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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 3, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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PHILADELPHIA'S HISTORY OF POLICE RACISM
By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia
No Philadelphia police officer has ever been convicted for
an on-duty murder, despite the fact that police have killed
more than 300 Black and Puerto Rican people in the last 30
years.
>From 1989 to 1995 there were 2,000 documented citizen
complaints against the Philadelphia Police Department.
During a two-year period in the mid-1990s the city paid $20
million in damages to 225 people who were beaten, shot,
harassed or otherwise mistreated by police.
That was before the 39th Police District scandal in 1995
led to the dismissal of 1,400 criminal cases where cops
ignored suspects' rights and sometimes framed them
outright.
During Frank Rizzo's tenure as police commissioner in the
1970s, the predominantly white police force was feared and
hated in the Black and Latino communities because of its
brutality and racism.
Police attacks on the Black Panther Party, the MOVE
Organization and the public led to many demonstrations.
This period is chronicled in the documentary film "Black
and Blue."
Black journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote about many of these
cases. Abu-Jamal was also targeted by the police. In
December 1981 he was shot, kicked and beaten by cops and
subsequently sent to death row for the killing of Police
Officer Daniel Faulkner.
Abu-Jamal and millions of supporters around the world
maintain that he was framed by the cops, who were desperate
to silence this "voice of the voiceless."
Philadelphia police are not only brutal. They are
notorious repeat offenders.
During a 1978 confrontation with police in Powelton
Village, four cops dragged MOVE member Delbert Africa by
his hair, then kicked him in the head, kidneys and groin.
Like the Jones case, this brutality was also captured on
video and later led to the indictment of three officers on
assault charges.
In February 1981 a judge acquitted the cops. Delbert
Africa was subsequently arrested and is now one of the MOVE
9 prisoners serving a 30-100 year term.
The three acquitted cops went on to participate in the
murderous assault on the MOVE house on Osage Avenue on May
16, 1985. A bomb was dropped on the house, killing 11
children, women and men and burning down the entire block.
- END -
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