Committee Hearing, September 17, 1997

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC MEETING BEFORE THE JOINT COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC SAFETY and LAW AND GOVERNMENT - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, September 17, 1997 1:15 p.m. - - - RESOLUTION 970176 - Authorizing Council's Committees on Public Safety and Law and Government to conduct a full investigation into the drug plague in Philadelphia - - - PRESENT: COUNCILMAN ANGEL ORTIZ, Chairman, Public Safety COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN, Chairman, Law & Government COUNCILWOMAN ANNA CIBOTTI VERNA COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE L. BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN JOAN L. KRAJEWSKI COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO COUNCILWOMAN HAPPY FERNANDEZ COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILMAN FRANK DiCICCO COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center Plaza, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 2 I N D E X RESOLUTION 970176 PAGE Lynne Abraham, District Attorney, City of Philadelphia------------------------- George Mosee, Office of the District Attorney, 5 Deputy for Narcotics------------------------- 33 John Delaney, Deputy, Juvenile Division, 6 Philadelphia Police Department--------------- 34 Richard Neal, Commissioner, Philadelphia, Police 7 Department----------------------------------- 67 Charles Brennan, Chief Inspector, Communications 8 Bureau, Phila. Police Department------------- 78 Joseph C. Certaine, Managing Director, City of 9 Philadelphia--------------------------------- 96 Thomas J. Nestel, Deputy Commissioner, 10 Philadelphia Police Department--------------- 118 Gregory S. Rost, Chief of Staff, Mayor's Office- 140 11 Mitchell Yanak, Inspector, Philadelphia Police Department----------------------------------- 153 12 Dexter Green, Acting Chief, Philadelphia Housing Authority Police Department------------------ 180 13 John Giulo, Executive Officer, Philadelphia Housing Authority Police Department--------- 184 14 Richard Perez, National Coordinator, National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights------------ 191 15 Charles P. Kluge, Jr., Executive Director, Police Advisory Commission------------------ 219 16 Will Gonzalez, Executive Director, Police-Barrio Relations Project------------- 234 17 Sister Carol Keck, Executive Director, Norris Square Neighborhood Project----------------- 247 18 Miriam Colon, Representative, CUNAD------------ 266 Gregory Allen, Citizen------------------------- 271 19 Joe White, President, Overbrook Against Drugs-- 279 20 - - - 21 22 23 3 RESOLUTION 970176 P R O C E E D I N G S

The Joint Committees of Law and Government and Public Safety is now called to order. We would appreciate everyone taking seats. I am going to ask the clerk of the joint committee, Wanda, to read the title of the resolution.

Wanda Correra. Resolution No. 970176: Authorizing Council's Committees on Law and Government and Public Safety to jointly conduct a full and comprehensive investigation into the drug plague in Philadelphia; to issue whatever process the committees deem necessary in aid of their investigation to compel the production of documents and the testimony of witnesses to the full extent authorized by the Home Rule Charter; and to promptly report their findings to the Council, the Mayor, and the people of the city. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much. At this time I am going to call on Chairman of the Public Safety Committee, Councilman 4 RESOLUTION 970176 Ortiz. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Thank you, Chairman Cohen, and to every member of the Committee. Thank you for coming. I would like to welcome everyone here today for their time and interest in discussing a matter that has become, it seems, the issue in Philadelphia. And today we are here to view, as stated in Council Resolution 970176, introduced by Councilman David Cohen and cosponsored by all members of City Council, a comprehensive investigation into the drug plague in Philadelphia. We are charged with reporting the findings of our inquiries to the appropriate offices of government and the people of Philadelphia. And the people of Philadelphia is what this is all about. And although we are making some progress, I think there is a perception and a feeling in almost every neighborhood across Philadelphia that people are not safe. And I think if we do anything to make people in different neighborhoods begin to feel 5 RESOLUTION 970176 safer, we have taken a very giant step forward. As many of you might recall, my experience with the so-called drug plague goes back to the early '80s, when we organized anti-drug citizen action groups and, with the assistance of the local police at DEA, we were successful in bringing down violent gangs, the likes of the 8th and Butler and the OK Corral gangs. For quite some time now, this Council -- and I want to make that very clear, that this Council, the members of this body -- have pursued a variety of strategies to improve the city's quality of life in terms of making people safe. Part of the strategy has included attempts to control the proliferation of deadly weapons and looking at legislation which deals with public nuisance or quality of life crime, prostitution, loitering, pan handling, et cetera. Members of this Council have called upon the apparent need to hire more police. Some are concerned with employment patterns, while others believe in preventive strategies. Some believe we need additional 6 RESOLUTION 970176 resources. Others believe if we plan strategically, we can get by with what we have. While there is a desire to employ aggressive policing tactics, others caution against potential civil rights violation. And as we have seen in New York, in a few instances -- and perhaps more than a few -- that is one concern that we all, one, as policymakers, have to have very clear in our minds. This year the debate has reached the State House again, as well. Several members of our local delegation proposed the hiring of 1500 additional police officers and called for the merging of all our uniformed law enforcement agencies. Prompted by a recent visit from former New York Commissioner William Bratton, Charter reform to increase the management powers of the Police Commissioner is already the subject of emerging interest and discussion. I want to remind ourselves that this City Council has been and will continue to be quite serious about this public concern, and has signaled every intention to ameliorate a problem that hits 7 RESOLUTION 970176 the home of every citizen we have pledged to represent. This hearing is part of that process. But I also want to state, in the face of recent newspaper reports of our Commissioner Neal, that this hearing is not about scapegoating or shedding blame on anyone.

We are here to seek information and solutions to a problem which goes to the heart of our overall quality of life. Commissioner Neal has cooperated fully with my office. And as Chairman of Council's Public Safety Committee, and speaking on behalf of the Chairman of Law and Government, David Cohen, we have discussed the issues, problems, and potential solutions. For this, I am grateful and I thank the Commissioner for his cooperation. The Commissioner understands, as I do, that we do have a crime problem, a serious one. But we also know, as emphasized in my report, that crime is not simply a policing issue. The literature and data on the subject suggests we all have a responsibility. There is no panacea. Drug prevention, quality education, 8 RESOLUTION 970176 jobs, and consistent, well-coordinated city services are all part of a holistic response to drug-related criminal activities. This comprehensive approach must be reflected in the city five-year plan. I, and other members of this Council, will be looking very carefully at the next plan to ensure that it deals effectively with all of the aspects of this problem and its solutions. In June of this year I circulated a report to Council members, which was an initial attempt to present the broad analysis of public safety, what it means and what we might do to improve what we are currently doing to create a city where people are and feel safe. Something that, as I walk through the neighborhoods of this city, people do not currently feel. The report gleans over the more positive experiences of other cities which have had to tackle similar problems to those we face in Philadelphia. I have taken the liberty to distribute that report to members of this Administration, press, legislators, and others whose line of work interacts with public safety policies. 9 RESOLUTION 970176 But before I outline what we learned, I thought, fundamentally, to provide to members of this Council and the people here present with a portrait of where we're at at the present time with respect to crime. A local news report recently indicated that the number of crimes in Philadelphia is down by 2 percent over the last year. And just recently the Mayor announced that, over the first few months, we have gone down by 17 percent. This, the 17 percent, may be a fact, but it is happening. A more recent analysis by the Mayor's Office suggests that in 1996, Philadelphia was the fourth safest major city in the country. This is also true. The fact is that Philadelphia has made progress, but I'm sure, as Commissioner Neal has often told me, we need to do more. While these statistics help us to understand how we fail with other urban centers, it doesn't explain why people still feel insecure about their overall safety. Given this, I thought it appropriate to explore whether this feeling might be a mere 10 RESOLUTION 970176 perception, or whether it is rooted in any semblance of reality. To do this, we needed to do a self-evaluation of the crime index over the last four years, for which complete data is available. We took the same crime rate numbers provided by the Administration, and placed them on what is referred to in statistics as moving average trend line. The results are interesting, and speak for themselves. I will not try to characterize them or to give an opinion as to them. Allow me to point to everyone's attention the charts before you. Danny. These charts depict crime trends in various cities. For example, Philadelphia experiences a lower crime rate per 10,000 than cities like Chicago, San Antonio, and Dallas. The crime trend in Philadelphia has taken an upward direction since 1992. Meanwhile, New York, Chicago, San Antonio, Dallas, Los Angeles have basically seen a downward trend. Experts make a case for the general decline in crime, citing a healthy national economy as the major reason. But this doesn't necessarily 11 RESOLUTION 970176 explain Philadelphia's case.

Philadelphia's crime trend shows a steady rise in crime since 1992, and then levels off during 1995 and '96, where we begin to actually make the progress that the Mayor was talking about. This rise happens in spite of a declining population and reports of a stable financial footing. The second question, which is fundamental to any local planning effort, is to assess how our neighborhoods fare with each other. As you know, crime varies both in nature and volume depending upon the geographic section of the city. This has obvious implications for strategic planning. To get a brief understanding of crime in our city, I have constructed several graphs which depict the nature and scope of criminal activity by police division. For your information, the FBI unified crime report characterizes major crimes into two broad categories: Number 1, violent, which include murder, rape, robbery, assault; property crime, which include burglary, larceny, stolen vehicles, 12 RESOLUTION 970176 and arson. Chart No. 1, depicts the number of violent crimes by police division. 5. 70 percent of all murders, the most severe violent statistics, occurred in four police divisions. 70 percent of the most severe occurred in four police divisions: The East, North, West, and North Central, with the East Division experiencing 100 homicides, or percent, of all 20 the murders in the city. 21 Chart No. 2. Chart No. 2 depicts the 22 number of property crimes in 1996. 23 It graphically indicates that 40 24 percent of all reported property crimes occurred in two police divisions: The Northeast Division, which 13 RESOLUTION 970176 is largely covered by the 10th and 6th councilmanic districts; and the Central Division, that covers Council Districts No. 1 and No. 5. And that chart, as you can see, speaks for itself. And property crime, usually if you have good insurance, can be taken care of. I don't know how many of those crimes are ever solved. And maybe we can find out how those crimes fare in terms of investigation from the police department. Chart No. 3. We found an obvious correlation between violent crime and rates of drug arrest activity. For example, the East Division, which leads the city in violent crime, including homicides, also leads the city in the number of drug arrests. In Chart No. 5, it shows that 40 percent of all drug arrests in the city occurred in the East Division alone. However, we do not know how that has impacted on the traffic, whether the traffic of drug activity has gone down, or whether it has remained stable, or whether it has gone up. Further, State Representative 14 RESOLUTION 970176 Benjamin Ramos, in a hearing he held last spring in the East Division, noted that out of a reported 300 drug hot spots, where drug activity is really intensive, 50 percent of those hot spots were located in that same East Police Division. So what did we learn from this brief overview? First we learned that, yes, crime in raw numbers has gone down. Second, notwithstanding such a decline, Philadelphia experienced a slight upward crime trend, which might help explain why people still feel unsafe. Third, drug activity is a serious challenge. In places where drug activity is reported, murder and other violent crimes predominate. I should note, so are high levels of poverty and unemployment. But, for the most part, drug activity is concentrated in a few police divisions. It does not appear to be rampant throughout the city. Conversely, property crime, criminal acts which do not entail physical injury, are more prevalent in the more affluent and/or business 15 RESOLUTION 970176 sections of the city. That's where I live. Right? A brief word about the deployment, despite the controversy surrounding deployment. Our analysis shows that the assignment of personnel within the department is a very complex matter. Let me state one simple example. In 1996, we budgeted a total of 6,403 uniformed police officers.

But after factoring in vacation and other leave time, there were a total of only 3,959 officers actually deployed. Perhaps there is something to be said about inadequate numbers of police personnel. In addition, for your information, we have outlined the distribution of police divisions according to the numbers of officers per 1,000 residents. This is very preliminary, and it's only intended to show how our current force is generally deployed throughout the city as of today. I would not like to close my statement without reiterating the essence of my report. 16 RESOLUTION 970176 Basically, it details a broad strategy which reviews the elements of community policing approaches, successful drug prevention projects, intercity departmental coordination of human services, and a more proactive role by the courts in turning around juvenile crime and drug-related offenses. Additionally, our research reveals, preliminary as it might be, that the successful tackle on the drug plague, we must deal with other crimes as well, particularly those considered minor infractions, which tend to lead to more serious acts of criminal activities. On major considerations regarding this Council's attention include, continuing and intensifying existing efforts to institutionalize community policing strategies throughout the city. My report documents how effective police community ventures can be. One example is the Center City District community policing project which reduced criminal offenses by 20 percent between 1992 and 1995. This project is a vivid illustration of how police, business, organized civilians, and 17 RESOLUTION 970176 the applications of modern technology can work together to prevent and reduce crime right here in the city. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. But there are many communities which do not have the resources of the Center City District. We must consider providing serious support to Town Watches and citizen action groups, particularly in communities that are least organized. The establishment of neighborhood strategic plans which are based on quantifiable crime reduction goals -- and this should be a focus -- goals against which performance and progress, and that's where the captains and the inspectors should be evaluated and the evaluations should take off from. So progress can be evaluated. So, for example, if the Administration is to develop a plan, it should explicitly state the expected outcome as a crime reduction percent, 10 percent reduction in homicides or 15 percent reduction in robberies, and so on. This would provide for us clear lines of accountability, authorizing greater management 18 RESOLUTION 970176 powers and tools in order to allow the police leadership to demand increased performance standards. It is my understanding that the existing Civil Service regulations do not allow for the leadership ranks to hold their commanders accountable. We cannot expect the leadership of any entity to create miracles if they are not given the essential management tools. This includes a commitment to invest in the latest equipment and technology available. I'm sure Commissioner Neal will address these concerns today; Continue decentralizing decisionmaking, so that division commanders are given the authority and independence to realize strategies which are indigenous to their own geographic areas; Provide greater support, training, and compensation to police officers serving on the front lines in neighborhoods which are racially, culturally, and economically diverse which requires officers to better understand the people they are 19 RESOLUTION 970176 serving; Officers must be given greater latitude to be creative and to interact in ways which will provide and improve their relationship to the citizens. Greater expectations require a better compensation package. Note, starting salaries for police officers in 1986 was $22,300. In the 1997-'98 operating budget, it went up to $26,246. 5 percent annually.

Obviously, if you don't pay, you can't get the best. In Boston, the courts demonstrated that they can play a pivotal role in reducing juvenile homicides and violence. The City of Boston has not had a juvenile homicide since 1995. We must learn from their experience and employ what is adaptable or relevant to our local reality. Fighting the war on drugs is not merely about arresting and convicting drug dealers and offenders; it is also about drug treatment and support services. It is about providing alternatives to 20 RESOLUTION 970176 our young people, which includes social services, quality education, and jobs. Any public safety agenda which does not place prevention strategies on an equal plane with policing strategies is doomed to fail in the long term. And I caution all those who want to employ simplistic gestapo-type tactics. I remind everyone that many of the people caught up in the cycle of illegal narcotic activity are young people. Experts and criminologists will tell us that we cannot attack crime in isolation from our neighborhood problems. Our state legislature must continue to be committed. If they are going to come into this, they must be committed partners in this fight. They must help us to improve our schools and provide appropriate levels of funding. If they want more police, they should be able to give us some of the funds that are needed to pay for them. It must work with us to enact laws 21 RESOLUTION 970176 which will strengthen our ability to effectively enforce the law, but it also must provide targeted economic development dollars for job creation. Senseless police policies, as illustrated by our state Welfare Reform Laws, are not only counter-productive, but can contribute to the proliferation of certain types of crime, compounding the very problem they profess they want to solve. On the local scene, this Council must serve as the forum for ideas and innovation. But innovation sometimes costs money. If necessary, this Council must also bear that responsibility. I apologize to my colleagues and our guests for taking so much time at this hearing. But given the magnitude of the work, the controversy that surrounds these hearings, I realize and I thought it appropriate to summarize its essence, as preliminary and incomplete as it might seem. Gracias. And I thank you, Mr. President, and turn it back to you for now. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you, Chairman Ortiz, for a very thoughtful analysis. We will be very much interested in comments with respect to the 22 RESOLUTION 970176 statement by Chairman Ortiz. At this point let me note the presence of a quorum of the two committees. All the way to my left, wish only that it were so, Councilman Frank Rizzo. That was a joke. Nobody got it, Frank. Next to him, Councilman Jim Kenney; Chairman Ortiz; myself, David Cohen, Chairman of Law and Government. To my immediate right -- that's pretty accurate -- Councilman Mariano, Councilwoman Krajewski. Councilman Nutter was sitting there; he will be back. Councilwoman Verna, also the majority leader. Councilwoman Fernandez, and Councilman DiCicco who prefers to remain in his local seat, though he is entitled to be up here, since he is a member of one of the two committees, the Public Safety Committee, I believe. Right? Two committees. You are on both. But you still only count once. At this point we are going to ask District Attorney Lynne Abraham to come forward. 23 RESOLUTION 970176 I understand the District Attorney did develop a very full statement of position. Councilman Ortiz and I have asked her, instead of reading the statement, to summarize it so that members of the Committee will have more time for any questions they may wish to raise. We welcome you very much. And the spirit that we hope everybody will maintain is that referred to by Councilman Ortiz. We are not about to be looking for people to blame; we are looking for solutions to problems which we think are the number one problems in the city.

Thank you very much for being with us this afternoon, District Attorney. DISTRICT ATTORNEY LYNNE ABRAHAM: My pleasure, Mr. Councilman. For the record, I am Lynne Abraham, District Attorney of Philadelphia. To my immediate left is First Assistant District Attorney -- sorry. First Deputy Attorney for the Juvenile Division, John Delaney. I beg your pardon. To my immediate right is Gary Tennis, the chief of our Legislative Division. 24 RESOLUTION 970176 And to his right is George Mosee, who is our Deputy for Narcotics. The record should reflect that I have provided Council members with testimony which I will not read. But I would ask that those statements be introduced to the record. Also, just so the Council members will know, because of a previous engagement, I advised Councilman Ortiz when he invited me here, that I would only be able to stay until 2:00, but my staff will stay here at the convenience of the Committee. With respect to the Resolution 15 970176, let me first go over just a few things. And I wanted to make sure that the Committee knew that there are a variety of other subjects which my notes will not touch upon today, but they are supported by me. And they are, notably, the expansion of night courts in all of the districts of the City of Philadelphia, and as well as the enhancement of victim assistance officers, which I believe Alberta James from East Division may be here to talk to you about later on. 25 RESOLUTION 970176 With respect to Council's issue with regard to undercover agents, obviously we support undercover agents and more undercover agents infiltrating drug dealers, drug distribution networks. But we wish to caution that this is a very risky business. These officers must be trained. And, of course, the infiltration takes a good deal more time than making observations on the street corners. But we do support the training and infiltration of additional officers on these corner drug gangs. We also support additional uniformed officers positioned at or near notorious drug corners. And obviously we think that uniformed officers, supplemented by other tactics -- such as bike patrols, mobile ministations, and the like -- are exceedingly important in the fight against drugs. There isn't a corner in Philadelphia that wouldn't want additional police officers. Increasing the number of narcotics officers working either in uniform, undercover, or RESOLUTION 970176 in support of undercover narcotics officers, is obviously to be commended. The next issue I am going to briefly touch upon is better enforcement of weapons laws. You may remember, members of the Council, that I spoke about several recent Supreme Court cases which will impact on the police ability to confiscate guns from the street. Basically, one of them says that if a police officer receives a radio call of a man with a gun, given a certain description at a certain location, goes to that location, sees a person who appears to fit the description, pats that person down and finds a gun, that gun is automatically suppressed and cannot be introduced into court, and that person cannot be convicted for possession of that gun. In addition to that, if that same officer, with the description, gets out of his vehicle, sees a person who fits the description of the radio call, the person runs, and the police officer chases, that is considered a constructive seizure. And any drugs, any illegal 27 RESOLUTION 970176 paraphernalia, any contraband, any weapons, are automatically suppressed under those two cases which I spoke about in my last appearance before Council. However, one of the things that we think ought to be heavily employed -- and we have begun to use it this September -- is a new program, where every juvenile who is an adjudicated delinquent of a possession -- not the use of a gun, but possession of a gun -- will be required to participate in a program of at least three months' duration as a condition of probation, or as part of aftercare.

This comprehensive program will include 12 hours a week of classroom work, a trip to the Medical Examiner's Office, a trauma center, a rehabilitation center to speak to a victim of a catastrophic gunshot injury. And, additionally, the offender may be ordered to perform 60 hours of community service. I cannot stress enough that community service is an extremely important aspect of all crimes, and especially crimes related to the quality of life. With regard to the City Council 28 RESOLUTION 970176 issue, more widespread use of community policing, I absolutely support community policing as a concept. And we need to do more of that. Town watch groups, block watch groups, block captains group, the eyes and the ears of the neighborhood, are absolutely critical to participatory fights against crime. And one of the things the Public Nuisance Task Force in my office is doing as one of its projects is, training community leaders, not only for their own communities, but for other communities, to make sure that they are aware of how much pressure, how much work, how much good can come of community participation, along with police enforcement efforts, and of course the prosecutorial efforts in combatting these aspects of drug fights. In addition to that unit, we have the Federal Alternatives to State Trials, where our worst offenders are sent to federal court for federal prosecution. Our Dangerous Drug Offender Unit, which does long-term, king-pin drug operations, and of course our local intensive narcotic Effort, which while confined to one geographical area in West 29 RESOLUTION 970176 Philadelphia, is worthy of Council's consideration. It is something that I have brought up to City Council on numerous occasions when I have appeared before it. With regard to the next issue, better support and protection for witnesses, we obviously have supported witness protection. I have asked for Council's assistance on witness protection. Obviously we need to protect our witnesses. I want to make it clear, however, that many times people who are witness to crime or criminal conduct are not called in court because they are informational witnesses. We are, obviously, interested in protecting their anonymity and their safety. But we certainly need to make sure that those witnesses who come to court, survivors of homicide, witnesses of drug crimes and any other kind of violent crime, are appropriately protected and given the kind of witness protection they truly need and which I have spoken about many, many times. There are many more issues that I wish to speak to Council about, only a few of which 30 RESOLUTION 970176 are covered in my testimony that is submitted to the Committee. But in the interest of time, I think that will give the Council a general idea of some of the things that I wish to bring to its attention. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much, Madam District Attorney. Just one question. Those two cases that you cited, where the courts, you stated, would suppress the evidence. DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: That is correct. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Would that be true also in the federal courts? DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: Well, federal courts have different rules than the state courts. And, as a matter of fact, the federal courts are more liberal. Our laws in Pennsylvania are much more restrictive. So the answer is no. Under the United States Supreme Court cases, those same things that happened in Philadelphia would not, if taking place in the federal court, be suppressed. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Would it be 31 RESOLUTION 970176 possible, if the Philadelphia police made an arrest, and the District Attorney's Office examined and found that evidence would not be permitted in the state courts, but would be in the federal courts, could the cases then be referred to the United States Attorney here, Michael Stiles. DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: The answer is, yes, in a limited fashion.

The United States Attorney's Office does accept cases from our office that are called Federal Alternatives to State Trials. S. S. Attorney's Office is not a substitute for the Philadelphia Courts of Common Pleas or the Pennsylvania courts, and they are not an agency which would take any narcotics case. They have selective jurisdiction, and their decision to take a case is discretionary. So the answer is, not necessarily, no. 22 CHAIRMAN COHEN: But that might be an area that the City Council might want to explore with the United States Attorney's Office, to try to work out where there are these problems. 32 RESOLUTION 970176 DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: I'm sure Mr. Stiles would be happy to discuss the issue and to tell you what his criteria are, or may be, for acceptance or rejection of any case that comes within his jurisdiction. S. Attorney would not accept, I think we would be looking for ways to raise the issue with the court. Not to a particular case, but as a policy matter. There have been other circumstances in which this Council has had as witnesses members of the Supreme Court to testify before us. And we agreed with your feeling that those decisions are very difficult to justify. And when I have ever tried -- and other Council members report the same -- to explain the Court's decision to people in the community, they are just absolutely stunned by the knowledge that we give them. And it makes no sense. But thank you very much. Are there questions of the District Attorney, other members? 33 RESOLUTION 970176 CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I have one question. Madam District Attorney, how many drug cases has your office prosecuted within the last eight months?

I have no way of knowing the answer to that question. I'm George Mosee, the Deputy for Narcotics. Unfortunately, we are unable to keep statistics that would respond to that question accurately. I think the court system is probably the better source with regard to a question like that. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: You have no way of knowing how many cases at the current time you are prosecuting within the eight months? DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: We have testified before this Council, Councilman, that we do not have a computer system in our office that keeps those data. We need the computerization in our office, and we don't have it. So the best system that we resort to is the court, which is required to keep those 34 RESOLUTION 970176 statistics. So I think the court would be in a better position to supply those numbers to you. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We have asked the judge for that. Is your office working with other city agencies to come up with alternative incarceration and prevention programs for juveniles? And if so, what are those?

Councilman, I'm John Delaney, the Deputy of the Juvenile Division. I know Commissioner Reeves from DHS is here. They are the funding source for programs other than generic probation, which comes out of the court's budget. And for several years now I, on behalf of the District Attorney, have participated in a group that's designed to do exactly that, to develop programs for kids for which programs do not exist now. The firearms program the District Attorney described earlier came out of that process. So we meet on a regular basis to 35 RESOLUTION 970176 identify what kind of programs we need and don't have, attempt to devise them, and have people who work with juvenile delinquents regularly provide those services both as an alternative to placement, and as an adjunct to placement. Because there are a number of kids in Philadelphia that no program in the community is going to be a sufficient substitute for putting them in a residential placement facility. But that work continues to go on, in partnership between the police, the District Attorney, the Department of Human Services, the Juvenile Court, the Defender Association, and the School District. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Can you make that available to us in writing, in terms of those types of programs and so on from the D.A.'s Office:

Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Make it available to the Committee. And, Madam District Attorney, if we are successful, and a policy is implemented and deployment is done and police are hired, and that effects a greater amount of arrests, what impact 36 RESOLUTION 970176 would it have? And do you have the capacity in your office to be able to do what needs to be done in terms of prosecution? DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: Councilman and members of the Committee, we are really at the breaking point now, with all the cases that we have. We have taken -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: So if we are successful in bringing in more offenders, the impact on your office would be what? DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: We have taken pains to point out to Council that in order to man all of the programs that are going to be manned in the court at present, plus absorb any new initiatives that are imposed upon us, new district attorneys, new support staff, detectives, and other things such as technological equipment have to come with it. So there is a price tag attached to any new arrest uptake, sure. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Do you have a number along those lines? 37 RESOLUTION 970176 DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: I have no 3 way of judging what we're talking about. But, obviously, in my Council presentation -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Do you have a number for the technology that you need, in specific budgetary aspects in terms of -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: In my previous discussions with Council, we have talked about the fact that the District Attorney's Office, and indeed all aspects of the court, ought to have a computer system which tracks everything and everybody on-line. And obviously the manpower issue depends on the number of arrests that are made and the number of things that we attempt to do. So I think what I'd have to say to you, Councilman, is, depending on what this Committee comes up with as a plan, or an initiative, then we would be able to sit down and discuss with you how many people we would need to cover any new initiative that Council might want to implement. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. Councilman Ortiz was the first victim of the 38 RESOLUTION 970176 five-minute rule on the first go-around. I am going to ask that each Councilperson with questions not go over five minutes, so that other Council members of the Committee get a full opportunity. Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't have a first go-around. Does that mean I get ten minutes now? CHAIRMAN COHEN: No. This was the first go-around.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Mr. Mosee and Madam District Attorney, the response to the question that Councilman Ortiz asked, I believe, with regard to how many cases you prosecute, did I understand the response is, one, you don't know, and, two, you don't have a computer system? If that is the answer, first, it is an unacceptable answer. And I have heard that response a couple of times, and it is a pretty sorry-assed answer. And I really don't think that, in 39 RESOLUTION 970176 1997, anyone can come and sit at that table, who is a part of this government or governmental system, and legitimately say to this body that you can't keep track of what you're doing over there. How do you know who to go after? How do you know what your people are doing? Are you sitting at the table saying to us that you don't have any computers over at the District Attorney's Office?

I think the question was more specific than how many cases are you prosecuting. The question was, how many narcotics cases are you prosecuting. And let me explain the layout of the District Attorney's Office --

If you can't tell us how many narcotics cases you prosecuted, then that's a worse answer.

Well, let me try to explain my answer in a way that may make it more reasonable in your eyes. In the District Attorney's Office, cases come into the office, at least initially, and 40 RESOLUTION 970176 to the municipal court unit, if they are felony cases. Some cases start out as felony cases and end as municipal court cases by virtue of the fact that they never get held for court, they never make it to our Waivers Unit or our Major Trials Unit. When they do make it there --

Mr. Mosee, let me tell you right now, I am less than interested in that part of the process. When someone calls in or if a case comes in, does it get a number? Does it go into a file?

It does, but it is not designated as a narcotics case or a robbery case or a theft case. It is designated as a Municipal Court case or Common Pleas Court case.

Well, do you care whether it is a narcotics case or a property case or any other kind of case? Is that relevant to you?

I review with my personnel each and every case that comes into the office, and we review it through the paperwork. 41 RESOLUTION 970176 It is hard copy; it is not through a computer system. If I had a way of scanning each and every case, then they could be entered into a computer system. But we don't have the scanners and we don't have the manpower. We actually attempted. But it was so manpower intensive that I was taking people away from doing what you all want them to do, and that's working on cases that are occurring on a daily basis in the City of Philadelphia.

Whatever. Is it not important to you, the various categories of cases? Does it make no 16 difference to you, from your perspective as a professional in the business, that you can't tell us a breakout of the different kinds of cases? Is that relevant information, or does that not make a difference?

Well, the breakdown happens naturally in the sense that I get narcotics cases. Major Trials get some narcotics cases, as well. The cases are reviewed not so much in 42 RESOLUTION 970176 terms of what kind of crime it was, but the significance of the criminal activity. If the criminal activity is such that we need to do a followup investigation, and we see that potential, then it becomes a Narcotics Division case. That's what I care about primarily. So it is not a question of quantity; it is a question of quality. And I have chosen -- it is my decision basically, and I have chosen -- to concentrate all my efforts on doing the best quality job that I can do, rather than talking about the numbers. And out of no disrespect to you, that's all I'm addressing at this point. Is that, I know what comes into the office, but I can't answer the question. I can't answer the question in terms of how many narcotics cases come into the District Attorney's Office. I just haven't concentrated my energies on answering your question.

And I'm asking you, the simple question is, why? Why can't you 43 RESOLUTION 970176 tell us that? Do you have computers in the D.A.'s Office? That's a simple yes or no question.

Yes, we do.

Okay. And what do you use them for.

Well, we use them at this point to track other things and we use them to store data.

Tell me about some of these other things.

Well, for example, we keep records of all the cases in my division as relate to the particular units in the division. I know where all the line cases are. I know where all the Public Nuisance Task Force cases are. I know every house that's been sealed by the City of Philadelphia either through L & I or through the Public Nuisance Task Force or through the forfeiture unit. So I could go on and on about the different kinds of things that are available to me on computer. But, because cases come into the 44 RESOLUTION 970176 office not designated as a narcotics case, as a theft case, as a robbery case, there is no way for me to correlate that data. Because, see, it is not a question of what data is available; it is a question of being able to manipulate that data. Now, I am probably getting beyond what I can intelligently discuss, because I am not a computer expert.

Well, if it is not designated as to what type of case it is, how are you going to manipulate it?

But what I can tell you is that we don't have a link with the City of Philadelphia that allows us to manipulate the data that is available to us. Now, we can see what's coming through the court system, but we can't manipulate that data so that I can generate a report that says, this is the number of narcotics cases that this office is attempting to prosecute. I would have to hire maybe five or six people to even attempt to do that. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Okay. I am going to 45 RESOLUTION 970176 have to interrupt you. It is beyond the --

Is my five minutes over already? CHAIRMAN C0HEN: It is more than six minutes. Councilman Rizzo.

It is a totally inadequate answer, Mr. Chairman, but I will yield. CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right. Councilman Rizzo.

District Attorney Abraham, could you please explain to me, I believe I understand the D.A.'s role in prosecution, but could you please explain the relationship that the District Attorney's Office has with the police department? I'm somewhat -- and I know many people that I have discussed this issue with are -- confused on who whose responsibility it is to enforce the laws on the street corners. Is it the D.A.'s responsibility? Is the police department's? Is there overlap? Do we need to do more in streamlining the process? Can you just explain whose 46 RESOLUTION 970176 responsibility? Is it yours or Police Commissioner Neal's? DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: Councilman, fundamentally, the District Attorney's Office, in its most basic description, is an office which prosecutes allegations of criminal conduct. Which means, in a general way, that after the police have made an arrest, after a person is in custody, this office, the District Attorney's Office, is engaged in prosecutorial functions. However, there have been a number of initiatives that my office has started, such as the Public Nuisance Task Force and the Dangerous Drug Offender Unit, and a number of other units, which helps to be proactive in the community, addressing problems of crime. And we work, obviously, cooperatively with all branches of government. We work with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, the Immigration Service. We work with the police. So, basically, Councilman, on the day-to-day enforcement of laws in Philadelphia, this is a law enforcement, a police department function. That is not a function that the 47 RESOLUTION 970176 District Attorney's Office, as a general proposition, becomes involved in.

When I hear, then, that the District Attorney's Office is involved in enforcement and surveillances and actually making of arrests, that's above and beyond what normally you do? DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: The sheer function of a District Attorney's Office can properly be limited solely to prosecution. However, as I mentioned a moment ago, we are engaged in a number of initiatives, specialized units, specialized investigations where we conduct investigations and where we may -- and I underscore the word may -- issue an arrest warrant. Sometimes it is working cooperatively with other agencies, and they issue the arrest warrant. But I think the confusion is caused in people's minds because they believe that the D.A. can call up the Commissioner and tell the Commissioner how to deploy his men and women, how many cars he should put on the street, and other functions which are strictly police. That is not 48 RESOLUTION 970176 the function of the District Attorney's Office. We certainly do work cooperatively with the police department, and they with us. But we do not exceed our authority and sell the police department how to be cops.

Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Kenney.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. District Attorney Abraham and your staff, I would like to thank you for being here today. And I would also like to thank you for your day-to-day efforts on our behalf. There is not a day that goes by, I think, that I don't work directly with a member of your staff either in the Charging Unit, in the Nuisance Task Force, in the Juvenile Division, in the Narcotics Division. And part of my concern, I guess, is -- and this is more a statement for this particular Council member -- this office, along with the police department, falls into the same problem area. And that is, we as a government do 49 RESOLUTION 970176 not provide sufficient services to adequately enforce the law. And then we as a government criticize those agencies for their inability to do so as effective as we would like to do it. The staff salaries of your district attorneys are horrendous, as are the staff salaries for police officers. The resources that are available to you and your staff are minimal, and we are then critical because of your inability to respond to questions that require technology for that response. So from my perspective, as a person who is involved in my own community and work with your office every day, I just want to thank you for the efforts you make based on the resources that you are given. Secondly, one of the things that I find very frustrating, and I think I hear in the community, is, when an individual is arrested in a neighborhood, taken away by the police, the people in the community, the civic association, the neighbors, never really find out again what happened to that individual, only if the person shows up back in the neighborhood and is doing continuing crime. 50 RESOLUTION 970176 Recently I worked with you, District Attorney Abraham, with a number of car thieves in South Philadelphia. We were losing between seven and ten cars a week from the parking lot at Veteran's Stadium. Because of the arrests made by 4th Police District officers of two of these criminals, the car theft rate basically went down to one a week. When those two individuals were held, one individual had a detainer from Delaware. And the other, your office went in, at our request, and asked for the consideration of higher bail, which that individual was not able to make. And those two individuals are off the street today. And the car theft rate at the Veteran's Stadium and the surrounding neighborhood has gone down sufficiently. We are very proud of that effort. What I would like you to tell us is what we can do to coordinate better the community. We intend, on these two individuals, at the time of sentencing, to hire a bus to bring 51 RESOLUTION 970176 the neighbors and community leaders in front of the court to stand in front of the judge and basically say, "You know, Your Honor, we've had it. We are not going to allow this person to come back in our community. " How do we coordinate better getting those neighbors up there from East Division, South Philadelphia, the Northeast, to get up at the CJC, to bring them up on a bus, and to let them stand in front of the judge and tell them what these people are doing to their neighborhood and to theirs lives? DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: Well, there are really two questions you have asked. One is, how does the community get to know what's happening on a day-to-day basis with cases that come out of their neighborhood. The best way to do that is really two ways. One of the best ways about crime information is, local newspapers print up crime statistics in their area. 52 RESOLUTION 970176 The second way is, as far as dispositions, a participation in the Police District Advisory Council, in the various Town Watch and block watch groups is essential. Because we assign an assistant to every PDAC, every Police District Advisory Council, so that we can advise the members of the Council what happens on certain cases. Now, mind you, we handle 50,000 cases a year.

So we can't have people go looking up every single arrest in every single district. It would be an impossibility. But key information can be delivered, if requested. Second thing about how to get people up to court, I want to sound a note of caution. I believe that members of any community who come to court and demonstrate that the community really cares about an offender or an offense has a very substantial impact upon the judge and his or her sentencing or other consideration. It is a really important thing. The one thing that I would be cautious about is making sure that the defendant shows up on the day that the bus with the community 53 RESOLUTION 970176 people are there. And that's one thing, unfortunately, because of other reasons I have spoken about previously --

But that's the coordination I think we need to have. DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: -- needs to be addressed. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman, would you yield for a moment to Councilwoman Krajewski on this point.

Mrs. D.A., you know that I have been in touch with your office many times on particular cases. DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: Many times.

The one particular case where the neighbors came down three, maybe four times to be witnesses on a certain case that I spoke to you about, and each time it was postponed. Each time. Or the D.A. was changed, or the attorney was changed. They always have excuses. Now, are we supposed to bring buses down every time? 54 RESOLUTION 970176

What I'm suggesting, and what I am asking for, is the ability to get to the point of sentencing. There are individual factual witnesses that are required, both from the police department and neighborhood witnesses. And that is a very tedious and frustrating process because of delays from defense attorneys, because of inability to get a prisoner from CFCF down to CJC, all those kinds of things. But I'm talking about the day the individual is brought in custody, the day he or she is brought before the judge for their sentencing, not for the factual issues related to the case. That's the day I think we have a better shot of coordinating both the bus, the judge, and the miscreant to get the proper sentence. The one individual we're talking about, in addition to the car left issue, had about $100,000 in electronics equipment taken from his house the day he was arrested. So in addition to stealing cars out of Veteran's Stadium and the surrounding neighborhood, he is also stealing from the homes of the people who live in that 55 RESOLUTION 970176 neighborhood. So I think if we get to the issue of trying to pick out maybe the top or of the 5 worst offenders -- not only the muderers and those 6 people, but I'm talking about the people who are 7 sneaking in our back windows at night, taking our 8 property and driving our middle class out of the 9 city -- if we can coordinate the sentencing date, I 10 think that will give us a better opportunity to 11 coordinate the neighborhood to get them up there to 12 impress upon the judge the importance in this. 13 DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: 14 Councilman, obviously we will work with you and any 15 other Councilperson or citizen to try to do that. 16 I want to again caution that we are 17 at the mercy of the court who fixes the date. If 18 the court wants to recess or postpone, we have no 19 control over that, even over our objections. 20 If the defense attorney comes in and 21 sees a whole lot of people from the community in the 22 courtroom, the defense attorney may say, "I can't do 23 it. I'm busy." 24 So remember, I want to work with any 25 community person to make sure that they are present 56 RESOLUTION 970176 at the time of the sentencing or any other appropriate time to hear any public matter and speak out on it where appropriate. But I just can't guarantee, no matter how much we coordinate, that the case will go on as scheduled. It is beyond the District Attorney's power to do that.

There are no 10 guarantees, and we need to be persistent. What we are trying to do is trying to get the best possible date. DISTRICT ATTORNEY ABRAHAM: Councilman, let me say this: I have spoken to thousands and thousands of groups in Philadelphia. And I keep telling them that you must not be worn down by a person who is determined not to allow you your right to be in the courtroom at appropriate times. You must come back time after time. You have to show them that you are as determined to be there and exercise your right as they are determined to make sure that you are not there. And that's exactly the message that has to be stressed over and over and over again. 57 RESOLUTION 970176 That people in the community, affected victims and witnesses, do have a right to see that justice is done. And courts have to be aware that citizens have that right to be there, and they have to take that into consideration. And I have to go. I hate to do this.

Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I will go on to the next round and come back. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. Any other questions? First with respect to the dialogue between Councilman Nutter and the head of the District Attorney's Narcotics Division, this Committee will undoubtedly be meeting next month. We would like you to reconsider your thinking, and the whole group. It is difficult for most of us in Council to understand why the District Attorney's Office would not be able to develop a mechanism other than computers, if computers are not available, for maintaining what seems like pretty 58 RESOLUTION 970176 basic information. Many other people may call you and say, "How many narcotics cases did you handle? How many robberies? How many homicides?" We think there ought to be some mechanism. I am not going to permit any further discussion on that issue here. But I would respectfully request, give that question more thought. And perhaps at the next meeting we'll invite you back, and you can tell us what you have been able to work out or your utter inability to figure out any method of doing that. Is that agreeable?

Certainly the answer to the question is a lengthy one, and certainly we don't have the time to go into all the details. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Yes. But we would like you to spend some time in figuring out a way. We are not asking for precise information. You don't have to tell us you did 272 cases in the first two weeks of January. If you tell us you did about 270, that will be enough. We would like a kind of general 59 RESOLUTION 970176 understanding of what you're doing. Now, I understand Councilman Nutter has one more question that he would like to raise on a different subject.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you articulating some opportunity for the District Attorney's Office to respond to that question. And I won't raise that issue anymore. But they should seriously take you up on what you have advised them, given the fact that they have about a $27 million budget over there. The sixth page of the District Attorney's 12-page statement, which we received just a little while ago, Item No. E talks about the Forfeiture Unit. I would like to know what the dollar amount or value was that came through the Forfeiture Unit in the last fiscal year.

I think it was 1.3 million. I didn't bring those statistics with me. I do have those, though.

Is that unit 60 RESOLUTION 970176 under your jurisdiction, Mr. Mosee?

Yes, it is.

And your answer is you think it is $1.3 million?

Why don't I get you the specific figures? As you know, we provided you with the last four fiscal years, up to fiscal '97. Fiscal '97's accounting hasn't been completed. We are in the process of preparing our annual report to the Attorney General's Office. So I don't want to mislead you giving you the wrong figure based on what I think it is.

I understand. Well, for the moment and for this discussion, why don't we say it is about a million dollars. What did you do with it?

The Narcotics Division, and most of the units in the division, were started with grant funding. And, as you know, as is often the case with grant funding, it runs out. And when it runs out, you have to find a way to pay for it. 61 RESOLUTION 970176 Now, it is my understanding that district attorneys have come before Council and asked for money. And sometimes you can give it, sometimes you can't. We, nevertheless, have to keep these programs running.

No. Sometimes they present legitimate programs that warrant support, and sometimes they don't; that's what happens.

Well whatever the case, the programs have to be maintained. And we use forfeiture money in many of the cases. The mandate of the Controlled Substances Act is that we use forfeiture money to help law enforcement continue its war against drugs. And, so, every dollar that becomes the property of the District Attorney's Office is put to that use.

Okay. So in a little more specific fashion, if it is a million dollars last year, what did you do with it? What programs did it support? What 62 RESOLUTION 970176 funding did it replace?

The Forfeiture Unit; the Local Intensive Narcotics Enforcement Unit; the Dangerous Drug Offender Unit, which currently has 6 detectives, four attorneys, and three support 7 personnel. 8 Some of that money -- and, in fact, 9 just about 50 percent of that money, after expenses 10 are paid off the top, actually goes to the police 11 department. 12 Because most of those seizures are 13 done cooperatively with the police department, if 14 not actually done by the police department exclusively. And then the money is sent to the D.A.'s Office so that the forfeiture litigation can take place.

Okay. So the dollars are primarily being used for the expenses of the District Attorney's Office in the area of salaries; is that what I understand?

Not primarily. Because, as I said, 50 percent, after the expenses are taken off the top, goes to the 63 RESOLUTION 970176 police department. And let me get into greater detail about the expenses off the top.

What are the expenses? CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Nutter, could I interrupt again and again request that on this question -- this is, because of my age, I could say, almost grandfatherly advise to the District Attorney's Office. Unless you do make available the specifics on funding like this, you always leave yourself open at budget hearings to the underground whispers of current City Council saying, "Don't worry. They're making a good case, but you know they got money from forfeiture and maybe a few other places, and they can use that money." You would serve the interest of the District Attorney better in the feeling of many Council members if from time to time, say, in response to the kind of question that Councilman Nutter raised, you gave very specific information. And I would like you to consider, in writing, again, for the next hearing, which will be 64 RESOLUTION 970176 in October, to provide a specific answer to that question. It is a very specific question, what use was made of that, whatever the figure turns out to be. It can be approximate. Again, we are not asking for absolute, total, one hundred percent accuracy, but an approximate. What did you do with it? It isn't enough to tell us some of the money went for salaries. How much went for salaries, and for what positions? That kind of thing.

I really apologize. I came prepared to respond to the resolution. CHAIRMAN COHEN: We are asking you to consider that for the next hearing.

Very well. CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right? And, Councilman Nutter, is that agreeable to you? CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Actually, previous to the hearing. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Previous to the hearing, we would like to get that information from 65 RESOLUTION 970176 the District Attorney's Office. And if you can't furnish it, tell us why you cannot furnish it. I think it will only help the position of the District Attorney to put these things, as much as possible, on the record. Because then you will be getting rid of a lot of questions. All right? We are going at this time, because we have many witnesses, they are all very important, we would like to move forward. We want to thank all of you. And remember the spirit that these hearings are being undertaken on is, we think all of you are doing a very good job in the various functions you perform for the city. But as long as there is concern about crime, about drugs in the community, it is our duty -- and we think your duty; we know you accept it, and we are accepting our share of the responsibility -- to work to get a solution. We want a day when Philadelphians aren't afraid to walk the streets at night. And we know you're cooperating. We would like you to work a little 66 RESOLUTION 970176 harder in the area of cooperation. We are going to try to do the same. All right. Thank you very much for coming. The District Attorney had notified us in advance that she had to leave. She actually, I'm sure, was late for her next appointment. And we appreciate all of your efforts. Thank you. Commissioner Neal. And if agreeable to you, Commissioner, we know that Dexter Green, who is the Police Chief of the Philadelphia Housing Authority is here. Would you have any objection to his either being at the table with you or nearby? Is Mr. Green in the audience? Commissioner, we welcome you and thank you very much for being here today. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Thank you. Glad to be here. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And please have with you at the table anybody you wish to have. Commissioner, whenever you are prepared, please go right ahead. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Sorry for the 67 RESOLUTION 970176 delay. We are trying to get, the Managing Director is coming up. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Oh, okay. He is always a very welcome visitor to City Council whether or not he is here on official business. And today, he is. All right. Proceed in that manner which best suits what you intend to accomplish. COMMISSIONER RICHARD NEAL: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and other members of Council. I have here with me today, seated to my left, Mr. Joe Certaine, who is the Managing Director of the City of Philadelphia; and Mr. Greg Ross, who is the Chief of Staff. I am here today to testify about issues related to the Philadelphia Police Department's effectiveness in fighting crime. Many of the issues to be discussed today have been the subject of considerable discussion in recent months, as city officials and community leaders search for better ways to fight crime in our city. I welcome their willingness to help, 68 RESOLUTION 970176 and I thank them for getting involved. I am happy for the opportunity granted me by this Committee to talk about many initiatives we have undertaken to reduce crime in our neighborhoods. These initiatives are proving to be very effective. As Mayor Rendell announced last week, figures for the first six months of this year showed that overall major crime is down percent 11 citywide. 12 And while these statistics by no 13 means indicate that we have won the fight against 14 crime in Philadelphia, they do show that we are 15 moving in the right direction. 16 Let me say at the outset, despite 17 what you may be reading in the headlines, crime is not out of control in Philadelphia. And the Philadelphia Police Department continues to do the job it has always done, making Philadelphia one of the safest big cities in America. We know that we can do better. And the good news is that we are doing better.

Thanks to the Federal Crime Bill, which Mayor Rendell and I campaigned for in 1994, 69 RESOLUTION 970176 Philadelphia hired 553 new officers to patrol our streets. And two weeks ago the Justice Department announced that we will receive an additional 200 more officers next year. That will bring the total number of police officers to nearly 7,000, more than at any time in the last decade. The officers we hire, with the help of the Crime Bill, didn't come free. The city has to match the federal grant. And over five years, the city must pick up the entire costs of employing these officers. The press often misses the point that without the tough decisions you made to come up with the additional $156 million in city funds to pay for these new officers over the next five years, we could not have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the Crime Bill. This means that Philadelphia has demonstrated one of the strongest local funding commitments to hire new Crime Bill officers of any city in the nation. More importantly, the willingness to 70 RESOLUTION 970176 find an extra $156 million, in a very tight city budget, shows exactly the kind of political will that is necessary to make Philadelphians safer on the streets and in their homes. This decision is making a difference. Crime was down slightly in Philadelphia last year. And, as I said, figures for the first six months of this year indicate that crime will be down significantly in 1997, by the approximate 11 percent. 12 That level of reduction approaches 13 the kind of performance turned in over the last 14 several years by police in New York. 15 As you can compare Philadelphia's 16 crime rate to other cities, even right here in 17 Pennsylvania, you can see that crime in several other cities around the state is rising, while crime here has decreased. I won't deny that more violent crime occurs in Philadelphia than in these cities. But my point is simply that, by any fair comparison of Philadelphia by the numbers across the state and across the nation, it shows that while we still have a lot of work to do in fighting crime, much has 71 RESOLUTION 970176 already been accomplished by the outstanding work of the Philadelphia police officers. As part of the handouts attached to my testimony today, I have submitted the same series of charts that Mayor Rendell made public in his presentation to the State House Urban Public Safety Subcommittee on September 2, 1997. These charts explain in detail how Philadelphia compares to other cities in terms of the numbers of police officers on the force, the crime rate for the nation's largest cities, and the degree to which crime is either increasing or decreasing in the largest cities in the Commonwealth. My purpose in submitting them to you is merely to give you the opportunity to see for yourself how well Philadelphia compares to other cities around the state and around the nation. What's more, I think we have enough police officers already on the job to successfully fight crime in our city. Our numbers are almost identical to New York's, when you exclude the 7,000 transit and housing cops that were counted in New York's total. 3 officers per thousand residents. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I won't sit here and tell you that I couldn't find work for 1500 more officers that some have suggested we hire. But, in my view, with the full complement of 753 Crime Bill officers, we have enough police to do the job. And that's not counting the approximately 700 officers we could hire under the Mayor's proposed 10 cent lottery sur-charge. Let's remember one point, too. With the Council's support, these officers would be hired and paid for without raising city taxes. What started out earlier this summer as a call for more police officers has now changed lately.

The critics are demanding that the Philadelphia Police Department import the crime fighting techniques that they are using in New York, where the crime rate that's fallen over the last years. That's a good idea, Mr. Chairman. 73 RESOLUTION 970176 And that's why we had begun doing the same thing over a year ago. Nobody in the police department is too proud to admit that we can't learn from police in other cities. We sent several of our top commanders to New York earlier this year to see firsthand the techniques that have been working there. We have been studying a number of these initiatives, particularly the emphasis on computer tracking of crime statistics, known at ComStat, and the determination to employ the Broken Window Theory of attacking quality-of-life crimes, like hanging on corners, underaged drinking, graffiti, vandalism, and curfew violations, and we put the best of these ideas to work in Philadelphia. For example, one idea from New York to eliminate the danger of public safety that often accompanies the large encampments of homeless at various city locations, we did it. Homeless camps have been swept out of the subway concourse, the airport, and at 1801 Vine. 5 million, we were able to organize teams of officers to crack down on the incidences of truancy, curfew violations, and underaged drinking. With the help of the extremely effective night court, a program developed with the help of Councilman Kenney, in which the Common Pleas and Municipal Court judges volunteered to hold evening hours at police districts throughout the city, we are taking back street corners before young people on these corners become perpetrators or victims of more serious crimes. 9 million this year. And that will enable us to continue to attack quality-of-life crime in Philadelphia. Our efforts have been successful. Look at the numbers, for example. We issued 7,423 curfew citations in 1995. But in 1996, curfew citations total 20,560. That's an increase of almost 300 percent in one year. On truancy, we cited 64 truants in 1995. And that number rose to 2,480, in '96, and 75 RESOLUTION 970176 3,491 in just the first six months of this year. And our graffiti arrests have increased dramatically since we created the Graffiti Squad in each police division back in November of 1994. From 104 in '94, prior to creation of the squads, to 444 in 1995, and 575 in 1996. Another area, one that Councilman and Chairman Ortiz mentions in his report to the city, is decentralization of the police department. In New York, precinct commanders have the authority to deploy officers in response to crime trends. In Philadelphia, we began decentralizing the department five years ago, giving inspectors and commanders more autonomy and responsibility for, among other things, enforcement of narcotics law, graffiti, vandalism, the assignment of Crime Bill officers and burglary teams. Like New York, we are taking other steps to become more proactive in fighting crime; that is, stopping crime before it occurs. Existing department community policing efforts place police officers in 76 RESOLUTION 970176 communities through the highly successful and popular bike patrols, many stations in the deployment of the police department's advisory committees. We are also becoming more effective at tracking and responding proactively to crime trends in business corridors and residential neighborhoods throughout the city. But the fact is that we need to do more, and we intend to do more. That's why we are equiping our officers with information technology support system that will be second to none. For example, we are planning to implement a state-of-the-art computerized incident reporting system that is similar to the Compstat system in New York, with one difference, it will be better. As you will see in a short presentation we have prepared for you today, we already have much of the technology in place.

Our computer system can already match or exceed those of New York when it comes to the compilation of recording of crime stats, and we are already doing some of the crime mapping. 77 RESOLUTION 970176 But the final piece of the system, one that will give us a first-rate capability to do crime mapping, is all that remains to be installed. We expect that this technology will come on line in about four to six months. And we believe that it will be extremely important in helping us track crime trends much more effectively. These aren't the only technology changes. As we speak, approximately 200 radio patrol cars already are equipped with mobile data terminals, MDTs, onboard computers that speed the flow of information to the officer on the street, thereby significantly reducing response time. Within the next year we will equip a total of 800 cars with MDTs, and we will soon complete a comprehensive modernization of our computer-aided dispatch, or CAD system, to ease delays and speed responses to 911. To give you a better perspective of the dramatic technological improvements that we have made, and will continue to make in the Philadelphia Police Department, I have asked Chief Inspector Brennan, who heads the department's Information 78 RESOLUTION 970176 Systems Bureau, to make a brief presentation outlining the systems we have in place and how we can use them. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Inspector, would you be good enough to identify yourself for the record.

Yes, sir. My name is Charles Brennan, and I am the Chief Inspector in charge of the Communication Bureau. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Please go ahead, sir.

If I could just direct your attention to the screen. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Dim the lights. (Slide presentation.)

Can everyone see the screen okay, Mr. Chairman? The Police Commissioner has asked me to give you a very broad overview of some of the technology initiatives which we have completed, which are ongoing, and which we plan to do. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: A brief, broad overview.

Brief, broad overview. I will go very quickly. 79 RESOLUTION 970176 Here are some ongoing projects that are going in right now. Phase 2 of the new computer-aided dispatch system. We have a new 911 system going in now. A new radio recording system has been delivered. It is in a testing mode right now. A new uninterrupted power supply system. We just built a building in the courtyard of the Police Administration Building for that system, and that is going in. We're expanding radio call-taker positions by eight, and there are other ongoing radio room improvements, such as you see there, carpeting, lighting, soundproofing. An FY '98 capital project which we have coming in is radio mapping. And this isn't to be confused with another type of mapping, which we'll talk about in a second. This mapping will give a supervisor in police radio the ability to see realtime maps on a screen. In other words, incidents as they come in will update realtime maps, so supervisors can better pinpoint problem areas and we can direct resources to those areas. 80 RESOLUTION 970176 Right now we do get the information, although it is largely text based. The maps will provide a very graphical image of what's going on. Many of you know about the Mobile Data Terminals. The Commissioner alluded to them. Some of you have seen them. And just to give you a broad overview, we started with a pilot program in Southwest Division. We expanded to the city starting in February of 1997. All the patrol supervisors were outfitted first citywide with Mobile Data Terminals. We completed the South Division. Northwest Division has a few more cars to go. We just started Northeast Division. Every officer gets training up at the Police Academy on how to use the terminals. And, as the Commissioner mentioned, we have over 200 installed now. Here is what they can do. The officer can get information from national, which is FBI; local, our extensive local, and state databases from Mobile Data Terminal. They can send car-to-car messages, 81 RESOLUTION 970176 secure messages which are encrypted. They can indicate that they are en route to an assignment, they are on scene, or they are back in service with the push of a key on a keyboard. They can search for past assignments. They can find out where someone is. If they wanted to know where Officer Jones is, they just put "Where Jones" in, and it will tell the vehicle where Jones is. They can get premise history information. In our computer-aided dispatch system, we enter information specific to addresses. That information is sent down to the officer. If the officer cannot transmit on his or her radio, they can hit a key, and that key will alert the dispatcher as to the officer's last known location. They can find out all the assignments that they have been on for the last eight hours, if they want to, and look at them. They could send messages to groups of people, as well as individuals. Lojack is a car locator device, which is a private company. Our officers will soon -- the 82 RESOLUTION 970176 reason the asterisk is there, that's coming. They will be able to get Lojack information over their Mobile Data Terminal. They can get the full text of their radio assignment over the Mobile Data Terminal. And the supervisory functions are kind of interesting. Supervisors can look at pending assignments; in other words, assignments which have not yet been dispatched. And they can also look, for the first time, at the status of the vehicles; in other words, where everyone under them is presently on assignment, how long they have been on assignment, et cetera. This is a very general idea of the type of information that was only available from a police district. Now we have brought all of that information down to the police car. The officer can get to literally hundreds of different computer systems across the United States with the touch of a few keys in a patrol car now.

As far as the coordination of our computer systems with other agencies in 83 RESOLUTION 970176 Philadelphia, we share information with all of the agencies you see on the left. You will see the FBI, District Attorney, DEA, ATF, et cetera. We share our wants, warrants, criminal history information at many different levels with all of these agencies, some to a greater extent than others. Crime analysis tools. These will just let you know some of the things that we have been doing. We have been sending information down to districts for many years on diskette. Some commanders are very innovative on how they use the information, and they have been doing crime analysis on personal computers located in their districts and divisions for years now. This type of information we sent down. We sent crime information, computer-aided dispatch data, arrest information. There are many, many different crime statistical listings which we also send out. The Commissioner alluded to this. This is a very new system, it started July 1. We call it Incident Transmittal Automation. 84 RESOLUTION 970176 And what, essentially, it is, is, we have automated every incident a police officer is involved in. A side line, we have supplied this information to the Records Commissioner, and she now uses it to -- when people come in and they want a police report, before they could not find it. We let her now use the information to find the report and be able to service the citizen much better than she could before. And I have some examples of this. And this information has been on line since July 1. This Incident Transmittal Automation is the front-end system for our mapping project. So this was just put on line, as I said, July 1. It will give us greater coding accuracy. We standardized addresses, eliminate many paper reports for us. Here is how we get it. It is actually an accumulation of three computer systems' worth of information, which is available in virtually very few minutes to the officers in the field. Crime analysis, what we need it for, 85 RESOLUTION 970176 crime patterns. We eventually should be able to predict crime. We can overlay other crime. We establish a Crime Analysis Unit with grant funds. As I mentioned, we started the Data Collection System. And University of Pennsylvania is working with us on this. And we hired analysts on September 8, so they are virtually new. This is a little difficult to see. When I blow it up, it gets a little distorted. But this is what happened in the city this morning in the 6th District. These are incidents, and this is how fast it gets down. I pulled these up sometime around 10 o'clock. And the oldest one, I think, was a half-hour old. What you're seeing, of course, the stream there, is the date, the time, our district control number, the code so we understand what that crime was, the location, the car that handled it, et cetera. You can search the system by many different ways, by district, date, and time; by crime code, et cetera; by district and sector. 86 RESOLUTION 970176 Here is one here, it is the 25th District this morning, all the incidents in the 25th district. None have been coded. But I pulled up one, there is one there at, I think it was B and -- it is East Allegheny Avenue, B and Allegheny. The information came down that it was a call of graffiti, and we made an arrest on it. C. number. Most of the information is machine-generated. It is plugged in by a computer. The officer does not have to do much additional input to that. And that information is very, very current. Again, just some more information. These are vandalisms citywide. This is today. This is now. We pulled these up this morning. That's how fast the information is available. These are stolen autos citywide today. Pulled them up this morning. This is what happened last night in the city. This is a map of the lower half of the 9th District, which was plotted from the data that you just saw.

And this happens to be, I 87 RESOLUTION 970176 believe this is, stolen autos. A piece of the screen is off, but I believe this might be stolen autos in the 9th District. Information, this is robberies from the 6th District, again in August 1997. And our purpose it is to look for the patterns. And you can see some of them right in here. And these maps have been going out to our district and divisional commanders for several months now. Again, some more maps. 15th District. We can break -- we broke the stolen autos by time of day, by tour of duty, so you can better see where the patterns are. Again, some more maps. And I will just move quickly here through the maps. We can plot all kinds of crime, and this is what we have done. This is the 6th District. This is yesterday in the 6th District, robberies and stolen vehicles. Again, it is a little difficult to see. But we had one robbery down in the 6th 88 RESOLUTION 970176 District down here, and stolen autos are the little blue dots all through here. But this is information which we took off the system this morning from yesterday and plotted on a map, so we could get it very quickly. Another system that is very innovative is the -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: May I ask, how long is this portion going to last?

Five minutes. I can quit now. CHAIRMAN COHEN: You know, we have many witnesses to hear. I understand this is very important, you know, for the top officials to be studying. COMMISSIONER NEAL: We will speed it up, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: We would appreciate that. The Committee members are rebelling. They want to ask questions that are built up in them.

I only have a few more. 89 RESOLUTION 970176 The Digital Image Capture. We have left chemical photography, and now with suspects we use digital image photography. We took thumbnail images of everyone; we clone them out to all our districts and divisions. We are able to search all of the images by type of crime we arrested the person for, by demographic factors such as age, race and sex. We take the image, and it is stored on an optical drive. It looks like this. The investigator actually brings up images on the screen. They can look at them and print them. Our network looks like this. We send it out automatically to our detective divisions, as well as other agencies. This is the last slide. Brand-new system in the department is IBIS. It is, essentially, a fingerprint system for bullets and cartridge casings. It provides for the identification of bullets and cartridge casings, links to investigations, similar to our AFIS system. We had two cold hits on this already, and one is worth mentioning. We had a double 90 RESOLUTION 970176 homicide in the 39th District, drug related, in which we recovered a bullet. We entered that bullet into IBIS. Several months later, two 6th District officers arrested a gentleman with a gun. It was a gun pinch. That bullet was run through IBIS, and we were able to prove that that bullet and that gun was used in that double homicide, something that would not be possible without a computer system. That is my presentation, sir. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you. COMMISSIONER NEAL: No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for bearing with us. We thought it was very important that everyone get a sense of the kind of technology that is on board here in Philadelphia, particularly in light of the discussions with Comstat. I think it should also be noted, the fact that we have had as many as -- particularly with our photo imaging system -- as many as 300 agencies come here to Philadelphia to view the technology. We have had Interpol, we have had 91 RESOLUTION 970176 Scotland Yard come and look at some of the technology that we're employing here in Philadelphia because of the fact that it is state-of-the-art. As Chief Brennan has demonstrated, the Philadelphia police Department has already made significant technological improvement critically important to our crime-fighting efforts. We can collect crime stats quicker than ever before, and we can chart trends, and soon we will be able to do crime mapping as well or better than any other city in the nation. Improved technology is making a difference in the Philadelphia Police Department. I believe that our decreasing crime stats reflect the effectiveness of combining good police practices with state-of-the-art technology that has helped us become much more proactive in preventing crime before it occurs. But these changes pose questions, too; such as, how to strike a balance for a problem that police departments have faced for years: Where to place the emphasis on fighting crime. And response times when a call comes in. Or in being more proactive in stopping crimes before they occur 92 RESOLUTION 970176 with beefed-up patrols and tactical units. New York has emphasized a proactive response, and it has been remarkably effective in reducing crime stats. We in Philadelphia want to be proactive, too. But, unlike New York, we have also heeded the public's demand for prompt responses when citizens place calls to 911 for assistance. How we strike the balance between these two types of policing makes a tremendous difference, too. As I have said before, we intend to do better. We must make greater progress in the battle against drug crimes in Philadelphia. We must do more to reduce the homicide rate, and we must do more to make our citizens feel safe. We are hard at work on these problems. Last January, when Mayor Rendell first convened an Administration retreat on law enforcement issues, the city began a full-scale review of police deployment.

We are now in the final phases of a comprehensive redeployment initiative that is 93 RESOLUTION 970176 designed to maximize police presence on the street, while at the same time improving the department's technical capabilities. Moreover, once the Mayor signs off on the final deployment plan, we will certainly honor any Council requests for a private briefing on this subject. The fact is, we need your help on a number of issues. I would ask all members of City Council to join the call for help in Harrisburg and Washington. Support our call for the state police to assume the obligation of patrolling the Philadelphia state highways, just as they do all over the Commonwealth. This initiative, which has been advocated by Councilman Rizzo, will free up 50 Philadelphia police officers immediately. Support the effort to re-examine sentencing guidelines, so that more convicted criminals can serve their sentences in state prisons. That will free more space in city jails so that we can hold criminals, especially drug cases, that we arrest and keep them from making a 94 RESOLUTION 970176 quick return to the streets. Just a quick example to illustrate the severity of this problem. In August, our 50-officer Narcotics Strike Force made 243 arrests at dozens of high-profile corners in East Division, yet in all but cases the suspects were back on the street 9 again almost immediately. 10 That's enormously frustrating, and it 11 makes it difficult to make meaningful progress in 12 the drug war. 13 I would also ask for your support to 14 call to eliminate the preliminary hearing process in 15 criminal cases. 16 Preliminary hearings do not determine 17 guilt or innocence. The defendant still gets to 18 have his day in court. 19 But preliminary hearings 20 unnecessarily tie up hundreds of police officers who 21 spend thousands of hours waiting to testify, instead 22 of patrolling our streets. 23 I also want to join in the support in 24 the 10 cent sur-charge on the state lottery tickets 25 in Philadelphia. Under the Mayor's proposal, the 95 RESOLUTION 970176 revenue generated from this proposal would be exclusively to hire police in Philadelphia, as many as 600 more officers. These officers, together with the 753 Crime Bill officers, would virtually match the call for 1500 more officers, with one difference: These officers would be paid for without raising taxes. In closing, let me say that I understand the concerns of the public. And be assured that the Philadelphia Police Department will do everything possible to enable our citizens to feel safe at home, at work, and on the street. As Chairman Ortiz notes in his report to City Council, the men and women of the Philadelphia Police Department are citizens of Philadelphia too, and we share their concerns. We agree that we have a lot of work to do in the fight against crime. But it is also important to remember that much is already being accomplished. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Mr. Certaine, would you like to be 96 RESOLUTION 970176 heard before the questioning begins by the Council members? MANAGING DIRECTOR CERTAINE: Yes, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Just introduce yourself for the purposes of the record. MANAGING DIRECTOR JOSEPH C. CERTAINE: My name is Joe Certaine. I am Managing Director. Actually, it is Joseph C. Certaine, Manager Director for the City of Philadelphia. And I have been asked here today to provide a status report on the city's Town Watch program by the Chairman of the Public Safety Committee, Councilman Ortiz. Let me say, I was glad to see that the Council considers the city's Town Watch Program part of the Administration's overall crime-fighting strategy. Too often when we think about crime, especially drug-related crime, we tend to focus our attention on the police department solely. It is important to remember that the fight against crime is multi-faceted and not solely the province of the Philadelphia Police Department.

97 RESOLUTION 970176 Therefore, our response to the city must encompass all aspects of the crime problem, including those addressed by agencies such as the Health Department and the Department of Human Services and, most importantly, concerned citizens in the local community groups. The fight against crime simply cannot be won alone. That's why I believe that community-based programs like Town Watch, as well as the Administration's anti-drug/anti-violence efforts are so important. Since we began expanding our Town Watch effort back in Fiscal Year 1995, the Administration has made a strong and clear commitment to funding and working with Town Watch groups as extra eyes and ears of our neighborhoods. The Administration's support of Town Watch could not have been accomplished alone. I think that all Philadelphians are indebted to City Council for its continued support of neighborhood anti-crime efforts such as Town Watch. Due to our collaborative efforts, the approximately 565 certified Town Watch groups, which consist of 312 groups that patrol and 253 stationary 98 RESOLUTION 970176 eyes and ears groups, in this city are on the street every night watching our neighborhoods and helping to make them safer places. I have no doubt that part of the recent percent drop in crime is due to their 7 constant vigilance. 8 While the efforts to build Town Watch 9 have been impressive, we must remember that Town 10 Watch, no matter how extensive, cannot take the 11 place of the police department. 12 Town Watch members are not police 13 officers trained to make arrests or to enforce a 14 law. Their primary responsibility is to help their 15 neighbors by maintaining a visible presence in their 16 community and contacting the police should they 17 witness a crime. I am happy to report that, as we speak, membership in the Town Watch organizations is at an all-time high and continuing to grow. Membership grew from 11,320 in Fiscal Year 1996, to approximately 14,500 in Fiscal 1997; an increase of 27, 28 percent. To date, in Fiscal Year 1998, the number of Town Watch members has reached 15,200 in 99 RESOLUTION 970176 the City of Philadelphia. Despite these increases, the city has been able to continue to support Town Watch by providing training, support, and equipment to its members through the Managing Director's Office. In the last three years, the MDO has vastly increased the city's support we provided to communities trying to make our neighborhoods safer, cleaner places to work and raise our families. Since Fiscal 1995, the MDO has used money specifically targeted by the Mayor and this City Council to ensure the community-based anti-crime programs, including Town Watch, anti-drug and anti-violence programs receive the tools and training they need to be as effective as possible. 95 million both Fiscal 1995 and '96, 2 million in 1997 to these initiatives. 55 million have been budgeted in Fiscal Year 1998 to continue supporting these initiatives. 6 million has been used to fund 100 RESOLUTION 970176 anti-drug/anti-violence initiatives, with an additional 935,000 budgeted in 1998. The MDO's anti-crime money has also been used to fund a portion of the city's newly organized and expanded anti-graffiti effort. In fiscal 1996 and '97, a total of $633,000 have been used to support anti-graffiti initiatives. 3 million has been used over the last three years to ensure that Town Watch groups receive the tools and training that they need to be an effective on-street presence in the city's neighborhoods. Of this total, approximately $265,000 has been awarded in the form of direct cash grant to Town Watch groups. Approximately 727,000 has been used to purchase equipment such as radios, flashlights, clothing for distribution through the police districts, and 323,000 administrative costs have been incurred.

In fiscal 1998, $410,500, an increase of 20 percent from 1997's 342,500, has been budgeted to support the Town Watch program to accommodate rising demand for Town Watch support. 101 RESOLUTION 970176 In addition, the MDO has developed a standardized training program for Town Watch volunteers and participated in the formation of a Town Watch advisory board to set policy, improve training, and recruit new members. The advisory board helped to develop certification criteria for Town Watch groups, as well as an operations manual for training purposes. I have copies of those booklets with me today, as well as a GIS-based map that would show you the location of the Town Watch groups in the City of Philadelphia. It is not as sophisticated a presentation as the police department had, but you are free to take a look at it, if you choose. In order to be certified, Town Watch participants must complete five training classes, covering such topics as safe control methods, first-aid, radio communications, organizational dynamics, and recruiting offered by the MDO Town Watch staff. The MDO Town Watch Office includes free training and recruiting staff. These staff people help interested residents form Town 102 RESOLUTION 970176 Watch groups throughout the city and reach out to community leaders to form Town Watches in low-participation areas using data from the city's geographic information system. Over the next five years, the MDO's goal is to foster enough Town Watches to cover every neighborhood in the city. Over the next few months, the office will hire two additional trainers for a one-year pilot program to focus on increasing Town Watch participation in the American Street and North Central Empowerment Zones, two areas of the city with the lowest participation rates in Town Watch. These staff people will be funded through Empowerment Zone resources. Each spring the MDO holds its annual Town Watch conference. The one-day conference consists of workshops, vendor presentations and awards for outstanding Town Watch organization. The event is open to the public so that interested people can learn what it takes to form and maintain a successful Town Watch program. The MDO and the police department also ensure that Town Watch groups now have the 103 RESOLUTION 970176 equipment and supplies, including radios, T-shirts, jackets, flashlights, batteries, and the other essential tools, that they need in order to patrol their neighborhoods. These items are distributed by the Managing Director's Office to the police community relations officer in each police district. The PCRO then distributes the equipment and supplies to the Town Watch groups in their districts, only those groups that attend the sessions necessary for certification, as well as groups that require new or additional supplies. From FY '95 through FY '97, 1,300 radios and 400 free cellular phones, roughly four radios and one phone for each of the patrolling 312 Town Watch groups, were distributed, along with 7,000 sets of T-shirts, jackets, caps, and 2,000 Town Watch Patrol signs. MDO Town Watch personnel expenditures have risen over the last two years, as responsibility for training and program administration were transferred from contract agencies to the MDO staff, although personnel expenditures are lower than when the 104 RESOLUTION 970176 administration's functions were performed under contract. At the same time, the increase in Town Watch participation has increased the demand for support services and training. As a result, personnel spending increased from $54,000 in fiscal 1996 to $145,000 in '97, and has budgeted 182,000 for Fiscal 1998. I'd like to take this opportunity to again congratulate the Town Watch groups throughout the city that are making a substantial and visibly positive impact on the quality of life of all Philadelphians. Town Watch and programs like it are vital to the city's efforts to reduce crime and improve the quality of life for all of its citizens.

I thank this Committee for allowing me to offer my experience in this area and the full Council for its continued support of the city's anti-crime efforts. And I am now able to answer any questions you may have on this. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very 105 RESOLUTION 970176 much. Councilman DiCicco. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin my question to Commissioner Neal, with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I understand your earlier remarks that we are here today to see if there is something that we can all do collectively in the area of crime in the city. And that the nature and the tone of these hearings should be in regard to not pointing fingers at any one individual or any one department, but to find out and flesh out some of the things that we may be able to do to support each other. But the fact remains, Mr. Chairman -- and you have been around here much longer than I have -- that we as Council members do have a responsibility to not only the citizens of our district, but also of the city. And some hard questions are always being posed to us every night of the week that we are out meeting with the community groups and the Town Watch groups. 106 RESOLUTION 970176 So my question, I guess, is, it kind of may sound critical, but I think it is a question that needs to be asked. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Hard questions have to be asked. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Thank you. And I want to compliment you on the screen, the projection statistics. And I think that's something maybe we might want to talk to the District Attorney's Office about. It is a flattering demonstration on how computers and digital stuff and all works. Commissioner, in front of you -- and I believe my colleagues may have gotten a copy of the little map with some dots on it; my chief of staff should have handed that out a few minutes ago. I can get some more. I will get you a few more, if you don't mind. Well, you can have this one. I am told that the map in front of you is a map of a portion of the East Police Division, which Councilman Mariano and I share, and Councilwoman Krajewski. 107 RESOLUTION 970176 And I am also told by the community group that handed me that map that the dots on the map identify drug corners. Also, that the map is five years old, and it was given to the community group by police personnel some five years ago. And, to date, the overwhelming majority of the dots that are on that map that indicate drug corners are still in existence and are active today. Could you help and explain the situation, if in fact that is the case, why there are drug corners which we have known about for five years and are still active today? And I don't mean to spring this on you at the last minute, but this was just handed to me, also. So if you need some time... COMMISSIONER NEAL: Obviously I have not seen this map before, nor have we had an opportunity to review this to determine about all of these locations being drug corners, and preparing a specific response in terms of clearly demonstrating how many narcotics arrests that we have made in East Police Division alone. And I would certainly submit to you 108 RESOLUTION 970176 that even though I have seen this for the first time, that on these corners, that we could clearly demonstrate that we have arrested these people over and over and over again. As I stated in my last presentation here in City Council, that on one corner alone, in a four-block area, we arrested the same individual seven times, only to find him back out on the street dealing drugs again. And as I have stated before, that that is not a cop-out. That is to say that the Philadelphia Police Department is doing its job in trying to eradicate drugs in these communities. However, it does take the help and support of everyone. And I would be the first to submit that we need to find a way to ensure that some of these people are put in jail, and they are not released back into the streets to deal drugs.

In my testimony I stated that we are doing a project right this very moment in East Police Division where we have already arrested 246 individuals. And only a small number of those 109 RESOLUTION 970176 people, as the testimony indicates, are being incarcerated at this point. So I don't have any reason to disbelieve the fact that these are, in fact, drug corners. But I would submit to you that we have repeatedly made arrests at those locations. And we are prepared to continue to do that, as evidenced by the fact that the strike force at this very moment is working in a grid in East Police Division and making arrests at this very time. And we are going to continue to do that. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Thank you. And, again, Mr. Chairman, maybe in the spirit of these hearings, the comments by the Police Commissioner, we will continue to ask similar questions, maybe, about East Police Division with the other authorities that will be here, the courts, the District Attorney's Office. And collectively maybe we can find out if there are some cracks in the foundation here. And something is falling through the cracks, obviously, if people are still active at these corners for five years. 110 RESOLUTION 970176

That is not really a term you want to use, Councilman. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Councilman, I think what we did say is that, the problem we have is not only a policing problem, but that it is sort of a collective aspect of the whole government. It is the court systems; it is the parole; it is the Probation Department; it is the D.A.'s Office and how that office is functioning, and collectively. Because I think if we expect the police department to finish the criminal activities in neighborhoods by itself, that is not going to happen, unless you establish some sort of totalitarian system. So it is a system in which we have to begin putting it together. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Maybe we could do that on a pilot program. And, again, this is not critical of the police department. I think it is a question that we can continue to maybe work, using this as a basis for some of the continuing dialogue. CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right. For just 111 RESOLUTION 970176 a moment.

Just one comment on the issue of drug corner. What is a drug corner? A drug corner is a corner where people stand out in the open and sell narcotics, congregate on a corner, and basically intimidate the community. We do not have the ability to make people get off a corner. We will wind up in federal court. People will say, I have the civil right to stand on this corner and do what I want to do until you catch me. And even when they are caught, and it is testified to, and the officer goes in and we file 18 the charges, because of the prison cap situation and because of suppression issues, that person is back on the street again, laughing in the face of the officer, laughing in the face of the community. And, again, Councilman Ortiz said it. I mean, we don't want to go to a totalitarian state. But in some situations, how do you 112 RESOLUTION 970176 get people physically off a corner, when the neighbors know what they are doing, the police know what they are doing, they know what they are doing, but we as a government have an inability to move those people and extricate them from the neighborhood. And that, I think, is a multi-faceted problem that we can deal with through the course of these hearings. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And we are going to deal with it until we get to a solution. Councilwoman Krajewski.

Just one question to the Commissioner. Commissioner, you saw the figures that Councilman Ortiz has presented. Do you agree with those figures, the crime report statistics? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, which are you talking about? The entire presentation that was made?

The presentation broken down into districts. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Okay. Let me 113 RESOLUTION 970176 address that. If you look at the total amount of crime over the last five years that has occurred here in Philadelphia, and you measure that against what has occurred in all of the cities, the major cities, in this country, and you divide that into five, Philadelphia is still the number one city as it relates to the issue of crime. Because over that time period, we have averaged 650 crimes per 10,000 residents. And the second city, which would be San Diego, is 660, and New York is 704 over that same time period. Also, in looking at the stats that were presented by the Councilman, although you see some decline, downward trend, in a couple of those cities, in most of those cities they are experiencing an upward trend. And plus the fact that, even though with the cities, even though there are some downward trends, that their total amount of crime per 10,000 residents is higher than Philadelphia. Because of the fact that, for instance -- and let me turn to my sheet -- for instance, if you look at, let's say, Houston for a 114 RESOLUTION 970176 moment, that although Houston went down in '95, Houston went up in '96, and they're averaging 780 crimes, as opposed to the 691 that's being demonstrated by Philadelphia. Here again, if you look at Phoenix, although Phoenix went down in '96, Phoenix is averaging 10,000 crimes, as opposed to 691 crimes, as compared to Philadelphia. If you look at Chicago, Chicago demonstrates a downward trend. However, in '96, Chicago shows 941 crimes, as compared to 691. Now, just to explain for a moment when we talk about the issue of the deployment. When we look at the numbers of officers who are deployed -- and the Councilman's stats conclude at the end of 1996 because all of the data that was requested was '96 data -- it does not take into consideration the fact that we have had three classes graduate from the academy in 1997, year to date, for a total of 312 officers that came out during this period. If we examine the period from January 15, 1992, to present date, in East Police Division there has been an increase by percent of 115 RESOLUTION 970176 personnel assigned to that division. That's a greater increase than any other division in this city. When we talk about the Crime Bill 6 officers, East Division has had assigned 83 Crime Bill officers out of the 453 Crime Bill officers that have graduated thus far, which is clearly higher than any other division in this city in terms of the number of Crime Bill officers. So what I submit to you is that, in terms of allocation of personnel, that we have certainly taken into consideration all of the demographics. We are aware of the issue of the crime, and we have allocated our personnel appropriately. It should also be noted, the fact that we currently have 216 officers that are in the Police Academy. Those officers will be graduating in December. As those officers graduate from the Police Academy, we will be deploying them around the city. As we deploy them, a consideration will be the issue of crime as it relates in East 116 RESOLUTION 970176 Division, as well as it relates around the city.

Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Mariano and Councilwoman Fernandez.

Thank you. Commissioner, since I have been a Councilman, I am fortunate or unfortunate, no matter how you look at it, to have a police radio in my car. So I get to listen to everything that happens. And I spend a lot of the time in the East, because I represent the 24th, 25th, and 26th Districts. And that's the whole East; I have mostly all of it. I share it with Councilwoman Krajewski, Councilman DiCicco, and a lot of it with Council President Street. Everything I hear is a waste of time with people, with your patrolmen, stopping cars that are unlicensed. You know what I'm getting at. The confiscation and impoundment. The law was passed here two years ago. Representative Michael Horsey added some state teeth. I am going to introduce a resolution 25 tomorrow that looks into it with this Committee, why 117 RESOLUTION 970176 we are not doing this. And everybody will have a chance. But do you see this as a good crime-fighting tool? I mean, I know they are hiding guns and drugs in these cars. And it is a distraction from the citizens and it is a distraction from the patrol people, because they are spending a lot of time. And, frankly, they have told me that it is useless. What's the sense of stopping somebody? They take the gun. Okay, that helps. But they are not going to be able to take this car off the street because of the way the law is. And now it has changed, but we are not enforcing it here. Can you tell me a little about that? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes, I will touch on that. And then I will have Deputy Commissioner go into a greater explanation on that, because he has been assigned to the committee to specifically facilitate the issue of the impoundment. But one of the things that has been a hinderance thus far is the law, in terms of our ability to confiscate those vehicles. 118 RESOLUTION 970176 Another issue that has come into play, because there have been laws passed that will give us, in other instances, ability to confiscate cars, particularly as it relates to people not having their vehicle registered and so on, and one of the problems has been, where are we going to store these cars. And that's one of the issues that the Deputy Commissioner has been working very diligently on in an effort to try and resolve. And he will further expound on that question. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Identify yourself, sir, for the record. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER THOMAS J. NESTEL: Tom Nestel, Deputy Police Commissioner. As far as the impoundment of vehicles, there are numerous obstacles in the way. We have overcome almost all these obstacles. I have been working very closely with Judge DeAngelis in Traffic Court concerning this bill. We are at the stage now that Traffic Court is preparing their RFP for contracts. Just to give you a little background, we explored whether or not the city had the 119 RESOLUTION 970176 facilities to store all these vehicles, how many tow trucks it would take to do this, what would be involved in implementing that. After looking at all the options, the determination was made that the best way to handle this would be to contract out the towing and to --

Commissioner, not to interrupt you. We will be talking about that after I do this resolution. And we will figure out, us as a legislative body will figure out, how we are going to contract this or privatize. That's not decided yet. We are going to figure it out. But what I want to know is, if we do this, in the great scheme of things, it has got to help. I mean, it is going to help. Is it going to help a patrolman? Is it going to help -- I know it will help the perception of people that it is a little safer out there. If you make a car stop, and a guy -- I was listening the other night, somebody was running around with a bullet-proof vest and an AK-47 in the East. I mean, that's unthinkable. That's unthinkable. 120 RESOLUTION 970176 The common citizen, they need the perception of safety. That is the problem here. We can bring the guy from New York, whatever the heck his name is, we can read Tucker's plan until it is blue in the face. But if these people don't feel they are safe -- they have to feel they are safe. I'm not blaming you. I am not blaming Judge DeAngelis. I just want to know, you are the top cop here, you are the top guy. Would it help if we go through all these motions? COMMISSIONER NEAL: We agree with you, Councilman, and certainly any tools that will help us and enable us to fight crime and to send a message to the criminal, that certainly there is a price to pay for his or her actions, is going to be beneficial.

Number two question. Video surveillance. I wrote a resolution a year ago. It is floating around in Council limbo, I guess because I'm not as tall as somebody here. Who knows. But do you think video surveillance would do something here? Regardless if we get the 121 RESOLUTION 970176 money. Let us work on the legislation and the money. Do you, the top cop in the City of Philadelphia, think that video surveillance will help? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, here again, as I said, any tool that is going to help us to fight the issue of crime, then certainly we support.

Okay. One last question. I know everybody else is chomping at the bit. Back to the chief that spoke about 991 communications. Is he still here? Was he a chief, or did I demote him? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes, he is a chief.

Chief, can I ask you one question? I didn't know you were floating away, Brennan.

As long as you don't demote me, you can ask me whatever you want, Councilman.

No, I won't 122 RESOLUTION 970176 demote you. And I couldn't, anyhow. The old sector car ideas. When Frank Rizzo's father was the mayor of the city and the police chief, we had a sector car. Explain that to somebody that doesn't have any police experience, how that worked, and would that work today, if we had the manpower? I don't know if we do. But I hear a lot about this. I don't know if it is doable. Do you understand what that is?

I guess you mean, theoretically, that a car is assigned to an individual sector. Districts are broken down into smaller units that we call sectors.

The 24th District, Juniata, Harrigate, how many sectors would that be broken down into, theoretically?

I don't know how many sectors.

Say ten?

No. Probably more. COMMISSIONER NEAL: No. It is probably around at least 15. 123 RESOLUTION 970176

So you stay in that sector. If you are in a certain sector in the 24th, do you roam into another sector? How does that work?

Usually what happens is, you are assigned a sector or sectors to cover, until the whole district is covered, depending on how many people come in that tour of duty.

Do you think -- I'm putting you on the spot here, but it's the big showdown here -- do you think that's something we could do, or is that something against the Administration's policy, or is it not worth going back to that?

That's something that we do do.

We still do that? We still do do that?

Sure. COMMISSIONER NEAL: What we're saying is that, that is one of the issues that we are currently reviewing as part of deployment study and looking at the various --

And that could 124 RESOLUTION 970176 help the situation, now, with the perception out there that we are not as safe as New York. I will take my chances in Philadelphia. Hell with New York; I will be here. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, I think that that issue has to be examined because of the fact that I'm sure you realize that in the development of that sector structure, that that is something that was developed many, many years ago. And to what extent many of those sectors are applicable at this particular point does need to be --

They may have changed from population shifts and everything. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Right.

But that's something -- I am excited about the technology, the mug shots and all -- but that's something that we could possibly get into. COMMISSIONER NEAL: It is something that we could review.

If it helps. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes.

Thank you. 125 RESOLUTION 970176 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilwoman Fernandez.

Commissioner, it feels like there are sort of two major issues when we're talking about deployment of officers and dealing with the various kinds of crime in the city. One would be officers deployed to deal with the drug business, and to really go after not only the drug dealers people might see on the street, but actually the drug organization that's managing and organizing the whole thing. The other kinds of crime are what people are just seeing and feeling on the streets every day, from the quality of life, nuisance kind of issues, to more serious things like robberies. And I think around the deployment issue, the question is, in broad scope, over the last couple of years you have gotten additional officers, and there has also been a move to get more of the officers who might have been doing paperwork behind the desk, to get them out into the field. Is it correct to assume that there are now more officers out on the beat, out in the 126 RESOLUTION 970176 field, being a very visible presence in neighborhoods? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Oh, absolutely. We have about 87 percent of our officers are on-street officers as a result of a contractual award with the FOP, that we were able to civilianize a few years ago 179 positions where officers were performing in an administrative capacity. And now those officers are working in an on-street capacity. As you know, with the Crime Bill, we have been awarded 753 officers. However, it should be noted that 40 percent of those officers are actually on the street now, and there is still that 100 that I mentioned. We have 100 Crime Bill officers that are in the academy that will graduate in December. We have 200 Crime Bill officers that we will hire next year. So that's 300 of the Crime Bill officers that still remain to be hired. However, what we have been endeavoring to do is to address the quality of life issues in a number of ways. One, through the grant that we 127 RESOLUTION 970176 received, whereby we have put the hired officers, on a daily basis, in every district in the city to address the issue of truancy, of curfew, of quality of life.

And those statistics were very impressive. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Right. And all of the stats in every one of those areas have improved dramatically. With the renewal of that grant, we will be able to expand the program, which will come on board in October. And we will begin not only hiring officers in the district to address all of the quality-of-life issues, but we will be hiring overtime officers from highway patrol, from the narcotic unit, from the anti-crime teams, to work in the districts to address crime problems, as well as narcotic problems, in all of the respective districts throughout the city. So that's going to be in addition to the 300 Crime Bill officers that still remain to hit the street. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Will you yield a 128 RESOLUTION 970176 moment, Councilwoman? On the number of officers, didn't you engage in a difficult battle -- I think it went to court -- in which you were given the authority to change the number of police officers at different shifts corresponding to the need? COMMISSIONER NEAL: That's correct. CHAIRMAN COHEN: And doesn't that make more officers available? COMMISSIONER NEAL: That makes more officers available, also. CHAIRMAN COHEN: For where you need them. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes. Thank you very much.

What I wanted to get clear, which I am not as clear on, I have had the feeling -- and you confirmed that -- that more officers are out on the street dealing with some of these crimes that drive people up a wall. But the other issue, I am not clear how many officers -- are there more, less, or about the same -- really dealing with the in-depth 129 RESOLUTION 970176 investigation that often needs to be done in cooperation with the feds to basically go after, basically, the heart or the root of the drug business? Because one of the issues, at least as I understand it, you can arrest, as you said, the little dealer on the street. But unless you can go after the organization and the kingpins, they just come back as fast as you pick them up. COMMISSIONER NEAL: And we have very successfully engaged in that process. As a result, about just over, I think it was two years ago, we were successful in bringing HIDTA, which is High Intensity Drug Trafficking, to the city. And what that has entailed thus far is that we have received about $3 million in awards in our effort to fight drugs, in terms of addressing those drug gangs in those higher organizations. And what HIDTA entails is, that is a collaboration between not only local law enforcement agencies, but also federal agencies, so that we can target these specific gangs.

But my 130 RESOLUTION 970176 question was, in terms of deployment, are the numbers of officers directed towards in-depth narcotics kinds of investigations, is that fewer than before, the same as before, or have additional officers also been assigned there? COMMISSIONER NEAL: With the exception of, when I was here last, of the 9 additional officers that we have assigned to 10 narcotics, that the number of narcotic officers have 11 remained the same. 12 However, with the redeployment that 13 we are currently looking at, entails a portion 14 whereby there would be a significant increase in the 15 number of officers assigned to narcotic enforcement. 16

You are 17 saying, in the deployment current plan you are 18 currently discussing? 19 COMMISSIONER NEAL: That's right. 20

And when do 21 you expect that to be presented to us, or to go into 22 effect? 23 COMMISSIONER NEAL: As I stated 24 earlier, that as soon as the Mayor -- I believe that 25 the Mayor is also looking at some other aspects 131 RESOLUTION 970176 relative to deployment, in conjunction with the entire group of people who are participating in this process. And as soon as that is complete, and the Mayor signs off on the recommendations that have been submitted, then we will provide that to Council.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Kenney, then Councilman Nutter, then Councilman Rizzo, and then Councilman Ortiz.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner, I want to talk about the issue of training, ongoing training. What is it that we do, what do we require our officers to do, once they are hired on patrol, both officers and management people, to go through continuing education or continuing training in police science and police work? Would you lay out for us what we do with our officers? And, in addition -- let me get the whole question in, this way maybe you can 132 RESOLUTION 970176 expound -- in addition to the training, one of the things that came out of some of my meetings with, for example, the Guardian Civic League, was that the issue of continuing education is very important to the street officer, the opportunity through the city sponsorship, Community College, whatever, to improve their English, reading, comprehension, writing, speaking skills, management skills in an effort to be more prepared to become a supervisor, do we have any type of strategy to better train and educate our officers? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Okay. One of the things, as you know, that we are mandated through the MPO that every year we must retrain every officer through 40 hours of MPO training. And what we have done is that, we satisfy that training. And that training covers a broad spectrum of issues. That each issue, members of our staff meet with the state MPO certification people in an effort to develop what are the important issues that are germane to this area at that time, and we provide training along that line. That training is incorporated with 133 RESOLUTION 970176 any training that the police department on its own decides is significant and important to impart to our officers. In conjunction with that, we have supported outside training on the part of our officers with a number of institutions. And we do police executive training, we do training involving some private entities. We have brought in outside consultants to provide training to the officers on an ongoing basis. We realize, too, that training is an important component to an officer's development, and that's why we place such a high emphasis. And I will allow Deputy Commissioner Nestell, who is the head of the training and administration, to address that issue. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTELL: Councilman, in addition to it, I guess we really need to go right back to the basic training. When the recruits report, they're given a series of tests to identify what their reading skills are, what their vocabulary skills are, and so forth. And a lot of individual training 134 RESOLUTION 970176 is given to each recruit based on their scores on those tests. We then, as the Commissioner mentioned, we have our mandated MPO training. We do several other training courses throughout the year. Our supervisors, one of their primary responsibilities is training. They observe their people; they're working right with them. They conduct training to them. We also have programs where, if an individual wants to pursue advanced training, go to a local college, go for an advanced degree, that, whenever possible, we permit those officers off to do that. We recently --

Do we encourage it? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTELL: Yes, we do. Yes, we do. And we recently were fortunate enough to have Chestnut Hill College award a course to the highest academic person who is graduating from our academy classes. They are also going to offer one full 135 RESOLUTION 970176 scholarship for someone to get their entire undergraduate education. And, yes, we do encourage people to pursue their education. We do not have a system, such as some other jurisdictions do, where there is actually a monetary reward that goes with it. But it has a lot to do with self-satisfaction of the individual and motivation of the individual.

There is nothing more self-satisfying than more money. And maybe that's something we need to look at in the next budget, to provide those dollars to reward those officers who are training, improving themselves, and excelling. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Any other questions?

Yes. Still on the issue of training. For a long time now, I have been disappointed with the condition of the Police Academy. Even though we do a good job, I think, with the staff people there, the facility itself has many things lacking. And one of the things that I have pursued with members of the state legislature is 136 RESOLUTION 970176 perhaps the creation of a regional training facility, where the state would invest capital dollars to build the facility to expand a facility or to expand the facility we have and improve it, and allow officers from the surrounding townships and municipalities to come in on a more regular basis to train there, creating a regional training center for police officers, and, therefore, allowing us and our own officers to matriculate through a better facility than we have today. I mean, the signs of age have really begun to show. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Councilman, I know the deputy wants to respond, but I am going to supersede him for a moment and respond to that. Because one of the things that we did was that, several years ago, in realizing the possibility of the training of significant officers was going to be a reality, I had built at the training facility -- for the first new major construction up there in over 15 years -- did we build a state-of-the-art facility up there now? That we have a building that is a two-story building that encompasses eight brand-new 137 RESOLUTION 970176 classrooms, that has all of the current equipment that's needed in there. And it is something that this department is very proud of the fact that we have been able to accomplish. And one of the ways that we did it was that, we spent $1 million in forfeiture money, money we took from drug dealers from around this city, and built that facility up at our training bureau. And we are doing that very thing, that we are recognized as a regional training facility in this area. We train police officers for just about all of the surrounding police departments. So we are moving in that direction. However, I don't want you to feel for a moment that we would discourage the fact that if you were able to get some legislative money and wanted to build another facility up there to even enhance the one that we have done, that we would certainly be supportive of that. And now the deputy can respond. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NESTELL: There is nothing left. 138 RESOLUTION 970176 CHAIRMAN COHEN: Very good. Excellent response.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to come back on another round for some other questions and might yield now. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, that might be October the 21st. Because we have various groups here. May I address for just a moment, before Councilman Nutter begins, we would like to finish somewhere between 4:30 and 5 o'clock. There is a group from New York that's here. They are there are a group of local folks, Stefan Presser, James Fyfe, William Gonzalez, Charles Kluge, we would like to get them on. There are groups here from Victim's Advocacy and Community Perspective. Any one of these groups, or the groups that testified, can take all day long in questioning, but we can't do that. Now I am going to suggest, there are certain Commissioners here. And since Councilman Ortiz is back in the audience, I can make the decision myself -- he probably won't agree -- but I 139 RESOLUTION 970176 would like to suggest that Commissioner Reeves, Commissioner DiBerardinis, if agreeable to them, feel free to leave, and note October 21, at 10:00 a.m., a Tuesday, October the 21st. Because I don't think we can begin to do justice to what you want to talk about in the tight time schedule today. If that's agreeable to you -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I was talking to them about that. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Oh, very good. Good. Then we were in agreement without having talked to each other. All right? Because you have been very patient. And we appreciate the fact that you stayed here very much. Everybody else, we think, ought to stay here and we can cover this. Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Commissioner. On of your testimony -- and Councilwoman Fernandez went over this, but I want to 140 RESOLUTION 970176 be very clear about where we are -- your statement is, "Moreover, once the Mayor signs off on the final redeployment plan." Is that where we are in this process? We are awaiting the Mayor's review, or compilation, of various pieces of information? And, so, in the sports sense, I guess, the ball is in the Mayor's court about redeployment plan and its release? Is that where things are? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes. We are awaiting the Mayor's decision and his signing off on the deployment plan before it is presented.

Okay. Same of your testimony, in response to Councilman DiCicco's question -- would you like to add something? Please identify yourself for the record. GREGORY S. ROST: My name is Gregory S. Rost. I am Mayor Rendell's Chief of Staff. I would just like to add that this has been a back and forth -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is this your first 141 RESOLUTION 970176 appearance before City Council since you have assumed the post?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COHEN: This is the successor to David L. Cohen, the former Chief of Staff, Gregory Rost. And we welcome you here, and we promise to treat you as gently, if that's what we did, as we treated David L. Cohen. The Inquirer misses him so much, they put the L in my name in their Monday editorial when they referred to me. They gave me a middle initial which I do not have, and they used David L's name. But Gregory Rost comes with an excellent background. And while during the summertime I had occasion on several times to speak with him, I found that he was very responsive. David L. Cohen is a hard act to follow. We think you are going to follow it very well. And we welcome you here to City Council.

Well, thank you. That's very kind of you. I appreciate that. What I wanted to add was that, the process that we have engaged in, really since last 142 RESOLUTION 970176 January, when the Mayor had his retreat on law enforcement issues, has been a collaborative effort between the police department, the Managing Director's Office -- in particular Joe Certaine and First Deputy Managing Director Joe Martz, and the Mayor's Office.

This was an Administration process?

Excuse me?

This was an Administration process? This is internal to the Administration?

The deployment question?

Right.

The genesis of the deployment question that I understand was derived from the retreat that the Mayor held in January. And at that retreat, Commissioner Neal; his top deputies; David L. Cohen, my predecessor; Joe Martz; Joe Certaine and some other staff from the MDO were in attendance. One of the issues that the Mayor was very, very concerned about -- and I think it derived from some of the questions that were raised by this 143 RESOLUTION 970176 chamber -- was the deployment issue. So coupled with the interest that Council has continued to express, and the interest that Council expressed beginning, to the best of my knowledge in my new position, in the spring, again, we have been working on this since January, and it is a collaborative process.

Okay. Do you have an estimated time of completion?

We fully expect the deployment plan to be done in the next one or two months. As soon as it is completed, we will bring it to Council for a private briefing. The Mayor and I were talking this morning. The Mayor fully expects to implement the new deployment by January 1, 1998, if not sooner. We certainly appreciate the patience of this body. Deployment is a very, very difficult issue, it is a complex issue, far more complex than I would have imagined.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. 144 RESOLUTION 970176

Commissioner Neal, on , in response to a question raised by Councilman DiCicco, you amended the situation of 243 arrests of dozens of high-profile drug corners in East Division. Yet, in all but cases, the 7 suspects are back out on the street. 8 That's about a 90 percent drop-off 9 from arrests to who is out on the street. Why? 10 COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, because of 11 the fact that in some instances they are back out 12 because they were able to make bail, in other cases 13 there was no bail that was rendered and the 14 individual is back out on the street again. 15

Was that because 16 bail was not requested? 17 COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, I don't 18 know if the bail was requested or not. 19 But apparently, in going through the 20 system, the person was released without bail. 21

You also 22 mentioned, I believe -- it may not have been in your 23 testimony, maybe it was in the same colloquy -- 24 discussions about an individual being arrested seven 25 different times. 145 RESOLUTION 970176 COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes.

Why do we have all these people getting arrested, going through the system, getting arrested, going through the system? I mean, why does this go on? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, that's a good question. And that's a question that we would like an answer to, also, the fact that the police are repeatedly making these arrests, and these people are back on the street. I can show you that in the first six months of this year, the drug arrests have increased by over 28 percent. And, yet, we are still dealing with the fact of many of these drug corners and many locations where we make return visits. And one of the illustrations that I gave at the last meeting that we had on this subject was the illustration of that individual who had been arrested all of those times, in a four-block area, and he is back out on the street again.

Well, before I make -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Councilman, if I may. 146 RESOLUTION 970176 I think that goes, once the arrest is made, the D.A. and the court system take over. And that goes into the municipal court, and then whatever prima fascia case is presented. So once the arrest is made --

But they don't know how many drug cases they have, Councilman. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We understand that.

Well, Commissioner, before I ask this question, or make this request, do you have computers over at the police department? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes.

Okay. Can you provide us with any data on this continual arrest problem, or dilemma or phenomena, that the department continues to arrest and rearrest the same people time and time again, and give us some opportunity, I guess, with that data, on a day that the D.A. actually, legitimately wants to have a discussion about these issues, and can maybe factor City Council into her busy schedule so we can go over these matters? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, one of the 147 RESOLUTION 970176 things that we attempted to do, because of the fact that that very data that you are talking about seems to be data that's difficult to obtain, that in the last two programs, or last two initiatives that we instituted with our strike force, that we have begun gathering that data ourselves. That, with the project that we did in Southwest Division, we gathered the data. I indicated to the narcotic unit that I wanted them to track everyone who they arrested, and let's find out what happens to these people. When we went into East Division, we did the same thing. So the information that we would give you would be information that we have recently obtained.

That's fine. I know the Chair is going to give me the hook any second. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Before I do that to you, I would like to suggest to the new chief of staff that this may be something worth his time, to try to work on the problem that is being discussed and to bring all the parties together. 148 RESOLUTION 970176 Because I think it is going to lead to a meeting between, maybe, the Mayor's people, the Council's people, and the court system. Because, obviously, the D.A.'s office, but the judges are the ones that determine the question of bail. I'm sure the District Attorney's Office generally asks for bail. But the prisons are crowded, and the judges are in a position where, if they occupy space with a drug dealer that was arrested on a corner, but has no violent crime recorded in his past history, that they will keep him out of the cell to have it available for somebody else. There are things of that sort that they consider. But what Councilman and the Commissioner are talking about is very important. I think we have to get an understanding of it. Because that really gripes out in the community. When they finally see police action, say, where they may have been working on it, and finally the police do go and make these arrests, and they find the drug dealers back out on the corner, they blame the police. They think the police have 149 RESOLUTION 970176 done something, and the police are powerless in that situation. We need some centralization of an approach to that problem to get the facts that Councilman Nutter is talking about.

A couple of other quick questions, Commissioner. I know that the police department coordinates with various other agencies, whether state or federal. When we were here last, I believe back in the spring, there was a great amount of discussion about various task forces, whether involving DEA, FBI, ATF, or any other federal agencies. Can you give us a very, very brief update on what goes on with those agencies? There was a question, I think, at the last hearing as to staffing levels, do people have the number of people they are supposed to have from these other federal agencies, and do you find working with these other agencies to be helpful to the police department's efforts? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, I found 150 RESOLUTION 970176 absolutely that working with the other agencies is extremely beneficial in trying to address the issue of drugs in our city as it relates to the staffing levels, in that we have tried to be responsive to those staffing requests that are made by other agencies, within reason. However, at times it may be cases where certain federal agencies may expect that the staffing level may be at one height, and we feel that it is only reasonable that it be at a different level because of our other commitments. So sometimes it has to be resolved that way. However, there have not been any significant increases in the staffing levels with the federal agencies since we last met, in light of the fact that we are still in the process of discussing the redeployment plan. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Councilman Rizzo.

Thank you. Commissioner Neal, before I ask my question, I learned that today, but I also learned before today's hearing, that your department, 151 RESOLUTION 970176 Philadelphia Police Department, has the highest percentage of officers, sworn officers, on the street than almost any police department in the United States. So you have freed up, from what I understand, more officers than most police departments in the country. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes. We have endeavored, through many, many initiatives, to ensure that our on-street commitment is as high as it possibly can be. And as I stated earlier, as a result, through the contractual award that was won to civilianize those positions, the 179 positions, as well as some rethinking in terms of the allocation of personnel, we have been able to accomplish that.

Commissioner, going back to Chief Inspector Brennan's presentation -- and I don't think I need to drag him up here; I think you will be able to answer the question -- the Mobile Data Terminals, has a criteria been developed that the information, the messages that are sent between officers, the messages that are sent between supervisors and 152 RESOLUTION 970176 officers, be retained, like our radio tapes are retained, in the event that that information would be relevant in a complaint or investigation? COMMISSIONER NEAL: It is retrievable over a period. And let me get Brennan up to respond to that. But it is retrievable.

But I would hope that there's a criteria that that information would not be retained for 48 hours, and not retrievable. Because I remember a very high-profile incident that occurred where that information became very relevant to a civil rights case. So I would hope that you develop that criteria, if it isn't already. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Yes. Well, obviously, we would have the same concerns based upon past experiences, and realizing what our needs are, to reproduce information, particularly in terms of going into court to present it as a complainant or going into court as a defendant in some issues, to have the need to provide that information. And certainly that is a consideration.

But we don't know 153 RESOLUTION 970176 presently, today, how long we retain that information? CHAIRMAN COHEN: All right. INSPECTOR MITCHELL YANAK: Good morning, Councilman. My name is Inspector Yanak. I am in charge of grants. In answer to your question, information that's captured in the CAT system is maintained indefinitely on tape backup. The information from the cars that are point-to-point messages, as far as, "I'm at 5th and Market. There is a fellow at 8th and Market. We may have to arrest him," Chief Inspector Brennan is looking into that with the vendor now, because he realizes the importance of possibly that coming up in court later on. There is no concrete information there because that is considered just like a phone call from me to you, as opposed to information such as, an arrest occurred at 15th and Market. That information is still being explored. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Last question, Councilman. 154 RESOLUTION 970176

Yes, sure. Inspector, just real quick, though, the radio communications are recorded. INSPECTOR YANAK: That's correct.

Why wouldn't the computer -- INSPECTOR YANAK: The computer information is recorded. But when you start to send a lot of information, such as, "I'm going to lunch," they will let another go, know where you are going, it starts to take a lot of additional disc space and technology. But that is being reviewed at this time.

Thank you, Inspector. Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Councilman Kenney.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your understanding in allowing me to get in this last set of questions. Two, I guess for want of a better term -- because it has been used so much it is 155 RESOLUTION 970176 beginning to make people nauseous, is this quality of life moniker. Two areas that are extremely unsettling for people, one is death from auto. And I am saddened to say, it is sad to say -- and it is not a reflection on the officers or the command in the 9th District. And perhaps the 9th District has become the theft from auto capitol of the world. It seems that you could walk down any street at any given time in the 9th District, and many places in the 6th District, and see broken and shattered windows, people having their car's windows broken, theft from autos happening five, six, seven times a year, a major reason for people to decide when their lease in Center City is up, to maybe get an apartment in Radnor, as opposed to staying in Philadelphia. And the second one is a neighborhood issue that affects Kensington Avenue, Frankford Avenue, parts of the 15th District, 25th, 24th, parts of South philadelphia, street-walking prostitution. The citywide vice people and the district people, I think, do a wonderful job in 156 RESOLUTION 970176 trying to round up, corral, arrest, harass, do whatever has to be done to get these people off the street. But my understanding now is that, through the Internet, Philadelphia is becoming a famous place for street-walking prostitutes to come to from Washington, New York, Atlantic City, and other places because of the lax attitude of courts and other individuals in charge of enforcing this, not wanting to do anything about it. Another reason why people who live in those districts come to their door, see a plethora of prostitutes along Kensington Avenue and Frankford Avenue, and decide maybe it is better for us to go to Bucks County or New Jersey at this point in time. I know what your people are doing, but it seems we are swimming upstream or we are drowning in this morass, and that nothing is really getting resolved, even though you are making the arrests, you are doing what has to be done. How do we stop, how do we limit break-ins from autos at every neighborhood, but especially the 9th District, and what do we do about 157 RESOLUTION 970176 street-walking prostitutes? COMMISSIONER NEAL: I think that this goes back to the same issue that we were talking about earlier as it relates to the issue of the drugs. And the fact that we can demonstrate thousands and thousands of drug arrests, and yet the individuals are back on the street again. As recently as last week, I had a conversation with the lieutenant who is in charge of our citywide vice unit concerning Kensington and the fact that I had received some complaints that, apparently, prostitutes from out of town were frequenting that area. I sent the unit up there. They went up there. They made hundreds of arrests.

Hundreds of arrests. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Right, hundreds of arrests. And yet, many of these people, the same people, are back on the street again. And here again, that we have gone there and and we have arrested them over and over and over again. 158 RESOLUTION 970176

Isn't the true solution to street-walking prostitution, in addition to drug treatment and other types of thing -- because a lot of times these women are on the street for various reasons that are beyond some of their own control -- aren't the real offenders the johns? And aren't the real offenders the ones that need to pay the price by having their cars impounded? I will go back to the issue of liability, and where we put the cars, and all that other stuff. And from my own anecdotal information, half the people who solicit prostitutes on Broad Street are not from Philadelphia; they are from the counties and they are from New Jersey. You take that guy from Washington Township's car, and let him explain to his wife how he got home and why he has to go get his car from the impoundment lot, I think there may be a behavior modification effort, that he may not be back on that street again. How come we cannot take these cars off these men? 159 RESOLUTION 970176 COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, as we stated earlier when we were talking about the issue of confiscation --

Maybe it is not you that needs to answer it. Maybe it is the chief of staff or someone from the Administration that can tell us why we are so fearful of doing what's necessary to harass those individuals who are coming into our city to do bad things. I mean, we seem like we bend over backwards to ensure the rights of those guys and where their cars are going to be, as opposed, I'll take their cars and drag them into the river, if we necessarily do it. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Maybe the city solicitor should write an opinion on that.

Or someone. Is there someone from the Administration that can respond? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Right. Well, if you will, I think that, you know, here again, it is a case of the law. And the fact that the police department, certainly, we would support working with 160 RESOLUTION 970176 you in an effort to try and develop any kind of legislation that's going to help give us more tools in order to combat this problem. I agree that, apparently, it is not arresting these people over and over again, certainly does not appear to be the solution, although we are committed to doing that. But there has to be some other steps.

Let me end it by saying that we have the ability to do that now, if we had the will to do it. And we will pursue as to why we don't have the will to do it. So I appreciate your answer. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Thank you very much, Commissioner, and your staff. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We are not through yet. I have some questions for the Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Okay. But that lets you know you are nearly through. COMMISSIONER NEAL: I thought I was going to get off easy there and I was going to head out the door. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Just a few more, 161 RESOLUTION 970176 Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Go ahead, Councilman Ortiz. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Commissioner, in your statement you had incorporated it, but I think you skipped over, but just for the record, there has been talk about amending the Philadelphia Charter in order to give the Police Commissioner the management tools necessary to hold supervisors accountable for their work. And going on that line, I am just, in your statement, you speak about the autonomy and independence that has been given to the captains and inspectors. And given the current Charter and given the current circumstances, what happens to a captain, what are the goals that are given to him, if any at this point, and what happens if he doesn't meet those goals in terms of crime prevention, in terms of going ahead and bringing the quality of life to a better degree than he found it in his district? And I would like you to address the issue of the Charter change along those lines. 162 RESOLUTION 970176 COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, as was stated earlier, that we have been holding crime analysis meetings, whereby we bring in the respective commanders and sit down with them and discuss all of the issues of concern that are existing in their particular areas. We deal with the issues of crime; we deal with arrests; we deal with everything that is pertinent to the operation of that particular command. We ask the captain and we go over, is crime up, is crime down. If crime is up, why is it up, what is he doing about it. Is he aware where the problems exist, who is responsible or what is responsible for those problems. If we find that crime is down, and the captain has employed some unusual techniques in an effort to decrease crime, then we ask him about that. Because then we want to impart that to other captains so that this can be utilized in their commands. Ultimately, if in fact the captain is not doing a good job in his particular command, and all of these areas are not going in a positive way, 163 RESOLUTION 970176 then certainly we will remove the captain from that command. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: When you say remove him, you know, what happens? COMMISSIONER NEAL: I mean -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: That means you transfer him. You are not removing him; you are transferring him. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, we are removing him from that command. He is being transferred elsewhere. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: So he will be somebody else's problem? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, not necessarily. When you say someone else's problem, in what way? CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Well, if he is not accomplishing the goals and objectives in that command, what makes us think that he is going to be able to be a success in another area? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, maybe it is the case where the captain needs some retraining. And we might send him to Command Inspections Bureau, 164 RESOLUTION 970176 so that he can do retrained. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: What I'm trying to say here because you say in your statement that you presented that, given the current situation of the Charter, that you are inhibited from using your management skills and the other aspects to be able to institute the types of reforms that you need to do. If that is the case, you know, give me a rationale as to, how do you visualize a Charter change being of help to you in bringing about the reforms that we want to talk about in the department? In terms of the policy-making officers, from the captain, inspector level on up.

COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, one of the things that being able to identify who those individuals are going to be in a command position is that, one, it gives the Commissioner the ability to develop his own team, a team of people that certainly are going to be responsible to him, accountable to him, accountable to the department, in terms of ensuring that he goes into that command and that things work appropriately as it relates to that particular command. 165 RESOLUTION 970176 The fact that if, in fact, he doesn't do a good job, then certainly you would have the ability to, in essence, demote the person who had been assigned there. And by demoting that individual, it has a significant impact on him financially, you know, as far as his pension is concerned. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Demotion is very different from transferring, isn't it? COMMISSIONER NEAL: That's correct. Yes. And by developing or by having that ability, it also is a way of certainly making a person accountable to a greater extent. Because the person has a vested, a vested interest in ensuring that he or she is operating at the highest level of responsibility in that particular command. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Just to follow up on that, Commissioner, wouldn't that mean that if a Commissioner comes in, say, at the end of the year, the Mayor is unhappy with that Commissioner, or for some other reasons, since the Mayor under the Charter would have the absolute right to take 166 RESOLUTION 970176 action, that if a new Commissioner came in, that there would be the possibility of a total change of all the captains because the new Commissioner would feel that he or she wants to have his own team? I understand the purpose in that, you know, wanting to have your own team and holding them responsible, but I worry about the threat of total turnovers.

Mr. Chairman, certainly that is one of the many issues that would need to be addressed if you were to move forward with the proposal to modify the Charter, to increase the level of exempt employees in the police department. I said, excuse me, certainly that's one of the many issues that you would need to address if you were to consider modifying the city's Home Rule Charter, to increase the number of exempt positions in the police department. There is a host of other issues, legal, collective bargaining issues, that would need to be addressed. This is something that shouldn't be rushed into, although we are all supportive of it conceptually because of the dramatic successes in 167 RESOLUTION 970176 New York, where I think former Commissioner Bratton said that he had shifted 75 percent of his commanders the first year he was on the job. And he said that, he has said that, it was one of the most important management tools at his disposal. In our efforts to improve public safety in Philadelphia, I think we are all interested in any idea that would dramatically improve it. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Couldn't the Commissioner do it under his present powers now?

Well, the Commissioner can certainly speak for himself. But what I think the Commissioner is -- CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, I mean, under the powers that a Commissioner has. I didn't mean particularly Commissioner Neal.

Well, the palpable difference, as I understand it -- and it was included in Councilman Ortiz' materials -- is that in New York, Bratton wasn't transferring people; he was demoting them. He was demoting them from captain. 168 RESOLUTION 970176 And when people were demoted, they made a decision -- I'm not exactly sure how the pension works in New York City -- but people made a pension calculation, as I understand it. And they determined that it was better for them to go out as a captain, than to stick around as a lieutenant. So that was sort of the -- I think Thomas Hobb said, "Covenants without the sword are but words." And that was the sword in New York. CHAIRMAN COHEN: But, of course, the New York story has also another version to it. And that is that Bratton saw himself as the central person. And I'm not saying this is true or not. But I have been following the story in the New York Times. And it appears that Bratton lost his position as Commissioner because Mayor Guiliani found that Bratton was assuming certain policy functions that Mayor Guiliani thought belonged to the Mayor. And, therefore, Bratton was, in effect, dismissed by the Mayor. Now, it may indicate that Bratton saw himself as the center of everything, you know, and shifted everybody around, and tried even, 169 RESOLUTION 970176 practically, to shift the Mayor around, to pay no 3 attention to the police department. And we're just raising a lot of questions. The Police Commissioner is treated the same as every other Commissioner under the Home Rule Charter. He has two deputies. It may well be that some change ought to be made. But when we're told that 160 positions may be at stake, that's an altogether different matter from this vantage point. I would surely recommend that the Mayor and others give reconsideration to that figure, and work on it, to see what they really think is needed. You know, I think maybe the Commissioner does have to be strengthened in the police department, beyond what maybe other departments require because of the nature of the police work. But that's quite a shift.

Two points. Number one, who am I to dispute the New York Times? And, number two, we certainly recognize that the Charter issue, again, there are 170 RESOLUTION 970176 many facets to it. There are questions about how many people would actually be exempt, what would the impact be under the Collective Bargaining Agreement that the city has with the Fraternal Order of Police, et cetera, et cetera. So we view this as a preliminary, albeit a somewhat promising, proposal at this point. And we are happy to work with Council to bring it to fruition. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Is it true that the top police officials, maybe other than the Commissioner and the two deputies, are also members in the FOP? I mean, are they eligible to be? Because I have never known of a situation where management, you know, and the working staff are in the same organization. And I don't understand how that could be. COMMISSIONER NEAL: Everyone is a member of the FOP. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Everyone. COMMISSIONER NEAL: That's correct. CHAIRMAN COHEN: Well, I think that might be a matter that has to be dealt with, too. 171 RESOLUTION 970176 CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: You have a followup to this? Go ahead.

Just one comment to the record relative to the Civil Service discussion. And we haven't received a plan yet, so we really don't know what that plan is going to be. From a deputy commissioner's standpoint, I really find a lot of problem with having all the deputy commissioners exempt and able to be appointed and removed by the Commissioner, and maybe the rank of chief inspector. The issue of captain, however, I think is problematic in one particular area. My father spent years in the fire 16 department, and rose to the rank of deputy chief. 17 One of the things that was the most prideful about 18 that situation was his ability to take and pass 19 tests in competition with his peers, without any 20 belief that somehow favoritism was played, studying 21 the book, doing the flash cards. 22 This was a family project, almost, to 23 get from lieutenant, to captain, to chief. And it was something that we all took pride in as a family. 172 RESOLUTION 970176 I think if we begin to play with that, that somehow those lieutenants who are friendly with the Commissioner -- not this one, but anyone -- or friendly with the Mayor or friendly with a councilperson, and becomes a captain because of that, breaks down and damages the paramilitary tenor that the police department should have. And that's just one caution I would give you in that regard. And that was my only comment. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Councilwoman Fernandez.

Yes. As long as we are on this topic -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: It is on this topic?

Yes. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Okay. Go ahead.

I also have some concerns about this proposed 150 exempt positions. And I think I would request a couple of things. First, you look back to what some of the other Charter change proposals were before there 173 RESOLUTION 970176 was all the sort of crisis look at the police department. And I think we ought to seriously consider whether we deal with all of the departments, or just the police department. Because I think I was just reading the other day, there are 44 exempt positions out of the Managing Director's Office that are basically used to, in some ways, circumvent the literal word of the Charter now. So I think this is an issue not just for the police department, but in other departments. And I think we ought to take a very comprehensive and careful look at this. So I think the numbers should go perhaps somewhere between seven, with the police department. And I think that was based on proportionate to the number of employees in the department. Somewhere between seven and some other very reasonable and defensive number. I would also like to just say for the record, New York has had some dramatic improvement in the last four or five years, but let's not just jump to think that everything that works in New York 174 RESOLUTION 970176 works here. First, the state did give them the money for a thousand new officers. Second -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: 7,000.

7,000 new officers. That's even better. But it was the state gave the city the money for that. They, then, were on duty when Guiliani's Administration came in. They did have Bratton as a police commander. But, as you notice, he got removed for various political reasons. And, there are differences, demographically and geographically between New York and the City of Philadelphia. One case in point, large percentages of people in New York City use public transit. So when they cracked down on criminals and other people who were jumping the transit turnstiles, we wouldn't have probably the same dramatic results here, because not as many people are totally dependent on the public transit system. So I would just caution us not to use New York all of a sudden as the Holy Bible and the 175 RESOLUTION 970176 model for everyone across the country. But, particularly, this Charter change issue I think needs to be looked at very carefully. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I think the Mayor is looking at this in a very careful way. I think you pointed out the issues that are involved, from collective bargaining and the Civil Service situation. And I think Councilman Cohen brought up a good point, then, in whether the rank of management offices above captain is going to switch from Mayor to Mayor and Commissioner to Commissioner. So that that is something that we all have to begin looking at as we begin inching towards managerial reforms that will probably aid in the overall aspect of deployment and being able to carry out policy. The situation of accountability, if you give goals and objectives to captains, as is very key, and whether you can either demote or what is the process that takes place, but obviously transferring an incompetent supervisor from one 176 RESOLUTION 970176 district to another is not a solution. And I think it brings us back to the situation that we find ourselves in, in which we have a perception of people. Even though the statistics and the trend is going one way, we still have the perception in neighborhoods that we are in a very, very difficult criminal situation and atmosphere in the city. So I think we know that. But I just want us to be able to get this on the record, that everything is on the table in terms of reform. And I want to hear that from the Mayor's Office, the chief of staff, from the Commissioner. Is that right? Right, Commissioner and Greg?

Well, I certainly think that we are interested in any types of reforms that would improve the performance not only of the police department, but of any department in city government. So we look forward to working with you, Chairman Ortiz, and the other members of the 177 RESOLUTION 970176 Public Safety and Law and Government Committees, and any other members of Council that may wish to help us in that endeavor. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Councilman, a short question, because I have a couple of questions and then we have to let Commissioner Neal go. He has been here a long time.

I apologize if you have covered this territory. But I would like, in reference to redeployment, chief of staff, could you please comment on the possibility of merging the SEPTA Police, other police departments, School District Police, into the Philadelphia Police Department.

Again, this harks back to the New York experience. It is my understanding -- and there are probably others in the room that could speak better to this -- but it is my understanding that there are certain difficulties and problems legally and otherwise. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: There are jurisdictional questions involved.

Jurisdictional questions, 178 RESOLUTION 970176 that would obviate the potential of merging those two police forces into the Philadelphia Police Department. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: The powers do not reside within the Mayor's Office or this City Council at this point.

Thank you. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Councilman? Commissioner, just a couple of questions. And it goes to the aspect of deployment, the rate of crime and how you determine how you are going to deploy the different police numbers that we have through the divisions throughout the city. How does that come into play? Because we know that in the East Division, we have a higher degree of murders and crimes against people. And in other areas we have crimes against property. And how do we make the decision and the criteria where we put the best and the most along those lines? And how do you see that? COMMISSIONER NEAL: Well, we look at a number of things. In addition to the issue of crime, we 179 RESOLUTION 970176 have to look at the demographics of the community, in terms of what size the district is, what the size of population that may be in a particular district is, what is the amount of businesses and residences that make up that district. And not only with Part crime, but in also looking at Part crime, as well as call for services, and what is the demand for services in a particular area. And then, after analyzing all of that, make a decision in terms of how many people are going to be allocated to a particular district. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Commissioner, I am going to leave you, because this is the first hearing of many that we are going to have along these lines. I want to thank you for the support you gave us in terms of developing the statistics and the charts, and that we were able to put forward. I do understand that they were limited, and we finished at the '96 level. So I would appreciate, if you are able to, to send us the new statistics that are coming in that give us the 180 RESOLUTION 970176 trend in terms of the percent drop rate. And, Greg, if you and the Commissioner can do that, so that he can then better prepare for the hearing on the 21st of October. At that point we will be doing juveniles. And we will be dealing with the aspect of juvenile crime and the court system and the police department, and we will be trying to get the ideas that we need to see for ourselves to begin formulating certain policies. So, Commissioner, thank you very much for your presentation and thank you for being so kind. Mr. Dexter Green from the Philadelphia Housing Authority. We will not keep you as long, Mr. Green. You will be out of here very quickly. Please identify yourself for the record.

Yes. I'm Dexter Green. I am the Acting Chief of the Housing Authority of the Police Department. And I have to note that I am also the Chief Inspector in the Philadelphia Police 181 RESOLUTION 970176 Department, on loan to PHA. With me is John Giulo, who is in charge of our Drug Elimination grants. And so I brought him along for this discussion. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Continue, Mr. Green.

Okay. I have been asked to come here and talk a little bit about the PHA Police Department. And let me just start off by saying that the PHA Police Department has and will continue with the collaborations that we have been doing with both the local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, just to name a few. We have had some collaborations with DEA, ATF, Philadelphia Police Department, the District Attorney's Office, and the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. When I first came to the PHA Police Department, they had a number of issues on the table, a number of things they considered to be their priority. And I am not going to take up a lot of time, because I know there are other folks that 182 RESOLUTION 970176 want to testify. But among those were the street-- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I appreciate you staying, by the way, this length of time.

That's no problem at all. The drug sales on the corners, the outdoor drug sales, what I have heard earlier talking about quality of life. We're talking about improving livability in housing developments. And they talked about a safe environment as one of their major priorities. And what was impressive about the PHA Police Department, and continues to be impressive, is their whole, their beginning -- and as far as I am concerned, they are still in the beginning stages, even though they have been doing it for a couple of years now -- of community policing. And like other departments throughout the country, they have taken the position to do a pilot program in what we call the 11th Street Corridor of North Philadelphia, which consists of the Richard Allen, Harrison, Cambridge, and Fairhill, and Norris developments. 183 RESOLUTION 970176 And what they have really done is, taken an approach -- we know, and it has been said over and over again, so I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about it -- law enforcement alone is not going to solve the problems of these communities. Arresting people is not going to solve -- just arresting people is not going to solve the problems of some of these communities. And what we feel is that, what is good for the housing developments, if we are successful in some of the programs we put in place, it is good for the neighbors around these developments. So that has been the Authority's approach. And as part of that, with our Drug Elimination grants, we have -- and I am going to turn the mike over for a second to John Giulo -- we have been involved with a number of projects and programs because we want to approach, one of the things John is going to talk about is child development. We are interested in changing behavior, and that starts with dealing with young 184 RESOLUTION 970176 people. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: But how does a police department get into that?

John is going to explain that for you. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: You are security force in the development. And that's, you know, that's a totally new activity for a police department to do.

Absolutely. But I also think it is a very important one. Why don't you talk a little bit about it, John? JOHN GIULO: My name is John Giulo. I am the Executive Officer from the Philadelphia Housing Authority Police Department. What the chief is talking about is a program that was first implemented in New Haven, Connecticut. It is called the Community Policing/Child Development/Mental Health Partnership. And in New Haven, the New Haven Police Department partnered with Yale University Child Study Center in providing immediate counseling to children who have been victims of or witnesses to 185 RESOLUTION 970176 violence or violent acts. In Philadelphia, we are attempting to develop that program in a pilot situation at the Martin Luther King Plaza. And we have partnered, the Philadelphia Housing Authority Police have partnered, with Children's Hospital Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic in developing the same type of immediate counseling programs. Where a child who has been a victim or a witness to a violent act, the police officers on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis can call in a counselor to counsel that child, and then arrange for followup counseling sessions. In the New Haven study, they found that children who lived in areas with high violence also developed substance abuse problems, they became academic underachievers, and many other psychological problems that have been addressed through their program in New Haven. Philadelphia is one of at least five other cities that are replicating that program. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Do you have anything in writing along those lines that you can submit to 186 RESOLUTION 970176 the Committee?

We will give it to you. Yes, we will. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Okay. How many people do you have right now in the Philadelphia Housing Authority Police Department?

Approximately 250. That includes supervisors. In fact, that's all sworn personnel. Another, maybe, 30 or 40 nonsworn. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Are they deployed on foot or cars, bicycles, and so on, or do you have a mix of all of those?

We have a mix of all of that. We have bike details throughout the entire city; we have folks that are stationed on stationary beats, and then we also have motorized patrols. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: How do you police -- the Latino community, it doesn't actually live in developments, but lives in scattered sites in the barrio. How do the police, how do you, handle that detail? 187 RESOLUTION 970176

Well, a couple of things happen there. One of the things -- and I should say, and when I was doing the introduction here, a lot of what we have been doing has been with the Philadelphia Police Department. One of the things -- and I just met with Commissioner Neal in the earlier part of this month. One of the things that we are looking at -- and we are going to make a proposal, because we want to communicate better between the Philadelphia Police Department and PHA -- is developing a way for us to communicate calls at scattered sites with the Philadelphia Police Department. If a 911 one call comes in from a scattered site, sometimes we don't get that information. So we are trying to develop, using the city's computer system, a way of identifying those scattered sites. A lot of those scattered sites currently are being policed by the Philadelphia Police Department. But when we get those calls, in 188 RESOLUTION 970176 conjunction with them, we do respond, and we also do followup in some of those locations. If you have somebody who is selling drugs, for example, out of a scattered site, we will follow that through. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Do you have data in terms of drug arrests, in terms of drug hot spots within the Philadelphia Housing Authority jurisdiction? And, if you do, can you make that available to us?

We will also supply you with that. We will supply you with all of that. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Do you have data in terms of the arrests that are made in terms of drugs and different type of criminal activity that occurs?

Yes. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Do you divide it along the same way, in terms of property and crimes against people, like the police department does?

We have all that. We have it by Part 1, Part 2, by narcotic arrests. We break it down. 189 RESOLUTION 970176 CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Could you give us that data and make it available to us?

Sure. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: And then maybe we can begin speaking with you. Maybe we can set up a session in which we can get together with it and go over it. Because I want to make it part of whatever report would come out of here, and listen to whatever recommendations you have to make for us in terms of uniting the two forces. What do you think of that idea, of putting together the Giulianization of Philadelphia, as I call it? You know, we keep on trying to Giulianize Philadelphia. And sometimes that worries me very, very deeply.

Well, if I can respond. I just want to remind you that I am still the Chief Inspector of the Philadelphia Police Department. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I understand that. I have not forgotten that. And I want to be able to say that you are still on loan over there. We can take you away 190 RESOLUTION 970176 from them any time we want.

Let me respond this way: I think it is worthy of exploring. Just because it worked in New York doesn't mean it will work in Philadelphia. To me it is all about efficiency and how we deliver service to the people of Philadelphia, including people that live in PHA residences. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I would like to talk to you more in depth about that. But, definitely, that's something we are going to keep on exploring.

Okay.

Okay? Thank you. There are no other Councilmen here. You see, once the Commissioner left, everybody else loses importance, it seems. Right? Thank you, Chief. Richard Perez, please. Thank you for waiting, coming from New York. I really appreciate it. And I know you have a train to catch, but it is important. Since we have spoken so much about New York today, since we have spoken so much about New York, I thought it interesting that we bring 191 RESOLUTION 970176 some people from New York to be able to express community perceptions. And I know there are others, but we have invited a greater grouping of folks. And hopefully in the next hearings we will have some other persons from New York and Boston come down. But could you please identify yourself, for the record, and the individuals that are with you. RICHARD PEREZ: My name is Richie Perez. I am speaking here today in my capacity as National Coordinator for the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights. And in that organization I deal specifically with issues of police brutality and racially motivated violence across the country. Joining me here today are two families whose children and loved ones have been killed by police in New York City. Amilta Calderon, whose son Anibal Carrasquillo was shot by a New York City police officer. He was shot in the back. The police officer initially said that he had shot Anibal in the stomach. An autopsy 192 RESOLUTION 970176 showed that he was shot in the back. That officer was never punished for lying in his initial report, nor was he ever disciplined for shooting an unarmed young man in the back. And also -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Had he committed a crime?

No. He was unarmed. The police said he was acting suspiciously. And this is one of the issues that I want to speak on. This is something that we believe flows from the quality-of-life policing strategy, which targets young people. And even in its initial document, the Broken Windows Theory talked a lot about teenagers. The second person that's with me is Jose Martinez. His uncle, Jose Librado Sanchez, was cook in a restaurant in Queens during a quality-of-life raid on that restaurant. His uncle was shot to death as he exited from the kitchen, where he worked. He was shot to death by a police officer carrying out a quality-of-life raid, that the intention of that 193 RESOLUTION 970176 raid was to fine the restaurant owners for selling beer without a license. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: And they went in armed and --

They went in like a S.W.A.T. team for what would have been a misdemeanor arrest. Some person would have been out of jail that evening. And, in the process, his uncle was killed. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Mr. Martinez is the --

Nephew. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: And he was the cook?

Jose Librado Sanchez was the cook, 51 years old, large family, hard-working man, no record, veteran of the armed forces in his native Dominican Republic. Jose Martinez and his family have continued the struggle for justice in their uncle's death. And it is unfortunate that the police officers all left, because they need to hear this. The Giulinization of inner cities around the country 194 RESOLUTION 970176 is something that needs to be looked at extremely carefully. But first I want to thank you, Councilman Ortiz, for inviting us here, giving us this opportunity. And those of you that are still here, thank you for staying. I know you are probably waiting to speak yourselves. Let me start off by saying that the starting point that we approach this is from the fact that every society has to deal with social problems. But that the hallmark of a democracy is that while it addresses social problems, it is equally concerned with safeguarding civil and human rights. There was talk here about totalitarianism. Obviously there is a saying that Mussolini made the trains run on time, and there was no street crime in Nazi Germany. But our challenge as a Democratic country is how to figure out how to protect the foundation of democracy, while at the same time addressing the problems of crime. The New York City Police Department 195 RESOLUTION 970176 bases its current anti-crime strategy on a theory called The Broken Windows Theory, which was developed in 1982 by two criminologists. This article, The Broken Window Theory, promotes a style of policing that is based on attacking quality-of-life offenses. In 1994, under now Mayor Giuliani, police in New York began to enforce behavior that had not been considered criminal previously: Drinking in public, loud noise, panhandling, not having identification that a policeman determines is proper. The Broken Windows Theory holds that petty offenses like these create an atmosphere of disorder that leads to more serious offenses. And, Councilman, I gave you a copy of the original article. I think it would be informative for people to read it. Because in the original theory -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We will place it in the record.

In the original theory it talks about -- and I just want to highlight a couple of points, because I think they are important for 196 RESOLUTION 970176 us. It talks about, people fear not only being attacked physically, but they fear being bothered by, quote, disorderly people. And these -- the term disorderly, and the authors of the article made a point of saying that these were not necessarily violent people and that they were not necessarily criminals, but they were disreputable or disorderly. Those kinds of terms leave a lot to be determined, leave a lot to the discretion of police officers, as to what kind of person is that. In the article, in the original article upon which this policing theory is developed, they talked specifically about panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, people who loiter, and the mentally disabled. Youth was identified as a particular source of public fear; young people alone, or in groups where they gather to drink and play music, quote, despite the fact that not a single crime has occurred there. If we fear our young people, despite 197 RESOLUTION 970176 the fact that they are not doing anything wrong, we have a very serious problem. If we as a society fear them and we empower police officers to operate on that fear, that's a serious problem. The authors of the article noted two problems that they saw. They said that in the 1960s and '70s, protest movements had imposed legal restrictions on how police could deal with suspects, and that this was hurting the police's ability to maintain public order. At the same time, they said that if police officers were allowed -- and they cited a number of cases where police officers were allowed -- to do whatever was necessary to, quote, maintain public order, and they said some of the things done by police to maintain order probably would not withstand a legal challenge. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Richard Perez, what do you say to -- because I had a conversation with a New York Congressman. I don't want to identify him. And he said to me, "You know, in the district, the people in my district, Puerto Ricans, 198 RESOLUTION 970176 are going to vote for Giuliani. And, he said, because the little old lady, dona chencha, before could not open her window or go to the grocery store. And now within that neighborhood, given that situation, that old lady feels that she can walk to the grocery store and come back without being harassed by the drug dealer on the corner or the other individuals that are selling drugs, or whatever it is that they were doing before, and being inopportune. And that was an elected official saying to me, "I don't agree with the guy, the Mayor. But every time I go to a community meeting," which is what happens to a lot of us here, "the key situation is, these things are happening. What are you going to do to prevent these things from happening?" Now, he says, "He is going to get reelected. And our people, the people that you are talking about, are going to vote for him." So, you know, give me a perception.

First of all, it is a good thing that dona can make it to the store in safety. It is a good thing. 199 RESOLUTION 970176 But all of the elected officials and public figures need to understand that it was not simply police activity that led to the drop in violent crime in New York City. Because many of us have been fighting for five, ten years. And these are some of the other factors that I think need to be considered. Number one is that the crime rate began going down in New York City during the last two years of the Dinkins Administration. And many observers say it had to do with a large number of new police that hit the streets. Second, there has been a demographic shift in New York, where the age group that is considered most crime prone, the 15-to-24-year-old age group, has declined. Number three, there has been a decline of crack as the drug of choice. And crack is a very violent drug. The drug that is replacing it is heroin in New York City. Heroin users are not as violent as crack users. It changes the type of crime that we deal with. Number three -- and we believe this 200 RESOLUTION 970176 is the most important -- there have been thousands and literally thousands of church-initiated, community-initiated Stop The Violence activities in New York City; including the closing down of crack houses, including physical confrontations with drug dealers. And one of the most important aspects of this community-based work has been the gang truce that has stopped open warfare, at least among Latino gangs in New York City. And we worked on that for two years. And the truce has held for two years. All of those are factors that reduce crime. They are not factors that are generated from within the police department. Now, the police department must take some of the credit, but it cannot take all of the credit. Let me say some of the things that have occurred in New York City. Police brutality complaints, which are just the tip of the iceberg, have gone up from 3,596 in 1993, 4,877 in 1994, 5,618 in 1995, 5,596 in 1996. In 1995, with the NYPD's Quality Of 201 RESOLUTION 970176 Life Arrest Program in full swing, all of the following categories of complaints increased: Guns fired by police, up percent; guns pointed, up 36 5 percent; use of pepper spray, up 254 percent; 6 improper searches of persons, up 9 percent; 7 unjustified threat of arrest, up 56 percent. 8 During Giuliani's first year in 9 office, juvenile arrests in New York City jumped to 10 98,553, an increase of more than 22,000 over 1994. 11 According to News Day, four of five 12 arrests in Giuliani's first year were for nonviolent 13 offenses, such as disorderly conduct and drug 14 possession, and half were for violations so minor 15 that they did not require fingerprints, just a 16 summons. 17 Arrests of youth for disorderly 18 conduct jumped from 4,516 in 1993, to 7,579 in 19 1994. 20 If you put together any two 21 teenagers, when they are talking to each other is disorderly conduct. Young people are being victimized and criminalized not for criminal activity, but for being young and looking a certain way. 202 RESOLUTION 970176 The New York City Police Department's quality-of-life sweeps are jailing an average of 280 young people a day for activities like playing loud music, not having proper identification -- and every police officer has the discretion to determine what is proper identification, although there is no law that says you have to have any identification in the United States -- loitering and drinking beer in the streets. This arrest policy coincides with deep cuts in youth programs. With declines in funding, and roughly 1 in youths in New York City arrested annually, 14 youths age 13 to 20 have a greater chance of getting arrested than they do of getting a job after school or having a community youth program to go to. The point -- and there are some other statistics, but they are included in the testimony.

The point that I want to make here is that our communities, more than any others, want to see efficient crime fighting. We are the victims of crime. We are the primary victims of crime. However, we can't be asked to sacrifice our civil and human rights in the name of fighting crime and be told that's the only way. 203 RESOLUTION 970176 I don't think that suburban communities would agree that in order to fight crime, we are going to set up road blocks, and we are going to stop and search every car, without probable cause, pull in every kid who doesn't have identification, and arrest everyone we find drinking a beer in the street. Because I would say that if that was the law, many of the people who were in this room 11 today would be in jail for drinking a beer in the street. And people are being arrested in New York in the hundreds for those kinds of things. Inevitably, the violation of civil rights being experienced daily by young men of color, primarily, will also be felt in the larger community. A number of recent articles in the New York Times reflect a growing number of middle-class whites who are having their rights violated. And I have included some of these in the packet. And now we are talking about what the money price of this is. From 1994 to 1996, New York City 204 RESOLUTION 970176 received 8,316 court claims of abuse by police officers. That was up from 6,000 for the three previous years. From 1994 to 1996 the city paid out $70 million as settlements for judgments for these cases. So we paid -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: The city paid out $70 million because of police --

Police abuse. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: -- police abuse.

And in the New York Times today, on the front page there is an article exactly about this issue. And one of the things it says is that, although the city pays out this money, because they are arresting so many people -- we are talking about street sweeps, where an entire area is blocked off. And the police justification is, if you're inside a drug-prone area, we can do this. We can block the area off and sweep everyone in. And then you have to prove you're innocent in order to be released. And if it happens that you were 205 RESOLUTION 970176 leaving your house to buy a container of milk, as it happened with my compadre, and you don't have identification with you, you are held overnight until somebody can be brought to verify that. Now, those kinds of policies and practices -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Are these the tactics that are being used in New York today?

Absolutely. This is the Quality of Life Program. Street sweeps, the cordoning off of entire areas. And, by the way, drug-prone area is a description that describes all of our communities. So now if you live in a community that is plagued by drugs, you have a second plague now. You have the worry that because you live in that community, the police will target you as a potential drug dealer. The head of the Latino Offices Association in New York City made a comment on this. And he said, "This policing strategy can be an effective tool when used with tolerance and common sense. But some officers use the new powers disproportionately against minority youths." We are 206 RESOLUTION 970176 seeing that over and over. It has reached the point in New York where we get so many complaints -- and we work very closely with the Center for Constitutional Rights -- that we get so many complaints for illegal stops and searches, that lawyers will no longer even argue the cases unless there has been serious physical injury. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Well, I understand what you're saying. And as part of the organization that you belong to, explain to me the popularity within those neighborhoods of the mayor.

Sure. Well, first of all, let me say that on the issue of police abuse -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Is it that people want that in those neighborhoods?

What people want -- and let's be clear that politicians have been able to sell bad social policy before through the use of good spin doctors and good media. And the concept of a Teflon politician that is sometimes used to describe the President is very often used to describe the Mayor of New York City. 207 RESOLUTION 970176 But let me say this: That in the most recent public opinion poll -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Because you sat here through the hearing.

Yes. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: And you heard the testimony glowingly -- I mean everybody speaks glowingly -- about New York.

Because the flip side, because the underside, of these policies have not been discussed nationally. And it is only now that we are even beginning to break into national media. We had a rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend, where we brought a number of families from New York whose children have been killed, whose loved ones have been killed, whose families have been beaten by police. And for the first time we got national attention to this issue. That's the flip side of this policy. That's this policy gone bad. And let me just read this statement. Because one of the authors of The Broken Window Theory -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Can the policy be 208 RESOLUTION 970176 done in a correct manner?

Well, that's the issue. That's the issue. Because we have no problem with computerized targeting of crime. And we have no 7 problem with tough enforcement of crime. But there is a difference between tough enforcement of crime and wholesale violation and suspension of civil rights. And that is one of the challenges for all leaders. And it has been raised here a number of times. If we don't want to move in the direction of totalitarianism, then we have to pay a lot of attention and not just disregard these as like civil liberty, you know, quacks. These are our young people. We are being asked -- I have an 18-year-old son. We are being asked to abandon one kind of fear for another kind of fear. So now I no longer have to worry that the main thing that could happen to my son when he goes out is that he will be caught in a cross-fire between drug gangs, because that's less of a problem 209 RESOLUTION 970176 in New York now, and that's wonderful. Now I have to worry that he will be caught by policemen who see a young man and a woman of color, with their baggy pants and their hat on sideways. And the first thing they will see is a potential perpetrator, go over to him and say, "Let me see your identification, and what are you doing here." CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I was watching CNBC the other day. Phillipe Luciano was on with Charles Groden from Crown Heights, and he was interviewing three African-American young men. And at one point Phillipe asked them, he said, "When you see a police car coming, what is it that you do?" And the three individuals, they all did the same thing. First they took their pockets, pants pockets, they took them and turned them inside out, and they raised their shirts, like that. I don't understand that.

It is that routine. That's how routine it has become in New York City. It is that routine. 210 RESOLUTION 970176 And we have a -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: That's for searching. So that they are telling the cops, "We don't have anything."

So that if they empty their pockets, show they have nothing, they have no 8 gun, they have nothing in their pockets. Because routinely the police will come out, go over to you and start patting you down. So that's to stop them from doing that. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: That's really powerful, a black kid in Crown Heights and a kid in 110th and Lexington will do the same things.

Yes. Well, let me tell you this: There is a racial factor in how this law is applied. Because white kids in the city are not rousted the same way. They are not arrested at the same rate, they are not stopped at the same rate, and they are not harassed by the police at the same rate. So there is a racial factor that plays in here, and we can't ignore that. One of the authors of The Broken 211 RESOLUTION 970176 Windows Theory recently was disturbed by what's happening, especially in New York City. His name is George Kelling, and he is a Rutgers University professor. He helped Bratton implement the theory in New York. And this is what he said -- and I included this article in the packet that I gave you -- "There is an enormous potential for abuse," he says. "He criticizes departments that encourage cops to demand IDs from residents or conduct neighborhood drug sweeps, indiscriminately stopping and frisking people, too often involving excessive force." This is The Broken Windows Theory taken over the other side. But this is the main danger. Because what we're saying is that there is inadequate training, there is inadequate supervision, that many of the police officers in New York City, at least, that are patrolling innercity communities come from segregated communities on the fringes of the city, in the suburbs, who don't understand the culture of the people, who bring with them the fears and the racial anxieties of the 212 RESOLUTION 970176 larger society, and view people of color as potential perpetrators before they view them as human beings. So that this approach -- because The Broken Window Theory, one of the principles was, it can't work unless you have community policing along with it. Unless you have a collaborative relationship between the police department and the community, you can't do this targeted computerized targeting. Because every act of police abuse undermines the community's ability to collaborate with that police department. So that the 90,000 juvenile arrests, four-fifths of which probably should not have occurred -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Is the community not integrated in terms of the community policing?

There is no community policing in New York; that policy was abandoned. That policy was abandoned. The money is not for community policing; the money is for quality-of-life street sweeps. 213 RESOLUTION 970176 And officers receive promotions based on the number of arrests they make, not based on the number of crimes they prevent, because that is one of the principles of the -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: So you heard that we have Town Watch programs.

Forget the Town Watch. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: So those Town Watch programs are not integrated into the overall aspect?

Forget Town Watch programs. No. No. 15 CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We are going to have Commissioner Bratton on the 21st.

Well, you know, I was hoping that Commissioner Safir would be here today. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: No. He is concerned with what is happening with a Haitian person.

I know. I may get a chance to speak on that. But let me say this finally, because your question is why do people support this. The streets are safer, but there are a number of reasons 214 RESOLUTION 970176 why they are safer. Many of the people who comment and study this will also tell you that in New York City, one of the reasons why drug violence has stopped is because it is already shaken out, there are no 7 longer competing drug gangs. The gangs that are the drug gangs now control their areas, and they have moved inside. They are not fighting for corners anymore. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: And the drug is different, you said.

And the drug is different, but the drugs are still there. Because the phenomena is that we are arresting street-level users; we are not arresting the distributors and the dealers. But there are a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration. Because the danger in the application of this theory in New York City is that everything is seen as a police action solution. We would say that, as important as a police action, are the strengthening of all of the factors that I said, the gang truce, the community 215 RESOLUTION 970176 initiatives against drugs, the church-based initiatives against drugs. All of those are extremely important. You can't say that you are going to fight violence and crime and cut funding for after-school programs. In New York City, they have been practically eliminated. You can't eliminate all of the programs where the kids are supposed to go. And then, when they are sitting on the corner, arrest them and harass them because they are sitting on the corner. Where are they supposed to go? They have no place to go. And that's the dilemma that people are facing. So in New York City parents -- and you can speak to any parents of teenagers in New York City -- they worry about the police and their children. That is the worry that has replaced other worries. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: My daughter lives in Manhattan, and she worries. She is an actress. You know her. She has told me she worries about the police. 216 RESOLUTION 970176

Okay. So let me just -- well, for the sake of time, let me just say, I attached to my presentation some recommendations for changes. Because the balance between fighting crime and protecting civil and human rights is a fine balance. And it is a challenge all the time to figure out how best to address that. And we attached some recommendations for things that could be done both at the local level, at the state level, and at the federal level. So I'm not going to speak too much about that. Perhaps I could just let you ask me some questions. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Do you have anything to say? I think my thing -- and I think I have asked you the questions as you went along -- is the issue that worries me about this whole thing. That's why I call it Giulianization. And it worries me because it comes from a perspective of law enforcement, without taking into consideration the actual social aspects 217 RESOLUTION 970176 that go into creating criminal activity, in a sense. And that, on that quality of life, as we come to be seen as poor people because they have no other alternative and they're out there. And if a person that is a cook in a restaurant is not safe, that worries me. But it also worries me -- and I think Councilwoman Verna and the other folks -- we went through that, and we paid a lot of money in terms of the city budget. And if you heard anything about the City of Philadelphia's debt, we don't have $70 million to be able to pay because of police mistakes. We don't even have a couple of million dollars to be able to pay. But we are paying already. So I appreciate you coming down. I really will keep you abreast of what we're doing. I wish more of the folks from the police department, and even the media, would have stayed to hear. Because they would have heard another message about the same system. And, hopefully, in the next hearing 218 RESOLUTION 970176 we'll have a couple of the Democratic mayoral candidates here from New York City, because they want to carry the message. And one of them, Sal Alborese, an Italian-American from Brooklyn -- who I have become friends with over the phone, and we share many of the same political philosophies as such -- said to me that he was going to come down, but the primary in New York just ended, so he is like decompressing, but that he will make it on the 21st. Because we want to hear about what are the different viewpoints from all of these cities. And we are bringing some people from Boston, so that we can hear that. Because I think if change is going to happen, it is going to have to be pushed from this body. If we are going to get some change, and we are going to get the right change, it is going to have to be done by us in City Council. So I appreciate it, Richie and the young lady and the man, for your coming down. And we have been through that here in Philadelphia in the '70s, and we don't want it to come back again. But we want to be able to get rid 219 RESOLUTION 970176 of the street-corner drugs. And the next people that are coming on, Sister Carol and Miriam and Will Gonzalez and other folks, can speak to that sort of thing. So if you could stay, I would appreciate it. ) CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Miriam. Charles, Will, Miriam, Sister Carol, why don't you all come up at the same time. And, Charles, come up. Will. And Gregory Allen, Joe White. Why don't you come up. Okay. Charles, you can begin, and then, followed by Will, then we can go down the line. I just want to give everybody a sense that we're reaching the end. CHARLES P. : Good evening, Councilman Ortiz, Councilwoman Verna. When I was asked to come here and speak, I wasn't sure exactly what you wanted from me, in terms of what it is that I do. I'm the Executive Director of the Police Advisory Commission. And the impression I 220 RESOLUTION 970176 got was that you might want from me, or anyone else who spoke here, some ideas on how to approach the drug problem in Philadelphia.

And so I won't talk to you about the Police Advisory Commission, unless you want me to. And I can come back on the 21st, if you want. I mean, I have all kinds of statistics prepared. But I got the impression that you wanted something else from me today. And so let me read my statement, and hope that it is what you wanted. And, please, if you want me to come back on the 21st and talk about the Police Advisory Commission in general, and civilian review, I surely will.

Thank you.

I am sure that Mr. Gonzalez is going to do that. The mission of the Police Advisory Commission is to improve the relationship between the police department and the community. Our tasks, that is, the Police Advisory Commission's task, is to find ways to significantly reduce civilian complaints against police. 221 RESOLUTION 970176 Your focus here today is, what can be done about the drug plague in this city, which seems to overwhelm efforts to bring it under control. And I stole that right from your brochure. I have read your eleven-point approach in your resolution, and heartily applaud it. Your suggestion that more undercover agents be hired to make drug buys, leading to better evidence and more convictions, is certainly not without merit, and as is your suggestion that more uniformed police officers be detailed in and around drug hot spots. It is on this first approach of yours that I would like to focus attention and suggest one remedy which perhaps dovetails your concern and ours at the Police Advisory Commission. Let me preface my comments by assuring you that despite my quarter-century service as an FBI agent, I am by no means an expert in that area. Rather, these are observations I have made over the years through contact with the 222 RESOLUTION 970176 Philadelphia Police Department, both as an FBI agent and now as Executive Director of PAC. Most of us know the stress our police officers are under serving us in the violent world of police work these days. Let's call it external stress. I would like to focus on one aspect of internal problems within the police department which causes what I call internal stress on police officers, and which I am convinced causes frustrations resulting in civilian complaints and, yes, their ability to concentrate on the serious crimes, among them the drug problem. It is called activity. Activity can be loosely defined as the number of car stops, pedestrian stops, traffic citations, curfew violations, Part and Part arrests, et cetera, that a police officer accumulates during the course of his or her tour of duty. As explained in the Police Academy many years ago, the purpose of a car stop or a ped stop was for information gathering. In layman's terms, officers were to 223 RESOLUTION 970176 stop suspicious cars and individuals in their individual sectors, record that information on an incident report called 75-48, and turn those stops into the district when they report off. This information was then sent to the various detective bureaus for evaluation. If a crime was committed in a particular sector, the detective in charge would review the car and ped stops reported in that sector, in the sector where it had taken place, and in and around the time of the crime. The detective would then investigate those individuals listed in the 75-48 for possible suspects to the crime. That was, and still may be, the purpose of activity today. Activity in the Philadelphia Police Department has lost its original purpose, or somehow been overshadowed by the old numbers game. Our entire society is based on numbers. Production workers are measured on the number of widgets the produce every shift. Lawyers are measured by the number of cases they win. Salesmen are measured by the number of sales order they bring into the companies. Sports teams are 224 RESOLUTION 970176 certainly measured by the number of games they win. So, too, are police officers measured by the amount of activity they submit. There are districts in the Philadelphia Police Department who have set up point systems to evaluate and reward officers who submit the most activity in a measuring period. There is a negative side to the point system. Police officers who have the lowest points scored for the period are subjected to unwanted details in and out of the district.

If an officer does not agree with the point system philosophy, he or she is labeled as not being a team player, and often finds his or her assignment changed, transferred, harassed, and a victim of peer pressure often encouraged by supervisors. The numbers game is played out at every level of the police department. And, as evidenced in a recent Daily News article, has its origin at the very top. In that article, the Police Commissioner identified the new shift changes as a major factor in the numbers being up. 225 RESOLUTION 970176 Commissioner Neal is quoted as saying, "Our numbers have increased, arrests, tickets, car stops, ped stops are up, and that's across all shifts," is what he said. Nowhere in the article does the Commissioner identify the word quality car or ped stop. There is a significant difference between a car stop and a quality car stop, if I may use an analogy. One police officer stops a caravan of out-of-state nuns driving from their hotel to the 14 Cathedral, and tickets the last nun in the caravan 15 who drove through a red light trying to keep up with the other 14 nuns. At the end of his shift or her shift, 15 car stops and 1 traffic ticket is turned in, and that officer looks very productive. A second officer stops two cars, both of which fit the description of a vehicle involved in an armed robbery. Some time later the detective bureau investigates both of these car stops, and one leads to an arrest. But at the end of that officer's 226 RESOLUTION 970176 shift, he or she has only two car stops to turn in. Quantity versus quality. One of the other factors to consider in a numbers game, officers who write activity, whether quality or just for numbers sake, require backup on their investigation, a necessary evil. While the investigating officer is churning out activity, his backup is not. The police department will argue that this procedure will even itself out if both cars are active. When two cars are out of service during vehicle and pedestrian investigations, a third car must cover three sectors for radio calls. This could and often does affect response time to emergency calls. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Mr. Kluge, it reminds me, because in the East Division -- and Councilwoman Verna just showed me a chart of her district --

A very small area. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: -- in a very small area in the East Division --

Locations. 227 RESOLUTION 970176 CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: -- 40 percent -- and that's where the barrio is at -- over 40 percent of all the drug arrests in 1996 were done in the 25th and 26th District, and parts of the 24th. And I asked the Commissioner, and I didn't get a good answer. I asked the Commissioner, that's a heck of a lot of arrests. Right? However, it had no impact at all because it didn't change from day-to-day. The drug activity did not go down; it actually stayed the same or went up. So all of the arrests that were being done -- you know, you talk about quality stops and quantity stops, and I think that can also go for drug arrests. Because they are kind of easy to make. I mean, you go to 4th and Cambria, and you stop five people, and probably two of them may have a couple of bags in their pocket, you know, but it is a couple of bags. This is not a big, big guy in terms of drug dealer. Probably a kid, whatever it is. But it goes down as a drug arrest. It is not a quality arrest that 228 RESOLUTION 970176 impacts on the traffic and so on, but it is an arrest. And the policeman can say, "Well, I arrested two drug dealers today."

That's basically where I am going with this thing. Because the numbers game that's created by the police department on the street officer is causing him to make more stops. I mean, I think that's how the Police Advisory Commission and how Will's group gets so involved, as we do. They're going out and they are making stops. They are stopping people for no reason, because it is a numbers game. They have to produce numbers to look good. And there is a level of frustration with that. And that frustration is coming out on the street, and it is being taken out on the people. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I think that is the level of frustration that is being shown by City Council, in terms of the changes and so on that are being asked about. Because I think that's what we're talking about. 229 RESOLUTION 970176 If you have all of these corners, but you're not able to intercept the people who are supplying those corners --

I guess where I'm going with this is to try to explain that, if you don't reward or punish police officers by numbers, they might do quality investigation for you, the kind of investigation that you are going to want to combat the drug problem in Philadelphia. They're not busy and frustrated by doing all these nonsense things that it takes for their report card. Don't measure them by that; measure them on the quality of what it is they are doing, and maybe this impetus will make them be a little bit more -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Well, that's what we are trying to get out of these hearings. It is like the DEA and the FBI and the Commissioner and the U.S. Attorney have come before this Council and have told us that in the East Division are 70 percent of all drugs that are distributed across the city. So the drugs that are going into the 230 RESOLUTION 970176 corners that Councilwoman Verna is talking about are coming from the East Division, the distribution center. And we're not able to go after that. I mean, we haven't made an impact. That was told to us two years ago. It was told to us again a few months ago. And I don't think it has changed. So what I'm saying is, again, the numbers game is something that I am very concerned about, and it is something that we will pursue in terms of the following hearings. Continue. Yes. Can you summarize it so that we can get the other folks, too?

Yes. As a matter of fact, I will go as quickly as I can. Our experience at the Police Advisory Commission is that far too many insignificant or even unnecessary car and pedestrian stops are being made. And when the civilian questions the stop, the incident escalates into a verbal or physical confrontation, resulting in a complaint against police being filed. 231 RESOLUTION 970176 Do we fix blame on the uniformed officer or on the system that rewards the officer for the numbers; that is, the activity? I will conclude this as soon as I can. In fact, what I can do is, I will get this typed up, and you all can read it later. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Remember, Charles, this is not the end of these hearings.

Okay. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Okay? So that we will come back.

All right. And I guess the other thing that I just wanted to add is that, in conclusion, there is no greater source of knowledge into the internal workings of any organization than the employees themselves. Maybe some consideration could be given to conducting a poll of sorts among the rank and file for ideas on how to fight the drug problem -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Thank you.

-- if they are not pressured by these statistics. And, by the way, I would like to talk 232 RESOLUTION 970176 to all of you about the Police Advisory Commission and what it is that we do, and civilian review. I just didn't think you wanted it tonight. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We know. We have been involved. Remember, we overrode the Mayor, the Mayor's veto, on the civilian review board. So all of us are very well acquainted with the civilian review board.

I have to confess, I do not make myself visible enough, and I promise to. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Councilwoman Verna.

I'm just rather curious. Have civilian complaints increased or decreased in the last year?

They decreased. My office is showing a decrease this year, but I blame myself for that. We simply were not doing enough outreach. When the Commission first started, we did a lot of outreach; that is, to tell people who we are, what we do, where we are. And we slacked off, and that's my fault. And I have just developed a whole new 233 RESOLUTION 970176 plan that I am working on now, and already the complaints are beginning to increase again. It is out there. I mean, it increases at the police department, so it should in my shop. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: What's the number that you have right now?

As of August 29, we were three years in business, if you will. And at that point we had 350 complaints received. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: And do you have this distributed by areas?

Yes. I can tell you -- when you want it from me -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: You don't have to tell me now.

I can tell you the type of person that filed the complaint, the type of complaint it was. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: If you can write that up and submit it to us.

What district it came out of. I can do all of this. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: If you can write it 234 RESOLUTION 970176 up and submit it to the Committee, I would appreciate it. I will make sure that it gets distributed to the Council people.

Are you surprised that, with my limited budget, I have a computer? I wish Councilman Nutter was here. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I think he heard you. He is probably in the office.

Well, I am honored to appear before you. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Thank you for staying.

Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Will, and then we will have the street fighters, as I call them all, coming in, Miriam and Sister Carol and all the other folks. WILL GONZALEZ: Thank you for inviting me today. My name is Will Gonzalez. I am the Executive Director of the Police-Barrio Relations Project. The Barrio Project is a community-based, civil rights organization that is trying to improve relations between the Latino 235 RESOLUTION 970176 community and the police by addressing the issues of police misconduct and the delivery of public safety services to the barrio. We believe that no comprehensive effort against the problems of drugs and violence in our communities can succeed without suring up the mechanisms that promote good relations between citizens and the police, and which also address police misconduct and corruption. The need to improve relations between the police and the Latino community is critical. In the barrio, relations between the cop on the beat and the man in the street are ruled by mutual fear, mistrust, and lack of understanding. Police misconduct, we believe, is one of the root causes of that distrust. The evil effects of police misconduct transcend the civil rights violations of its direct victims. The trust and security of all communities is affected by each act of misconduct. If the community is afraid of the police, then to who does it turn to address its public safety concerns? If the police cannot rely on citizens to help them, then how can they deter 236 RESOLUTION 970176 and stop crime? A lot of discussions have taken place over the last few months about the New York City policing model. That model, in terms of deployment of officers, its focus on quality-of-life crimes, and its improved accountability of police to their commanders is worthy of Philadelphia to emulate. In looking to New York City, however, we caution you to avoid the turning of a blind eye to issues of police misconduct that took place in New York. The most evident manifestation of that deliberate blindness was Mayor Giuliani's evisceration of the New York City Civilian Review Board. Civilian review board, for those of you who were not following, he basically came in and fired a number of people, got rid of a number of investigators, and basically slashed their budget, rendering them inoperable. Civilian review boards are integral to addressing issues of police accountability. In this era, police departments professing to develop closer working relations with citizens, review 237 RESOLUTION 970176 boards are the epitome of community policing. Review boards bring citizens and police together to work together on the issues that most affect the trust between them, allegations of misconduct. Review boards also serve as a vehicle for the department to hear of complaints that otherwise they might not have received. It should be easy to understand why a victim of police misconduct will be less hesitant to present a complaint to a review board than to a division of the police department. Philadelphia, therefore, should not only preserve its Police Advisory Commission, but strengthen it with the resources and the personnel to do its work. This will put Philadelphia's reforms, when they take place, ahead of New York City's. Yesterday New York sought to address this deficiency in their policy. They announced that there will be a 28 percent increase in funding for the review board -- that is, $1.5 million -- and a 20 percent increase in the staff, new people. 25 I just hope that Philadelphia can be 238 RESOLUTION 970176 ahead of the curve, rather than behind the curve. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: That was because of the incident?

Exactly. And we don't want to have Philadelphia reacting. Because I believe that Mr. ^ Luiema, in this litigious society, will collect more than $1.5 million. So if the city had spent that money ahead of time, they might have prevented the Luiema situation. It is a matter of paying up front and preventing, or paying double or triple at the back end. Civilian review boards, however, do not obviate the need for the police to continue to have their own internal accountability division. We need as many tools as possible to address all situations that can harm the relationship between the community and the police. So we also emphasize the need to strengthen the Internal Affairs Division of the police department. The police department needs to make IAD a bastion of trust and respect for the community 239 RESOLUTION 970176 and its police officers. That cannot take place, however, until IAD is provided with the personnel, facilities, and tools to do its work. And I am pretty sure, as Councilpeople, you have had the opportunity to go to IAD offices. But go again and see. They are working out of a facility that is antiquated, that at my understanding at one time was submitted to be condemned. They don't have enough equipment, they don't have enough personnel. And these are the very people that you are asking to investigate those officers who violate their trust. I'm not saying that every officer does. There are very great, good, wonderful officers who are working very hard under very trying conditions. But in a situation where I am talking about millions of dollars going through in the distribution of drugs, there are some officers for whom the temptation is just too much. And you are asking a division that is 240 RESOLUTION 970176 underequipped, understaffed to try to investigate these situations. Please, for the integrity of the police department, for citizens, we need you to make sure that that unit is given the tools to do its work. Responsibility to improve relations between the community and the police does not rest solely with the department. Citizens also need to increase our efforts to improve that relationship. However, for the Spanish-speaking community, certain organizational improvements need to take place in the department to help us better work with the police, to build a bridge over the barriers of a language and culture that sometimes separates us. One improvement is to increase the department's ability to communicate in Spanish. Currently, the department does not have a professional Spanish language interpreter. It relies on volunteers from within and outside the department to interpret for them. We would like to see the department retain its own Spanish interpreter, or interpreters, 241 RESOLUTION 970176 to help with its investigations. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: And if they are in South Philly, Cambodian.

Yes. And in the Northeast, Russian. I mean, look, you need every tool possible to carry out a job. And I know that people are focusing on computers and high-tech equipment, but the human element is as important. For example, I mean, the Martinez case, a family saw their father, husband killed by a robber. That person, that robber, came back to the store a month after the incident. They called the police, the police come, have this person in custody, and they let him go because they did not speak Spanish. And the store, the people in the store, were trying to tell the police why they had called and what was going on, and they let this person go. It took the police another two and a half years to finally get this person again. And, so, that shows how important it is to have the language skills, especially for Spanish. We are the largest language minority group 242 RESOLUTION 970176 in the city. To give you another incident -- this was relayed to me by one of the officers from SALEA, Spanish American Law Enforcement Association. They were doing a drug raid, and they had come upon this location where they had good intelligence that this was a place where drugs were being stashed. But they looked everyplace, and they couldn't find it, and they couldn't find it, and they couldn't find it. And one of the people who was being detained in the room said to the other in Spanish, "Wow, I'm glad they haven't looked under the pool table." So this officer, who understands Spanish perfectly, heard it, stepped outside, and said, "Guys, look under the pool table," and, boom, they found what they were looking for. Otherwise, they would not have found it. So the need for language is so key. And in doing investigations, especially in homicides, and other investigations, you just don't go by what the person says; you also go by how they say it, whether they were -- 243 RESOLUTION 970176 CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: By the way --

So all that is important. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: District Attorney Abraham said to me that right now the drug investigations are being hampered from her office, being hampered because they do not have personnel detectives, detectives that can do the investigation. So sometimes they have a wire tap on a key individual, and they miss it all because they can't speak either Cambodian or Spanish or Russian, which is becoming a very big factor in drug aspects in the city. And they don't have detectives that have the language skills to be able to do that. And that is one of the reasons we have been asking her, why don't you put that forward. Go ahead.

And there is a tool in the City Charter, which is Selective Factor Certification. And we encourage you to continue to ask the city to use Selective Factor Certification 244 RESOLUTION 970176 in the hiring and promotion, to help bring people of various-speaking languages into the department to do this work. Another needed improvement in the department that will break down the barriers of defective communication between the community and the police is to improve the mechanism that promises confidentialities to citizens that call police. Unfortunately, if someone calls the police to complain about a neighbor's criminal activity, that neighbor finds out immediately who called the police on him or her. In some cases the police go to the house of the caller before they go to the house of the person against whom the allegation is made. I am not suggesting that the police throw discretion out the window and never contact the caller, or blindly follow calls and allegations it receives; however, what we need is an increased awareness and sensitivity for the safety of those who are willing to inform the department about problems. We hope that while you look at improving the department, that you also look beyond 245 RESOLUTION 970176 improvements in the size of the force. The size of the force is but one component. Diversity of the force, the compensation of officers, the state of the equipment they use are equally important. The Philadelphia Police Department must do everything it can to better reflect the community it serves. Currently, the Philadelphia Police Department does not reflect the diversity of the city. While the city is over 70 percent people of color, the department is only 30 percent people of color. Eliminating this diversity gap is important to building a better relationship between citizens and police. Philadelphia must also improve the compensation for its police officers. Currently, Philadelphia police are underpaid, vastly underpaid, for the dangerous and demanding work they do. A pay that better reflects the risks and demands of the job will help the department draw a better pool of candidates and retain experienced officers. 246 RESOLUTION 970176 Improved compensation will also help alleviate some of the pressures that lead some officers to corruption. Philadelphia police must also be provided with the equipment necessary to do its work. I'm not talking about high-tech tools or cutting-edge computer equipment. The need for basics, like sufficient police vehicles that are operational, enough radios, and physical plants that are more productive, working environments, is also critical. In closing, we ask you to support the reform efforts that are part of the settlement of the class action lawsuit between the City of Philadelphia and the Police-Barrio Relations Project, the NAACP, and the ACLU. It was over a year ago that we reached a settlement, and there is a slow but steady progress in fully implementing its provisions within the two-year implementation period. We need City Council's support to continue to move forward on these reforms. Thank you for your attention. And if 247 RESOLUTION 970176 you have any questions --

Thank you. Your testimony was very enlightening. Thank you very much. Sister. Would you please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony. SISTER CAROL KECK: My name is Sister Carol Keck. I am a School Sister of Notre Dame, and I am the Executive Director of Norris Square Neighborhood Project, an urban environmental education center; and a volunteer member of the United Neighbors Against Drugs. In Norris Square we work with children and neighbors to improve our community, turning vacant lots into gardens, covering graffitied walls with murals, and working with families just to generally improve our community in which we live. And school children come to our center for environmental lessons during the day, cultural lessons, help with homework after school, arts and crafts, et cetera, and summer day camp. We have a number of children that we 248 RESOLUTION 970176 accommodate in summer day camp. And we find children like our 9-year-old Stephanie, who, on a three-day camping trip that our staff took the children out to French Creek State Park -- camping is a lot of work, you know, putting up the tents, getting the wood, building the fire. So one of the board members asked the children did they like camping, with all this hard work. And little 9-year-old Stephanie says, immediately, "Yes. " You know, and that's a dramatic statement from a 9-year-old, that this is obviously something that's on her mind all the time. And it was this concern for our children and our neighborhood that caused, about eight years ago, a group of people in our neighborhood, members of Norris Square, Woodrock, St. Boniface's, First Spanish Baptist Church, KJAC, to come together with the police to form United Neighbors Against Drugs. And then after intensive community organizing, community members of all ages, races met 249 RESOLUTION 970176 every Monday night with the police, for six or seven years, giving information, turning over information on tip sheets. Neighbors would report what was being sold where, who was doing it, giving descriptions. And the police came back the next week and reported to us what they had done about that. And during these efforts, we have kept over $25 million worth of drugs off the streets in our small area of Philadelphia. Friday nights found us out on the streets, marching together with the police, chanting anti-drug slogans, going to some of our neighbor groups, to West Philadelphia, they coming to help us, to send out the message to buyers and users and dealers that we didn't want this on our streets. The persistent citizen actions, working with police over the past six or seven years, has made a difference in the Norris Square area. S. Attorney Mike Baylson wanted to do some intensive community work along with law enforcement, after attending one of 250 RESOLUTION 970176 our meetings, it was to UNAD that he sent an invitation in saying, we want to work with the community on this concentrated way to weed out the criminal elements in our community, and to seed it with community rebuilding efforts. We can't have one without the other. And this particular federal project brought some resources to our part of the East Division. And the disadvantage is that it's only a small part of the East Division. We need a mammoth Weed and Seed Project, with the adequate resources to do that. And the Philadelphia police have worked effectively with the community, which has a high percentage of Latinos and African-Americans. And one gets to know others pretty well standing around on street corners until 2:00 or 3 o'clock in the morning. So the people have developed a different type of relationship with the police than probably some other community groups in the city. And this particular brand of community policing has benefited both the community and the police.

251 RESOLUTION 970176 And neighbors tell the police that, yes, drugs is a problem, but so are the high numbers of cars sliding through stop signs, abandoned cars left on streets, abandoned buildings where prostitutes go in and drug dealers. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Those are quality-of-life issues. SISTER CAROL: I didn't want to use that word. And no one is stopping these infractions -- we were telling the police this -- so it gives the impression that it is okay to commit the next-higher level of crime. And they get by with that, so the next higher level is committed. And pretty soon we have what looks like the wild west. East Division has been called any number of names. I spent part of this morning out with the reporter and a photographer in the infamous G section of the 25th District, which is right around the corner from our so-called Safe Haven, where we have replaced the windows several times. We have 18 bullet holes in the ceiling from drug dealers shooting that. 252 RESOLUTION 970176 We had to close the Safe Haven for several months, until the police put the mini-station outside in order to regain some stability in those few blocks, to be able to have a Safe Haven where children could come. And so, anyway, going back to organizing the community mobilization, which is really important. The police found out that there were more good people in these areas than the bad that they first had the impression. And the police were the ones that really couldn't seal the abandoned buildings. The police weren't the ones that needed to replace the stop signs. But the police are on the front line. They are the one city service that people know about, so they are the one that, the police department is the one, that gets the complaints. In our experience with the Weed and Seed Project, the police officers have become more proficient at referring people to the right department, so that they're not handling all the complaints. And with us, working with us, the 253 RESOLUTION 970176 city did this amazing thing called coordination. You know, if we take a target area, and we clean the streets, we install the stop signs, the Health Department works there, L & I seals the buildings, there are amazing results. You know, it seems like such a simple tactic. And neighbors then came and swept in front of their buildings, painted over the graffiti. And criminals began to say, you know people care here, and they moved on. And it look us a lot of soul-searching, but UNAD members take a pledge of nonviolence. So there were a lot of discussions about, do we want all of our young people in jail. And we came to the conclusion that, yes, we do have to have a number of them in jail to give us a breathing period to regain the community. And we follow -- and the Inquirer has documented this several times -- we follow some of our cases into court. I think Councilman Ortiz knew about a particular case that a judge told him he would have thrown the case out, because the ADA wasn't prepared. But he saw 15 people sitting there with 254 RESOLUTION 970176 white shirts and white hats on that said United Neighbors Against Drugs, and he figured he better follow through with that case. And I can't emphasize enough how the courts, and their falling down on this, where the police department is doing their work, but the courts are falling down on this. We went back to court eight different times before that case was finally heard, the young man was sentenced. And he had become a folk hero in the neighborhood. People looked up to him because he had gotten by with so much. And, finally, he was made to pay, and some people began to look at it in a different way. " The other piece of this, then, is, after following them into court, there are some of us that are in prison ministries, so we go into the prisons. And that was sort of the last straw 255 RESOLUTION 970176 for some of these young people, including this one young man who had finally been sentenced.

It's like, "We can't get away from you anywhere. " But we are also there when they come out of jail, to support them, because they come back to the same neighborhoods. And the other piece of this is, we try to concentrate on some of the customers who come in. They are not people from our neighborhoods; they are the many cars that are coming in from Jersey and Delaware, coming in by cabs. We researched the records to find out to whom does this brown BMW belong, of this well-dressed young man. Could be a lawyer, stock broker. Found out that he lived in Phoenixville. We instituted a system of sending postcards. Because you know what happens when a postcard comes in the house and it is put on the table, everybody looks at it as it goes there. So the wife who didn't know what her husband was doing at lunchtime, now did. Or if parents didn't know what their kids were doing with that car, they now did, because 256 RESOLUTION 970176 this postcard said, "Your brown BMW, Tag ABC-123, was seen in a known drug area. This is an unhealthy and unsafe condition. Please stay out. United Neighbors Against Drugs," and we put our address. We wanted them to contact us. We haven't heard from anybody, yet. And, incidentally, you can imagine the look on the face of this young man, who a few months later, as he was getting his brown BMW into a parking place at the Valley Forge Shopping Center, sees me getting out of the car next to him. Because I had been in the group that had chased him several blocks, and telling him to stay out of our neighborhood. And, you know, he was sort of surprised that here we are in his neighborhood, and didn't know what was going to happen next. Another effective tactic that we have been able to use with the Weed and Seed Project is to utilize some of the funds to purchase a mobile police station. And this has now become very popular, because it is an effective means. And it is something that the community devised, with the 257 RESOLUTION 970176 police, as a way to solve the problems. And there are now seven or eight of those in the city. And they have been accompanied now by bike patrols, because that's much more effective than walking the streets. " We went to corporations and we came up with money to buy that first set of bikes. And I hope you are hearing this constant theme here of strategizing, problem-solving together, coming up with a solution, and being proactive about it. And, to me, that is a real part of community policing. We could do all of this. But if the higher-ups didn't buy into it, it wouldn't work. And we have had very good cooperation from supervisors, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, on up to the Commissioner, but it has to become a department-wide not only philosophy, but a practice. And this whole issue of numbers that Charles spoke about, you can't continue to answer 911 calls, get numbers, and do quality community 258 RESOLUTION 970176 policing. That has to be proactive and preventive, and people need time to do that. With our Weed and Seed Project, which I think is one of the more successful models of community policing and problem-solving and community improvement, the seeding piece can't be ignored, also. " And our city can't do that. Some of our direct wars are going to be won on the playgrounds. So that when Commissioner DiBerardinis comes to you for an increase in his budget, he needs to get it so we can reopen places like -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I tried to do that. SISTER CAROL: So that we can go back to reopening pools that have been closed and recreation programs for children after hours. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: You know, most of the juvenile crime is committed between 3:00 and 8 o'clock in the afternoon. 259 RESOLUTION 970176 SISTER CAROL: Yes; when young people need things to do. And so, for this reason, we have set up Safe Havens in our communities in buildings that have been taken away from drug dealers, confiscated and forfeited to our community groups.

We have also utilized an AmeriCorps project, where young people give a year of service to their community and set up Safe Havens, Safe Corridors, increase Town Watches, and install smoke detectors, doing playground peace patrols. And for this service they are given a living stipend, health insurance, and child care, and an almost $5,000 award for their education. More of these kinds of efforts -- and out of these 30 AmeriCorps members, 80 percent of them are community members. This has been a five-year effort, and we have seen some success. S. Attorney Mike Stiles. And we took a month's break last month, and we came back. We had our meeting yesterday. S. A. on help that we need in that area and the coordination that they work with. Yesterday morning they had a violent trafficers meeting in which their plans for, in this case, the 25th District are being laid out. And I have some hope that soon we're going to see some improvements in these areas. But I want to bring out a point of, we in the community are very disturbed when this is working, we are working with police, and those people are yanked out of our areas. And that just doesn't make sense, that officers have gotten the people in the community to trust them, to give them the information, and the department pulls them out. It just seems to me that, do they really want this to work. And Managing Director Certaine mentioned the Town Watch, increase in Town Watch. And he also mentioned that there would be two additional coordinators hired next year, one to work 261 RESOLUTION 970176 in the American Street area. And I would just call to your attention, yes, that's true. And I Chair the Community Safety Committee, and it was one of our projects. And it has taken us two years. We have the money. We wanted to allocate somebody to go out and mobilize people. And the city's law department can't get the bloody contract through in two years to do that. You know, which is an outrageous thing that maybe you can help do something about. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I wish you would let me know when that happens. SISTER CAROL: Well, you are on notice, it is happening. " SISTER CAROL: I mean, we have the money. We want to transfer it through the Managing Director's Office, hire a person. We could have had 20 or 30 coordinators, Town Watches, going by now in these two years. But coming back to this Weed and Seed effort, I just want to point out that we must be 262 RESOLUTION 970176 doing something right. During the past year, UNAD as hosted, and the officers from the mini-station have hosted, a number of visitors: The Police Commissioner from India, who was spending some time here at the Olympics, and he wanted to study what we're doing with the community and with the police; A high-ranking police official from China; a group of journalists from the Middle East; One of the few female members of Parliament of another province in India. Her husband was the Police Commissioner there and was killed by terrorists. She was very much wanting to see how we implemented the Town Watch program. Because she was convinced the police are not going to be able to handle the terrorist problem there, but people in the community working together could. Other visitors have been the Constitutional Committee from South Africa. You know, after all of those years of struggle, and they finally are now going to write a constitution, and they came to America to study federalism. And they came to our part of East Division to find out how we're working with the police. 263 RESOLUTION 970176 And several months later their equivalent to your Committee, the Public Safety Committee, and what's their governing body, came back to visit us, at their recommendation, to get more details of how the police are working with the community. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Sister Carol, with all of that, the East Division -- SISTER CAROL: But this is only one little part of East Division.

CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: You look at it -- SISTER CAROL: It looks like a third-world country. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: It is 129 rapes during '96, 80 murders. I mean, that constitutes -- when they say crime is going down, it is not going down in the East Division. That's what I have been trying to tell the Commissioner and I have been trying to tell the Mayor. It is not going down over there. SISTER CAROL: It has improved in our little part of East Division around the Norris Square area. And we have mobilized the community. 264 RESOLUTION 970176 The community has put out the word that we are not going to tolerate it, and that is important. We have had good cooperation from the city, but it is not all of the -- we are only a little part of East Division. And it is this model that has to be spread out to more of the East Division. And the Commissioner can't put additional federal-funded police officers there, who are brand-new out of the academy, but then tell them to come in with huge numbers, if they are telling them to follow the community policing philosophy. They really have to do one or the other. And I'd just like to point out that, you know, that's with one little patch of one part of East Division that there is some hope. And I know that it could be expanded and include other areas. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I mean, we are not dealing with rocket science. SISTER CAROL: Exactly. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We know what can work. The thing that is frustrating is, why 265 RESOLUTION 970176 isn't it being done? SISTER CAROL: At every meeting you go to, people want safe streets, clean streets, a safe neighborhood to raise their children. I'm sure that's what you hear all the time. That's all anybody wants. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Okay. Yes. That, to me, is the frustrating thing. Because we ask, why is it not being done? And when you ask and you ask, and you say, how are you deploying people in the East Division, and then you look, and it is not equitable -- I mean, if you put the people where the crime is, it is like when they asked Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he said, that's where the money is. Where do you put police? You put them where the crime is. So let us begin thinking that way. And that's what I hope these hearings accomplish. SISTER CAROL: And one of the recommendations is that we ought to take some of those officers that are in management review, doing what seems to us nothing, and out on the streets. 266 RESOLUTION 970176 These are more experienced police officers; they know. If they have to fill out reports, let them sit at the corner of 4th and Cambria and fill them out. We don't need that number downtown in those offices; we need them out on the streets day and night. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Okay. Miriam, then. MIRIAM COLON: For the record, thank you for inviting me here. My name is Miriam Colon, and I am CUNAD, Community United Neighbors Against Drugs. CUNAD started in 1989. And we started as a group of parents, a priest, just regular people from the community. And the reason we started was because at 8th and Hutchinson, 9th and Hutchinson, there was a church, which was St. Bonaventure's, and there was a school. And in front of the school, there was a lot of drug dealing, and there was a lot of vials. And our kids had to come out there and play in that street, because that school didn't have any playground. 267 RESOLUTION 970176 So from the window of the school, the kids were able to see all the drug dealing that was being done around that school. And we finally kind of realized that we had to start talking and getting organized. And a group of parents and the priest became organized. We started talking to other organizations, which became CUNAD, because of UNAD. We called ourselves cousins. What happened was that we looked at what they were doing. They were going to the corners, and saying, "Get away from our corners. We don't want no more drugs," and so forth and so forth.

And we did this for a year or two, and we just helped other organizations and went out there. In the years that we were there, the community started saying, "Well, okay. " So we started looking into the neighborhoods and what was in the neighborhoods, and there was no after-school programs. From there, we 268 RESOLUTION 970176 started doing after-school programs. And we saw that we had to start helping our kids get out of the neighborhoods, to become empowered. Our streets were completely with graffiti. It was too much. One of the things that we started looking into in talking to our parents was, they did not know what was their rights as parents, as community residents, as voters. Our residents did not know anything, basically. A lot of the streets, they weren't cleaned. The sanitation did not go through their streets, and the officers were not seen around. So we started helping and working in the neighborhoods, and we started working with the police. We also saw there was not enough police. Every time we did a vigil, we didn't get enough police because they had to be doing other things. When the Weed and Seed Project came about, it was to us, like, a relief or something, that we felt that it was going to really help our neighborhoods. We saw that it was going to be 269 RESOLUTION 970176 weeding and seeding, and that was what we were all about. The police would come in and weed out the vandals. The organizations were really going to work out really good. But what we really didn't realize, there was not enough police in the neighborhood for the neighborhood that we served, which is the Fairhill section, which is where 4th and Cambria and 3rd and Indiana, and all those nice little neighborhoods. We have been organizing, we have been doing rallies, we have even brought out up to 14 schools to march in the neighborhood because our 15 parents needed to take charge of their lives. And I 16 think we're seeing a little bit of that light on the 17 other end. But what I'm saying is that, we need to start working, you know, getting more police in our neighborhoods. We don't have enough police officers, especially in the 25th District. Sister Carol, on the other hand, she has a little bit of that corner, you know, where she is in Norris Square, and they are seeing that light. 270 RESOLUTION 970176 But in our neighborhood there is such an abundance of so much drug dealing, that we need more officers. We need more officers into doing problem-solving, not just arresting. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Doing what, though? What do you want those officers to do?

The officers -- CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: This is for the record.

Yes. Yes. We want the officers to be out there with the community. And if there is a situation -- like when we started a block captain's curriculum training, eight sessions, when the officers are there, the community gets to know the officers and they get to start talking about the problems in their blocks. Not in the whole neighborhood; their blocks. And just by answering that problem, how to solve one simple problem, gets the community, or the residents, to really work with the officers. But if you don't have enough officers to come to one meeting because they have to be doing a lot of arrests in just those little kinds of 271 RESOLUTION 970176 arrests, not problem-solving, then this is why we have so much arrests and not a lot of problem-solving. And this is what we're asking for, more officers in our neighborhoods that are problem-solving, working with the community and the residents. And that's basically what I have to say. Thank you. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Okay. Mr. Gregory Allen.

Boy, my involvement with our particular case has to do with a property. And I need to be clear about that, because that's my involvement. And I want to thank you for inviting me. And two people here, Wanda Correra from your office and Joe White had a lot to do with our success. And my participation is more on a -- I'm a graduate student at Temple. And about seven years ago I was doing some training with Jack Green from the Center for Public Policy, on a grant called Urban Initiatives, in the Cecil B. Moore community 272 RESOLUTION 970176 of North Philly, North Central. And I have done stuff with the Mayor's Office, Community Services, Richard Allen, Hope 6, and things of that nature. So my interest is in community and organizational development. So I'm doing this training with the residents of Cecil B. Moore, and they ask me, what am I doing in my community. And about the same time, a man that I grew up with had sort of begun to take over his grandmother's home. And she is an older woman, and drugs are being sold and used out of her home. And we didn't know what to do, because we didn't know if it was grandmother who kind of knew what was going on and was getting a cut -- though we all knew her; we have all been long-term residents of this block -- or we didn't know if she was being held hostage. We had no 20 idea. And, in fact, one of the members of the training program I was doing introduced me to Wanda Correra for the District Attorney's Office Public Nuisance Task Force. And up until that point, you know, 273 RESOLUTION 970176 the classic things that happened; you know, lots of traffic, foot and car traffic, like the sister mentioned, with out-of-state plates, and gunshots. And all of my neighbors had called the police multiple times. And windows in cars had been broken. And a classic profile of a drug house. So I contacted -- you know, I guess being the person who had the least to risk -- everyone was sort of afraid of retaliation; and I'm single and I don't have a family, and all of my neighbors have children or are caring for older spouses -- so I went ahead and contacted Wanda and got a packet, affidavits, and circulated it through the block. I took the initiative. And about at that same time I ran into Joe White. I don't believe in coincidence, so I knew this was, you know, an act of God, that God was kind of walking us through this whole process. And, you know, Joe and his group came out, and bull horns and, you know, the drugstore is closed, you know, call the police. If you don't like what we're doing, call the police. And, so, in a very short period of 274 RESOLUTION 970176 time, these guys got frustrated, and they left. And the D.A.'s Office, in cooperation with, I think, L & I and a couple of other folks, came in and closed the house up. And they did such a good job of it. They used corrugated steel from the inside, so you can't really tell that it's kind of an abandoned house. And, boy, you know, it was a collaborative. You know, I know my neighbors are kind of looking for one person to thank for everything. And a lot of times that tends to be Wanda or Joe or myself. But it was truly a partnership that involved Wanda, Joe, myself; and the local churches who provided a space and came out and stood with us; block captains; the captain and the officer, the community relations officer; the D.A.'s Office; Councilman Nutter; State Representative Bishop. Everybody. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: It isn't just the police.

Not at all. In fact, it couldn't be just the police, because we had done that for five years. 275 RESOLUTION 970176 We called, they came out, they arrested the guys, the guys came right back and the house was open the same day. In fact, the day they shut it down, the guys had been arrested and come back the same day. So it was a partnership; it was a collaborative effort. And it took us two years. The District Attorney's Office tried the case in court, and it took us two years before Judge Denise Brinkley granted forfeiture of the house to the District Attorney's Office. And at this point I believe they're looking for a buyer to purchase the house. And we have an agreement that a portion of the proceeds will be shared with the community to improve Tustin Recreation Center, which is right near by. So from my perspective, what can be done is to increase public awareness of, you know, initiatives. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Can we take four minutes? My kids are in daycare after school. I have to make one phone call. Thank you. (Short recess.)

The only thing I can add 276 RESOLUTION 970176 is to increase public awareness of community-based organizations and initiatives like the D.A.'s office, or other community-based organizations. And, thirdly, the D.A.'s Office has made a commitment to us to use a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the property to improve our community. I know that when property or when material is sold, a lot of organizations benefit from it, but a lot of those proceeds don't actually reach the community. And we are the guys on the front line. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I don't know if you were here, but we asked the D.A. to give us a full accounting of those funds and how they are spent. Once we get it, you know you are going to get it, so we can all then have a discussion as to where this should go and where they will be more effective.

Thank you. And, also, to encourage collaboratives and partnerships. Because, truly, in our situation, the one I am connected with, it was truly a collaborative and a partnership. 277 RESOLUTION 970176 And I guess, lastly, I have one more to add. And you know I want to compliment you on having these hearings and for, you know, staying with it until the end, when the community, the folks that are on the front lines, are involved. But it is interesting to me, you know, it is kind of curious, how do you get community residents involved? When it is their time to really say things, nobody is available to hear it. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: I think they need to understand because I think, like Sister Carol, I remember when I first got here, 8th and Butler was going on. And at that point everybody was scared, because there were no UNADs, no CUNADs, no 18 anything, no one out there. And I remember I began going out and holding meetings in churches. And the first time we held a meeting up at around 8th and Butler, Hunting Park, nobody came. And then we held another couple more meetings, and a lot of people came. But then when we got there, the back rows of the church got filled 278 RESOLUTION 970176 up by the drug dealers, so everybody got scared and nobody spoke. So I was like holding monologues with some people, and so on. But then people began to understand that the police were not going to act until they began to get involved, and we held our first marches and our first vigil, and so on. And out of that, you know, all of these things. 8th and Butler, I remember that it became national. I mean, we had videotapes on the news and everything else. And all of the sudden the Latino community up at that area was -- I mean, I remember John Wilder was part of the DEA at that point, and he and I worked very closely together. But like Sister says, there it was like a drive-in. I mean, you actually saw lines of cars just moving through. And the police were doing absolutely nothing. Nothing. And there was not a community involved at that point. And now, you know, we have lots of community, but now we have to get the police to begin understanding that it is not just a police problem; there are other aspects. So hopefully we will push the Mayor 279 RESOLUTION 970176 to do certain things, and this Council to propose certain things, that will be of benefit and that will begin making changes. I'm tired of the bad lands and everybody saying, "Well, the bad lands." And even the kids now, the Julio DeBurgos School, they wrote a whole song about the bad lands, with that title. And so it is kind of something that we have to work on. Mr. White, do you have anything else to contribute? I don't know if you have anything else. I mean, almost everything -- JOE WHITE: Just a few things. My name is Joe White. I am with Laborers Local 332, also the President of Overbrook Against Drugs. I thank you for being here, for inviting me. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: Thank you for being here and staying.

We do have a problem. The problem, you know, is in the communities. The problem is, a lot of times, with the communities. We have to make a stand to let them 280 RESOLUTION 970176 know that we are tired of these drugs being sold in our area. Myself, we had a bad area that was heavily infested. It looked like the bad lands. You understand? But we went out and we dealt with it. We met with Herman Rice. Herman Rice, he travels all over the world organizing communities against drugs, you know. He started the White Hats. He did things with Lynne Abraham with this program that's called the Lions Program. It is an excellent program. It started in the 18th District, and then it came over to the 19th District. It is a program where they go out, you tell them, you make a call and you tell them that they're selling drugs here, and who they sell to and everything, and they will go out and make a buy. When they make that buy, they come back and go out again and lock them up. And once they lock them up, they follow that case with one D.A. all the way through the system. 281 RESOLUTION 970176 And say if that person get out and open the store back up, or the home back up, they'll -- when you call and tell them that they are opened back up, they will come right back out and seal it up. They confiscate the property, no 7 questions asked. And when they go to court, see, a lot of times when they go to court, a lot of the drug dealers don't go all the way through. They have a court date, and they don't show up. So what the judge do, he give a subpoena to the D.A., they give it to the detective, and they go out and lock them up. We found out that that program works. We wish it was all over Philadelphia. Because they're there, they're involved. They helped us a lot. Also, Laborers Local 332, Sam Stanton, Sr., along with Michael Nutter, Herman Rice, and the FOP with Michael Lutz, are coming together to form -- to help us in our fight against drugs. And what they are doing, they are getting the people, the bodies. See, where the 282 RESOLUTION 970176 communities are scared, we're getting the bodies and going into the communities. All we need is a couple of people in that community to say they are tired of this problem. And what we will do is, we will go into this area, and we will stay there and help them fight drugs. We will help them. We will show the drug dealers that these people is not alone, there are people out here that care about them. And with that, and also working with the police department, we found out that that works. Because a lot of times we don't get the bodies. You know, we might get 5 percent out of a neighborhood that will come out. So with the union and the FOP, and Herman Rice and Michael Nutter, we're doing things, we're putting this thing together, and we're going into other areas now. You understand? We're helping in sealing up houses. We are helping get the graffiti off. We are involved. This is what we need. We need more unions, more people involved with our fight. 283 RESOLUTION 970176 Because we can't sit here and deal with these numbers. These numbers don't mean anything to us. All they are is just for paper, shuffling paper. We need people to be involved. And this is what we need, the bodies. And this is what we're putting together. We hope that everybody in City Council would get involved. Because, see, we're dealing with a large area, Philadelphia, but it works everywhere else. Herman Rice go to Africa, he went to Florida, Texas, all over. We was up Pottstown a couple of months ago. But everybody gets involved; that is the key. You know? So I'm not going to keep you here. I just want you to know that I, you know, I would like to come back and tell you more about this program that we're doing. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: That's very good.

Get other unions involved in this thing, because it also helps the kids. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: It might interest you and Sister that the followup hearing is going to 284 RESOLUTION 970176 be about juveniles. And we are going to have the court system. We are going to have the judges, the administrative judges, come in and talking about the programs and what happens once an arrest is made. So -- SISTER CAROL: The court system is where so many of the problems are. CHAIRMAN ORTIZ: We're going to have that in the next hearing. And so we are going to be talking about the juvenile aspect of this. And I hope that as we keep on going, I want to hold and take this Committee to the community and hold a hearing in which we actually go up to Hunting Park or 5th and Lehigh, and hold a meeting up there, and hear, and take the Commissioner and let the Commissioner and some of the judges and the D.A., and let the people come in and testify. And I think that's one of the areas in which we want to begin pushing for reforms. Because unless the community and the people are pushing for the reforms, just because I talk about it, it is not going to happen. 285 RESOLUTION 970176 We have to have an army of people saying to the Mayor and the City Council, this is what you guys have to do, and you have to begin going in this direction. So I want to thank all of you for staying the course and being here. And we are going to call on you again as we proceed with this. I want to read a letter from the Fraternal Order of Police, from Richard B. Costello, President. "Dear Councilman Ortiz: At approximately 5:20 p.m., on Friday, September 12, 1997, I returned from court to find your invitation to appear before your Public Safety Committee on Wednesday, September 17, 1997. "Unfortunately, at this late date I will be unable to break several other commitments which have already been made for September 17, including among which is the murder trial of a Philadelphia police officer. Nevertheless, I would like the opportunity of testifying at a future date. "I am already aware that these hearings are ongoing, in that several months ago I 286 RESOLUTION 970176 was invited to appear pursuant not to this Committee, but I was invited to appear pursuant to a same or very similar Council resolution. "I appeared to testify, as requested. And after waiting for seven hours, I was advised by the Council President that I would be rescheduled at a later date. I am now respectfully requesting the same courtesy in return. "Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Richard Costello." And that goes into the record. I want to thank all of you. It has been a long day, and I have to see if I can find my two kids. Thank you. I did not adjourn the Committee. The Committees on Law and Government and Public Safety hearing on Resolution 970176 is adjourned until October 21, 1997, at 10:00 a.m. (Hearing adjourned at 6:15 p.m.) 287 C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Wednesday, September 18, 1997, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC SAFETY and LAW AND GOVERNMENT _____________________________________ DEBRA A. WHITEHEAD, RPR