A true Philly sports moment amid the sadness

INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey today announced a major shake-up of the department’s command – doubling the number of deputy commissioners to eight – that he says will improve accountability and drive down the crime rate.
Less than four months into the job, Ramsey reconfigured the 6,600-member department into two main operating groups that will be headed by current deputy commissioners. The bifurcated organizational structure is similar to the way he configured the Washington, D.C., department, where he was chief for nine years before stepping down a year ago.

Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross, now head of internal affairs and gun control strategy, will oversee all field operations – police on the street, the muscle of the department. He was elevated from a two-star deputy to a three-star deputy.

Deputy Commissioner John Gaittens, a two-star deputy and veteran administrator, will be in charge of organizational support services – the “backroom” operations such as training, communications, administration and human services.

The four new deputies were promoted internally, much to the relief of the Fraternal Order of Police, which had opposed a ballot measure that voters approved on April 22 allowing the police commissioner to appoint up to 10 deputies. The FOP was concerned, in part, that Ramsey would import a large number of out-of-town commanders.

Appearing at a news conference with Mayor Nutter, Ramsey said the reorganization will make the department more “mission-oriented.” He said the aim is largely to get more officers on patrol, increasing the department’s visibility to send a message to the public, as well as criminals.

“The public wants to see more cops out there on the street,” he said. In the new organization, he said, “everything exists to support the patrol function.”

Ramsey said he has assigned 248 more officers to street patrol. Of that number, 109 are rookies. The rest are former members of two specialized crime-fighting units. Those officers will now report to local commanders.

“We put them in districts where they need to be, that was not the way it was before,” Ramsey said.

The commissioner and the mayor touted positive crime statistics for the administration’s first four months as evidence that their strategy is working. Homicides have decreased 24 percent, violent crime is down 4 percent, and gun seizures are up 3.5 percent.

“These are obviously indications of progress,” Nutter said. But, he said, his administration believes that the numbers are still “far from where they should be.”

The commissioner introduced his new “management team” at a news conference after spending the morning in individual meetings with the more than 40 commanders who were promoted or shifted laterally.

Ramsey noted that he would not have a first deputy. His predecessor, Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson, appointed Deputy Commissioner Patricia Giorgio-Fox as head of operations, making her his clear second.

“I’m the one that’s accountable for the operations of this department – me and me alone,” said Ramsey. “What I have here is a management team, all of us working together to accomplish a mission, a goal, to make this city safe and secure. And we will accomplish that mission, and we’ll do it together, all of us working together.”

Giorgio-Fox, who now shares her three-star rank with Ross, will remain as a deputy commissioner. She will head a new office of coordination and accountability that Ramsey said will be “responsible for ensuring that efforts of all the department’s units are working together and accomplishing our mission and goals.”

Along with Giorgio-Fox, Deputy Charlotte Council and a civilian Ramsey brought in from Washington will head offices that will be part of what is called the “commissioner’s group,” which Ramsey said “will help guide this department.”

Council, currently deputy for administration and training, will oversee the new office of violence prevention and victim services.

Nola Joyce, a trusted aide who was formerly Ramsey’s assistant in Washington, will oversee the new office of strategic initiatives and innovations. Joyce, a civilian, is the equivalent of a ninth deputy commissioner, though she is technically a deputy in the city managing director’s office who has been detailed to Ramsey.

Ramsey promoted four commanders to new one-star deputies who will oversee operations and report to Ross: Capt. Thomas Wright, Capt. Kevin Bethel, Chief Inspector William Blackburn, and Inspector Stephen Johnson.

Wright, commander of the 25th District in North Philadelphia, and Bethel, commander of the 17th District in Point Breeze, catapulted several ranks up the hierarchy and will now head two regional operations commands. The north region, which includes the East, Northeast and Northwest Divisions, will be headed by Wright. Bethel will head the south region, which includes the areas covered by the South, Southwest and Central Divisions.

Ramsey praised Bethel and Wright. “They’re very effective,” he said. “They ran tough districts, and they ran them well.”

Blackburn, formerly narcotics head, will head major investigations, which includes many of the department’s centralized detective functions – homicide, special victims unit, narcotics and forensics.

Johnson, the former head of South Division’s four police districts, will head an enhanced homeland-security bureau, which will include the SWAT team and the bomb squad.

Ramsey says he has initiated a department-wide review of special units with an aim of increasing the number of “generalists” who can be dispatched to fight a range of crimes and increase the department’s visibility.

“To me, in my way of thinking, everything exists to support the patrol function,” Ramsey said in an interview Tuesday. “Everything. If you don’t support the patrol function, I question why you exist.”

Below the deputy commissioners, Ramsey made five other promotions and more than 30 lateral moves in the ranks of inspectors and captains.

His changes included at least one demotion: Kimberly Byrd, who had been the executive officer to former Commissioner Johnson, returned to her civil-service rank of sergeant and was reassigned to the Eighth District in Northeast Philadelphia.

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Contact staff writer Andrew Maykuth at 215-854-2947 or amaykuth@phillynews.com.

By DAMON C. WILLIAMS
Philadelphia Daily News
williadc@phillynews.com 215-854-5924

Little is known about Police Officer Frank Slaymaker.And unfortunately for Chief Inspector James Tiano and his small but dedicated staff, even less is known about Slaymaker’s family.

The Police Department plans to honor the life and heroism of Slaymaker – who was killed in the line of duty on June 11, 1906 – with a plaque dedication in June. But, so far, no members of his family have been found to attend the dedication.

“We are searching for the family, but it’s been such a long time” since Slaymaker was killed, said Tiano – who, usually with Capt. Dennis Gallagher, visits surviving relatives of fallen officers before a plaque ceremony. “But we did one for an officer killed in 1919, and he had a big family there.”

According to Tiano, Slaymaker was killed when he apprehended a man and a woman who had robbed a Chinese restaurant.

The man shot Slaymaker, but the officer was still able to hold the suspects until assisting officers arrived.

Slaymaker died 10 days later.

“This [effort] is very important, because these are our extended families,” Gallagher said.

“Injured or slain, we always consider them family. But we didn’t have a single piece of record on his family.”

Both the fire and police departments recognize fallen comrades through the plaque program, and it doesn’t matter when the honoree died.

Police officials said that records of Slaymaker’s family may have been lost.

“The goal is, if there are any Slaymaker relatives – and I’m sure there are – to contact us,” said Tiano.

“We really want and need for his family to be there.”

For details on the search for Slaymaker’s family, or to provide information, call Tiano at 215-685-3655

THE LIFE PENALTY

December 21, 2007 — TWENTY-SIX years and counting: That’s how long my family, my friends and I have been tormented by Mumia Abu-Jamal – the man who murdered my husband, Police Officer Danny Faulkner, by shooting him in the back as he lay wounded and helpless on the pavement.

He then put a gun to Danny’s forehead and squeezed off a final shot.

The same rare ammo that killed my husband was found in Abu-Jamal’s gun, which was registered in his name and recovered by police at his side, just 70 seconds after the fatal shot was fired.

Twenty-six years and counting: That’s how long I’ve had to listen to the lies and distortions of those who find the facts and trial testimony irrelevant. Everything from stories of a phantom killer whom none of the five eyewitnesses saw, to a man who said he spoke to my husband after he was shot even though he died instantly, to a supposed hit man hired by the Mafia to kill my husband.

Everything and anything to cloud the waters, stall the legal process and garner misguided support for a guilty killer.

Twenty-six years and counting: That’s how long I’ve had to hear my dead husband portrayed as a vicious, racist cop by people trying to gain sympathy for a guilty murderer. While his remorseless killer is portrayed by left-wing loons, anti-death penalty groups like Amnesty International, know-nothing celebrities, professors, students, communists and the French as a “political prisoner” or “a wrongly convicted intellectual.”

Twenty-six years and counting: That’s how long we’ve had to listen to the voice of my husband’s murderer on the radio “Live From Death Row” and hear his friends comment about his supposed eloquence, talent and “soulful humanity.”

Twenty-six years and counting: That’s how long the family and friends of murder victims may have to wait, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, for justice and closure.

To the average citizen, that’s absurd; to the average survivor, obscene. But it’s just what the average defense attorney and death-penalty opponent wants.

The longer the appellate process can be clogged with nonsense, the easier it is to argue that it takes too long to execute people – so we should abolish the death penalty.

They’d like you to believe that the process is far too drawn-out to represent anything akin to punishment. But remember, virtually every time, it’s the defendant and his attorneys that stall the process, not the prosecution. The anti-death-penalty crowd creates one of their main grievances about the death penalty. Very slick.

Twenty-six years and counting: That’s how long my family and I have had to pause, take a deep breath and swallow hard every time the phone rings because it just might be someone from the Philadelphia DA’s Office calling to tell us that Mumia Abu-Jamal has escaped justice on a technicality.

They might call to tell us that some judge has ruled that the prosecutor in the original trial was somehow a racist – even though he accepted four blacks to the jury. Or that the courts have decided that the jury was confused by the wording on a form – even though the jury never said they were confused. Or that the trial judge, who was forced to constantly control a seething and disruptive defendant, displayed sufficient evidence of legal bias to warrant a new trial.

While Mumia Abu-Jamal sits safe and sound on death row – writing books and recording radio commentaries – we live in fear. Imagine, just for a moment, what it’s like to live in constant grinding fear for 26 years . . . and counting.

Twenty-six years since I last spent Christmas with my beloved husband, since he held me in his arms, since we were able to tell each other how much in love we were. That’s the sad reality of my situation.

But I’m not alone. The families of murder victims across the country live with similar grim realities. It’s wrong and it has to change. That’s why I wrote my book – to shed light on an unjust system.

I have the book to show for my life over the last quarter century, and I have a candle to light for Danny – who would have celebrated his 52nd birthday today.

Maureen Faulkner is the widow of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, murdered in the line of duty by Abu-Jamal on Dec. 9, 1981. Her new book (with Michael Smerconish) is “Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice authors’ proceeds go to fund grants for children who have lost a parent to murder.

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police is extremely upset with
Mayor-Elect Nutter’s appointment for Deputy Mayor of Public Safety.

This man recently represented the KILLER of Police Officer Gary
Skerski.

We feel that the friends, co-workers, and more importantly the family
of Gary should not have to attend any future memorial events standing
with this Deputy Mayor of Public Safety.

We believe this appointment sends the wrong message to the citizens
of this city, especially in the climate that exists today, that our
Police Officers witness first hand on a daily basis.

The Fraternal Order of Police on behalf of every Philadelphia Police
Officer condemns this appointment, and would ask the Mayor-Elect to
reconsider.

Fraternally Yours,

John J. McNesby, President

Michael G. Lutz Lodge #5 Philadelphia

Fraternal Order of Police

On March 5, 2007 Custodes Pacis installed new officers. Pictured are:

Seated : L to R – Angela Cardamone – Recording Secretary; John Student – Vice President; Maurizio DeLisi – President; Joseph Spera – Imm. Past President; Ray Saggese – Treasurer

Standing: L to R – Reinaldo Peluzzo, Jr. – Trustee; Richard Zambino – Master Of Ceremony; Reinaldo Peluzzo, Sr – Guard; Joseph Abruzzese – Trustee; Ross Carfagno – Master Of Ceremony; Rita Rastelli – Financial Secretary; Vincent Bocchinfuso, Trustee

*Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia Police Officer.

*It does a disservice to the citizens of New York City to name a street after an un-repentant murderer.

*The facts of the case are available at danielfaulkner.com
Petition:

We, the undersigned, call upon the New York City Council to not name any street within the city of New York after Mumia Abu-Jamal.

As the convicted murderer of a Philadelphia Police Officer in 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal is not deserving of such an honor.

To name a street after an imprisoned killer of a civil servant is not only a slap in the face to the law enforcement community, but also the public at large.

Sign the petition by visiting the following site: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/say-no-to-naming-a-harlem-street-after-cop-killer.html