets Committee, which introduced a similar resolution but then withdrew it in favor of the earlier one. We will probably have public hearings in March, which I just wanted to alert you to it. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes.
But part of the discussion, what has happened in my part of the City where I live, and I think it is duplicated, maybe even exaggerated in other areas, is we find a lot of cars banged up; they were obviously in an auto accident somewhere and they're at corners where there is absolutely no evidence that any accident ever took place. So we are puzzled by it. And then we take action. And ultimately, the cars get removed only to be replaced by a new batch, maybe an increasing number even, of cars in the same location that never had an auto accident that anybody can ever remember of. I was reminded of it when you talked about having a helicopter and a bunch of trailers. 608 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Is there any indication that there is any organized effort from either in the City or outside the City to use the streets as a dumping ground? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes, you are absolutely right. And this issue came up about three weeks ago at COMPSTAT when Captain McGinnis was in charge of the order of the crime. And I don't know the details, but there is some evidence and we have an investigation going on of junkyards, auto shops that are stripping up and then getting the shells and going out and depositing them on city streets as opposed to getting them and making scrap metal out of them. So there is -- we have one or two locations that I cannot get into, but you are absolutely right on. But even that wouldn't account for the numbers -- there is something else driving the issue. I mean, there is just far too many. I think part of the problem is, and it is only one part of the problem, is the issue the community needs -- what we are attempting to address now is the issue of unlicensed, unregistered, uninsured cars. So that thought isn't, if I ran out 609 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 of insurance and I don't have a driver's license, well, let me pick up a car for $200 and run it in the ground, and I will deposit it -- wherever it dies, that's where it dies, and they become the future abandoned cars. The program now that we have set up that has been in effect for the last three or four months of stopping people with those cars and us confiscating them before they become abandoned autos is being -- has been, so far, quite successful. I think it is the extent of the program -- again, depending on the capacity of private towers and space, because we cannot have "hoses" hanging around for seven hours waiting for tow trucks to show up. But so far it hasn't -- so far the towers, they manage to be there within a half hour. My sense is if we can commit to extend that program also that that will preclude future -- a certain amount of future abandoned autos appearing on the streets by people who drive without insurance, without registration and just driving a $200 jalopy until it collapses, and where it collapses, that is where it stays. 610 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
Is it possible that some salvagers might make room in their storage area for this soup campaign and want to move out old cars? Because we understood there was a shortage of space for abandoned cars. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, I don't know whether they're moving them out. But the fact is there are a few, in fact, moving them out. And I have investigations ongoing. One of the things which we addressed earlier this morning, I think before you got here -- and we are having a meeting next week on this whole issue -- we are getting a lot of information, letters from Mr. Certaine or from Councilman Street that the records don't show up. But it is antidotal information. We don't have these records. Nobody has told Commissioner Estel, none of the commanding officers, hey, listen, the records aren't showing up. He can't do anything about the records as far as getting their licenses revoked unless we can substantiate. So we need to get our own act together. I'm confessing here; we haven't had our act together with regards to this. 611 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 I am telling you we are going to get our act together.
If we asked you, would March be giving you enough time? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: March is almost here. We will go to April 1.
Well, with Council President's permission, we will wait until April 1. And then the last question; some four and a half years ago I sponsored and City Council passed and Mayor Rendell signed Bill No. 825, on June 22, 1994, which provides that all commercial vehicles must display their name, address, telephone number of the owner, and the description of the work that the truck is being used for, yet I think it's a law of the City that nobody knows about and is not being enforced. It creates many problems. One, I'm not sure it's not a safety hazard to have a lot of unmarked trucks carrying, we-don't-know-what throughout the City. Secondly, from a tax point of view, it is an easy cover for businesses that ought to be filing with different departments to pay city taxes. It seems to me there might be a motivation 612 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 to avoid the payment of taxes if they don't know you're working. But if you just watch driving down Broad Street, you see truck after truck totally unidentified in any fashion and what it -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Go ahead.
It seems that the fine provided for in the bill, a $300 fine, and it would be important not only to enforce the bill, but when we get the information to see that the proper licenses are required for whatever work they are doing, the proper tax is paid. Because I think this could amount to very many millions of dollars in business taxes plus we can be sure that these cars are not carrying things they ought not to be carrying. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I have my counsel, Karen Simmons, behind me. She is taking a note as you are speaking. She will look into that.
And I would like to get a suggestion because it may require a number of departments. It would seem to me the police department would be in the best position to enforce that. 613 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. I have no 3 problems at all. We have the highway officers -- I have no problem. Let me look into that. I will get back to you.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo, only if he promises he is not going to talk about abandoned vehicles.
Oh, I might as well pass then. No, I am not going to do that to the Commissioner. I think we were dealing with that subject well. Commissioner, I'm not sure, but I believe in city vehicles it is not legal, there is no smoking in city vehicles. I haven't gotten in one vehicle -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I know in my car there is a sign that says "No Smoking." Somebody put that sign there. But I don't smoke.
I believe that you 614 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 are not supposed to smoke in any city vehicle. I see a sticker "no smoking," so I hope there is something to back that up. So I just wanted to point that out. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Okay. Very good.
Commissioner, maybe you can clear up something that I get a tremendous amount of calls on. And it seems to cause a lot of unnecessary frustration to the police department. How many lists do we have? And why when young people call they automatically get their feathers ruffled when they hear about this two-list system that we have in the police department? Would you please explain so I can understand the process better? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I hope I can explain it. I am not so sure I understand the process. But as you are well aware, there was a Federal Decent Decree that was entered into, I believe, in 1990, a ten-year running exemplary decree regarding minority hiring, specifically African American hiring within the Philadelphia 615 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 Police Department to attempt to reach levels that would reflect somewhat the African American population that was in the City of Philadelphia. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: What happened, there was the descent decree. The descent decree basically says because of past discrimination that the police department had to again hire the amount of blacks -- Afro-Americans, not all minorities, just Afro-Americans, who have taken the test and passed the test, that percentage has to be in the next class. So what happens is that, I am not sure exactly how many there is now, but I believe there is two or three active lists. They have to go through one list to see if there is a list, say A list. So they have to take all of the Afro-Americans off that list and Caucasians and then go to the next one. After all of the Afro-Americans on this one list, then they go to the B list. Well, they can't -- if they need Caucasians for a class, they have to take them off of the first list. If they need them for the third list, they still have to take them off of the first list. 616 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 The only time they can give additional tests is when they run out of minorities. So when they run out of minorities on one list, they have to give another test to bring the minorities in. But you can't say, if you are on an A list -- I may be confusing you. But if you are on the A list as a Caucasian you have to go before the Caucasian on the B list. It is not two separate lists; they are on the same list. But the first list has to be used up before you look to the second list and then you go to the third list. And each of these lists lasts two years. Once the two years is over, the list is done with. So conceivably what happens then, if there is a class of 100 and -- 100 Afro-Americans say, they have to be 50 percent or the amount of those who took the test and passed it, the percentage; say 40, 50 percent. Then 40 percent has to be in that class based on a Federal Descent Decree. There is nothing the City can do about it until there is a new test that is approved by either the City or if a federal judge approves that 617 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 list.
After two years the list expires? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Correct.
Now, I want to address the hiring, the supposed hiring problem. I get calls and letters -- as you know, I have a TV show. I get calls and letters about young people who want to be police officers, that because of this process that we just described, they never get hired as police officers or the list expires. If we've got a crisis and we are not able to hire qualified applicants, why are we doing this? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, I mean, we've -- that discussion goes on almost daily in headquarters. I think the issue -- we've had discussions with people in the administration. There are a couple of things: One, it has reached a point now that we can't even get enough minorities without practically giving new exams which -- right now we have two lists going on, 78 -- 77 and 78. But there are not enough. For example, for the class coming up, there are not enough 618 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 minority candidates on the existing list, which forces us to give another exam, which kind of puts you in, at least for me, an embarrassing situation regarding if I have to go to a community group and somebody says, why are you having an exam, I've been on a list, I haven't been called yet. It's a problem. It is not a problem of our making, but it is a problem nonetheless. That in conjunction with -- we are coming up on the tenth year. Something has got to give some way, somehow, whether it is an exam that will guarantee -- well, we're supposed to guarantee that there will not be a disparity or impact. I know that Linda Siedel and the City Central Personnel has a consultant on board that lists the Pentagon, lists some other municipalities, Denver, to come up with such an example. Now, I don't know what my sense is, it is only months away from -- is it months away, John? SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Just months away. But even having said that, I think that one 619 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 of the problems that I found with the decent decree is that by throwing in percentages ahead of time, it took any incentive away from doing actually a really aggressive recruitment campaign. What is the difference? I just gave an example. The numbers are what the numbers are. We would be better off had we been given some numerical quota we had to reach, as opposed to saying, listen, just give an exam. There is no 11 incentive, as best I can tell, for people to go out there and do good, aggressive recruitment campaigns. That is one of the reasons, by the way, we are looking to give permission to go to the military. We think that, you know, there is a good candidate for minority that we can draw from by going to the military. In any event, my sense is within the next six months, this whole issue has got to come to a head, one, because the ten years is coming up; two, the federal judge says by then you had better come up with some exam that will, you know, pass the brush test with no disparity impact. I know they are working with it now. 620 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 But it actually -- after going along for nine years or so, it is starting actually to reach -- to reach a head. By the way, the issue of recruitment -- I just came back, I was out with the Chief Parks and -- Bernie Parks of California, at a chiefs' meeting last week. And it is everywhere across the United States, this hiring problem. And so, for example, the chief from Memphis, Tennessee, which is a majority in our community, he just went through a list of 2,300 people to get 89 people. He says it is the same thing: he has given the exam, and it is the same people taking the exams. So even though he is giving the exam, he is not enlarging the candidate pool. It's the same people taking the exam, the people that were rejected, rejected, rejected. So for 2,300 people under the normal conditions you should realize a full, highly qualified list of about 250 people. He realized 89 people.
And he said even then, he said he was really kind of scraping the bottom. It is a problem. 621 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
And you are obviously aware that it is young people who are candidates not necessarily -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I get letters all the time.
They get that pitch whoever they speak with, we are not going to get to you. And then they read from the paper we are out looking at military installations to hire police officers. That can really get people unnecessarily angry. And to me, that whole process of how that message is delivered -- I don't mean to be sugar-coated, but I think it needs to be revisited on how that message -- because I get some people with like fire coming out of their ears when they call me expressing the concern that I just described. And, Commissioner, could you comment on your feeling on why a list needs to expire in two years? I think it is an antiquated -- I think that is an antiquated system. Because a person who is 23 isn't much different when they are 25. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I will tell you, 622 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 you will never see me sit here and defend the Civil Service System.
But you realize that when you wanted to change rules to go recruit that we had something in place that allowed you to do what you wanted to do without changing the rules. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I'm not sure. By the way, it goes to Councilman Cohen. He was the one that discovered that. But my understanding is that the Civil Service regulations are a list that has a shelf life of two years and then it expires automatically.
Well, that is hurtful, in my opinion, to have a list just expire in two years when we've left 50 qualified candidates that may be years old, 25 years old, that want to 18 be police officers that have gone through basically 19 the process. 20
I think that 21 holds true for any Civil Service list. 22
Not just the 25 police department. 623 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023
But we are dealing with a crisis. I have nobody coming here and telling us that is a problem. The police department is obviously suffering from this problem -- from this requirement. One last comment on promotion. Historically, we've promoted -- the last time you promoted captains, how many captains did you promote? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: There was six in the beginning of the summer and then we did nine in December.
Sergeants all together? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: We did 55 in June. And what are we doing, 75? 51.
Well, someone made a recommendation to me that why can't we promote within the police department based on need; we need two sergeants, you promote two. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No. We are not going to put together the complete -- we have increased the training tremendously for all of the bosses for two weeks, of course, besides. I am not 624 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 going to put together a course where we have instructors for two sergeants. So ideally you want to get 15, 20 sergeants and then do them. I would have done it a little differently last year, but, you know, we work within the City budget. We work within the list that comes out. So we did 55. The Mayor authorized 55 to get us through the summer. We got through the summer. We put together a promotion package based on the new lists, and then we sent over -- and once it was sent over in September, it was approved. And by the time we got everyone's calendars together, do the background investigation, it was the beginning of December. So it wasn't -- I mean, I am very appreciative of those numbers that we were offering last year, but I don't think it worked out any differently. I mean, what I'm going to do, I'll tell you right now, you can get five things to set up a whole class, a whole scheme for five sergeants, it is just very wasteful.
Did I hear you say you do background investigations? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, no. They 625 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 go before a board. They go before a board, the review panel, the promotional review panel of three officers, three ranking officers, usually two inspectors and a chief.
I guess you can't get a trial except for a police department. But, you know, a large corporation -- I never heard of an organization that promotes 55 managers at once. In most corporations if a person is getting promoted, they promote two or three based on need. I can't imagine how your organization is suffering if you need a sergeant and you have to wait for 55 all at once. That to me seems like a problem. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No. I've been hearing you. We've done two sets of promotions, the 55 -- by the way, we probably didn't need the 55, we probably needed about 40. But I expected the Mayor, because of the attrition rates, coming into the summer, plus the negotiation period -- we need the additional bodies with the attrition levels for July, August, September. And so then the next levels, when we completed the reorganization of the department -- 626 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - BILL NO. 990023 now we have a problem. Here's what it looks like, here is what it looks like, what we need now: We needed nine, and there were several lieutenants. And then those sergeants that we did in December were not as a result of attrition from July to December, because the attrition was a result of promoting nine lieutenants to nine captains, and then around 45 sergeants to lieutenant, that is what created the openings for those sergeants.
That's how you do business. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.