Hi folks, this YPP post is two-fold:

First I want to share the new Philly IMC feature I wrote.

Second, is our appeal for donations to pay for our newspaper (hoping to get at least $100 in the next week or 2).

Anything you can do to help spread the word is most appreciated.

Last week, death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal filed an appeal of a March 27 US Third Circuit Court ruling that rejected his bid for a new guilt-phase trial.

J. Patrick O’Connor argues that Abu-Jamal was framed by police, and that the actual shooter was Kenneth Freeman. O’Connor criticizes the media, who, he says “bought into the prosecution’s story line early on and has never been able to see this case for what it is: a framing of an innocent and peace loving man.” For more on “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal” we are featuring an excerpt, a previous interview, O’Connor’s review of “Murdered By Mumia,” and his response to the March 27 ruling.

The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal:

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Outraged by the March 27 denial of a new guilt phase trial for Mumia, 500-1000 people gathered at the Federal Courthouse, circled the Liberty Bell, and marched to City Hall, where speakers included Cynthia McKinney, Julia Wright, and Harold Wilson. VIEW the PHOTOS and VIDEO, featuring an exclusive interview with Veronica Jones about her new book. (Watch our video from the March 31 press conference)

by eian
Defenestrator.org

Mayor elect Michael Nutter recently named former Washington police chief Charles H. Ramsey as the new police commissioner, to take office along with Nutter. Charles Ramsey has a long and distinguished career heading police departments, most recently in Washington DC and previously in Chicago. Unfortunately these distinguishing characteristics have been repeated abuses of constitutional rights of citizens—especially against those attempting the exercise their right to free speech and dissent—and his predilection for declaring states of emergency during crime waves over which he presided.

Ramsey's 21-page crime plan is, 10 or so pages of filler aside, a steady and sober one. It completely skirts the most troubling parts of Mayor Nutter's campaign rhetoric. Sure, like a bunch of us have observed, it's all in the implementation. But if they can implement this basic return to high visibility, community-based policing, the city will be much better off.

I like when Chief Ramsey says that the changes he is making are sustainable, that it's not Safe Streets and Safer Streets and the Return of Safe Streets--short-term infusions of money that get eaten up in overtime and then are gone.

But I really hope that 'high visibility' 'community-based' policing is not code for bringing misguided 'broken windows'-style policing to Philadelphia.

That would add more victims--and deep costs--to the battle against crime and neighborhood decay.

The Inquirer this morning has an article that claims the crime plan is about just that, those broken windows: "Small arrests aim for major impact."

The new commissioner aims to drive violent crime down 20 percent this year by focusing on fundamentals - shifting more officers from special units to basic patrol. A key tactic of the plan is to focus on quality-of-life issues - such as public intoxication, loitering and gambling - that sometimes escalate into violent crimes or drive law-abiding residents to move elsewhere.

This is a startling leap: is it really 'gambling' that is driving people out of their deeply-scarred neighborhoods? Is there a causal link between cracking down on public intoxication and stopping shootings, rapes, and violent assaults?

The real question the article raises is, will our violent crime problem be fixed one $10 marijuana bust at a time?

As [Officer] Schoch patrolled the neighborhood, he looked for unusual behavior or groups on corners.

"Any time there's a large group of people, you have the potential for victims," he said. He was also on the lookout for pizza deliverers, who have been targets of recent robberies.

About an hour after he hit the road, driving east on Godfrey Avenue near Mascher Street while listening to the police radio and carrying on a conversation, Schoch jerked his head to the left. In seconds, he wheeled his car into a U-turn to intercept the drug transaction. The time was about 5:40.

"Come here," Schoch ordered the first man, who made a quick move away from the officer and tossed a wadded tissue under a parked car. Schoch forced him against his car. He told him to relax and extend his arms behind him for the handcuffs. The suspect, Ivory Jackson, 48, was still clutching a few dollars in his fist.

"I don't want to go through this again," said a bewildered Jackson, who wore a knit cap and an oversize coat.

After Schoch put the suspect into the back of the squad car, he explained what he had witnessed.

"Everything happens with your hands - a narcotics deal, a weapon. I couldn't even tell you what his face looks like. You watch the hands."

It's a small deal, a 1-gram bag of marijuana worth $10. A "dime bag" in the vernacular.

One of the two guys turns out to have a fraud warrant out on him, and they both get taken in and booked. The article is blase about whether or not this is productive or a waste of resources:

Some officers say the effort invested in making a case like this - Schoch and Leva spent two hours processing paperwork and evidence - removes officers from the street to hunt for worse offenders.

But Schoch said such arrests sent a strong message of intolerance for all crime. And it's impossible to say, until the arrest is made, when a minor stop might yield a bigger fish - somebody with a warrant for a violent crime, or somebody carrying an illegal weapon.

Sometimes these small arrests lead to information about bigger crimes, Schoch added.

"Some cops tell me I'm wasting my time with these arrests," he said. "I say I wouldn't want that stuff going on in my neighborhood."

Someone, explain to me what we get from an arrest like this?

The jury is somewhat out on the exact mechanics of the alleged deterrent effects of this "order-maintenance" or "broken windows" policing. I am happy to fight it out in the comments. But the costs of this policing are clear. A Temple study found that 88% percent of inmates in the city prison system are there for nonviolent, low-level offenses. We are under court order to get people out of the prisons who don't need to be there. The collateral costs of incarceration have been catalogued again and again: difficulty finding jobs, loss of resources in families and communities. Our new mayor and concilpeople like Wilson Goode have recognized the need to target reentry and probation to help get people out of the system, into jobs, and away from crime.

We don't need a crime plan that will throw a bunch more people into jail who don't really need to be there. Let's hope the article just shows irresponsible journalism, not policing.

Below, Dan respectfully and appropriately asked for focus on the loss suffered by the Goode family. It is a loss that is both painfully particular--a family member--and horrifically general.

Horrifically general because it is one of several recent police shootings, one of all too many black men killed in our city, of people killed in our city, and of people lost to one part or another of an endlessly failing drug war.

Dan also pointed to Mayor Goode's careful moderation. But Mayor Goode also said:

"I don't know anything except that, when someone is shot in the back, it raises questions that need to be objectively looked at."

Stop there for a moment.

This, two weeks after police in another corner of the very same neighborhood--Germantown--shot another man who was fleeing, running away from them, fired into a house filled with 50 people celebrating New Year's Eve, killing one man and injuring two others, including the nine-year-old he was pushing up the stairs away from those bullets. A hardworking immigrant man is dead, the wrong man arrested, and no gun yet found.

This, the same weekend police shot and killed a man who, while having a gun, may or may not have pointed it at police. All we know is one of two officers saw him "slowly take his handgun out of his waistband and hold it down by his side."

I am not a police officer, I don't know if the shootings were 'justified', and I am not judging those officers, though I agree with the stark truth of what Mayor Goode said about how deep the questions are that are raised when someone is shot by the police in the back. There will be investigations for all of that. For now the mayor and police commissioner and DA have my trust.

But just stop and think about those lives that were lost, and for what.

The undercover officers who shot Timothy Goode were patrolling to make drug arrests. Maybe a person in that situation was selling, maybe he was buying and maybe he was doing nothing illegal, was just in one of the many corners of corners of our city where drugs and drug selling and people carrying guns are all around.

But this--being shot and killed in the course of some corner drug bust--it's an almost incomprehensibly huge cost. And it is not a cost that we can continue to bear.

David Simon, who co-writes "the Wire" on HBO, the clearest mirror to American cities I have ever seen, whatever Mark Bowden says, says the show is about "how contemporary American society—and, particularly, 'raw, unencumbered capitalism'—devalues human beings."

“Every single moment on the planet, from here on out, human beings are worth less. We are in a post-industrial age. We don’t need as many of us as we once did. So, if the first season was about devaluing the cops who knew their beats and the corner boys slinging drugs, then the second was about devaluing the longshoremen and their labor, the third about people who wanted to make changes in the city, and the fourth was about kids who were being prepared, badly, for an economy that no longer really needs them.

Histrionic or not, it's true. The near-half the people sitting in city jails because they cannot afford bail are being treated as expendable. The people hurt or killed on all sides of the battle for the corners, they are being treated as expendable. Same with the thousands of kids who enter high school but aren't there by the end. There's no point to my sitting here preaching except to say that it is pretty clear that our moral imperative is to revalue every person and block in this city.

This is part three taken from my own blog written on November 21st. Despite being a few months old, everything still rings true. You can read the original here: http://markskull.blogspot.com/2007/11/civil-rights-and-possible-crime_19.html

I was going to post this yesterday, but I've been sick for a bit and it came to a head yesterday.

We've discussed the basic civil rights questions, and asked how long this Crime Emergency could last.

We've discussed the new Police Commissioner, his background in the issue, and and his impact on Crime.

Today, we're going to tackle a few things.

• Guns
• The impact Ramsey had in Washington D.C. (Part 2)
• What all of this boils down to.

So to start things off, we can kill two birds with one stone and discuss Ramsey, D.C., and Guns at once. Why? Because in case you didn't know, handguns have been banned in Washington D.C. for 31 years. OK, let's think about this: Despite BANNING HANDGUNS in Washington D.C., they still had ONE OF THE HIGHEST MURDER RATES IN AMERICA. So all that talk about "banning guns solve everything" is true, right? Ramsey's impact to lower the murder rate 50% during his time there must deal with simple enforcement of existing laws.

This is part two taken from my own blog written on November 19th. Despite being a few months old, everything still rings true. You can read the original here: http://markskull.blogspot.com/2007/11/civil-rights-and-possible-crime_19.html

THE CHARLES RAMSEY EFFECT

Hello, and welcome to Part 2 of my discussion of the Crime Emergency and the Crime Emergency. Yesterday, I discussed the basic civil rights issues that I feel could be threatened by declaring a Code 10, and asked the question of how long this would last and if it was needed.

Today, we'll start the discussion on the new Police Commissioner, Charles H. Ramsey. But before we do, I want to mention a few things first that I forgot to mention yesterday.

A large amount of my problem with this is, of course, Civil Rights. In all of my writing yesterday, I neglected to mention something that has been bugging me about all of this. Back in May, when Nutter's "Stop-and-Frisk" program was being called to task for violating civil rights, supporters brought up a Court Case where it was declared constitutional.

It was Nutter himself who coined this phase: "It's a Civil Right not to be Shot."

This bumper-sticker phrase was done so well, it is next to impossible to argue against it. To do so seems to allow for the same type of argument used by Conservative Republicans when you disagree with them; "What, do you mean you WANT people to be shot? You don't think it's wrong to kill and murder people?! No wonder you didn't win the election, you cold hearted bastard!"

The fact of the matter is, you don't. You have a right to live, a right to the pursuit of happiness. You have a right to be free and happy, and to live in a safe environment.

You don't have a right to not have bad things happen to you.

It's hard to imagine that the Parking Authority could get any lower but they sure know how to bottom out. In today’s Inquirer story, the Parking Authority blames a decline in ticketing as a major reason why they can't meet their financial obligations to the City and the School District. Never mind the doubling up of a padded payroll; more than $46 million in largely unaudited cash reserves; unconscionable perks like fat pensions checks, free cars/gas; six figure salaries including an Exec. Dir. who makes more than the governor and a board chair who earns $75,000 a year for showing up once a month. Nah none of that could have anything to do with their failure to meet their goals.

Now, they blame the police. Had enough?

Come on down to the Parking Authority Board meeting this morning where:

Parents United for Public Education, the Philadelphia Home & School Council, Germantown Clergy Initiative, JUNTOS, Philadelphia Right to Ed Task Force and the Association of Philadelphia School Librarians name --

The Philadelphia Parking Authority

the

2007 Inductee into the Grinch Brotherhood

Okay before we send the party out for this man, before we convict him for crimes that he might have confessed, will this black man receive his due process in Philadelphia? He's public enemy number 1 right now for the assassination of two armored car guards , that happen to be retired police officers.

Taking a short detour off the education beat to note this disturbing news item. The media has recently been reporting that 10th District Councilman Brian O'Neill is planning to introduce an ordinance calling for Philly police to run immigration checks on all felony suspects -- an echo of a recent order issued by the New Jersey attorney general.

Despite other issues with the Philly police, I would say the immigrant community generally notes that the cops, with a few exceptions, pretty much separate local policing from fed work around immigration. A lot of it has to do with the sensible fact that there's plenty of other things for the Philly police to do than try to figure out, in a complicated and botched immigration system, if someone is legal or not.