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The Dead of Night
By Gregory Gilderman
We drive up Susquehanna Avenue. We are in the middle of the North Philadelphia just about every Philadelphian knows as a Place Where You Don't Want To Be. In your imagination, it resembles the ghettos from Hill Street Blues or The Corner: filled with roving gangs, drug dealers on corners, addicts hunting down a cheap blast, prostitutes waving down cars. Up close, it's the opposite. You're struck by ... absence. Long, treeless blocks with all but one or two houses abandoned. Vacant lots. No businesses save the occasional Korean deli.
When people talk about the inner city needing a return to "community policing," perhaps they picture a friendly officer walking through a neighborhood like this one, saying hi to good citizens and busting bad ones, maybe taking a moment to set straight a kid who's on the fence between joining a gang or going to college. The reality of North Philadelphia at night is that crime and people are dots on a barren landscape. A cop walking through this neighborhood would spend most of his or her shift in a wasteland. A car is the only way to get to where the victims are, especially when you get a call like the one coming through Stephens's radio.
"Black male with a Tec-9," says the dispatcher, giving an address on Master Street. "Possible snipers."
Stephens flips on the lights and the sirens and hits the gas, and we're flying across 24th Street.
"What did he mean about a sniper?"
"Sounds like they're firing to scare the police away," says Stephens. "They do that because they see us busting someone and they don't want their friend to get locked up. They'll fire just to get police out of the area."
"Over your heads?"
"Right. They don't fire at us because we tend to fire back."
We turn and continue on 24th Street, heading south, as Stephens and the dispatcher mutter back and forth. He hits the brakes, and we turn east on Cecil B. Moore Avenue. There's been a change of plans.
"There's an officer who needs assistance," says Stephens. "Things happen quickly out here."
I expect to see an officer in a gunfight, but we pull up to the Hans Enterprise deli to find something else: a second-year female officer unsure of how to handle two curfew violators. The boys appear to be eight and 12 years old. Neither wants to give his name. Neither wants to give his address. Earlier in the year, Mayor Street made curfew enforcement — 10:30 Sunday through Thursday, midnight on weekends — part of his strategy to combat crime. For anyone who envisioned young Crips and Bloods being locked up en masse, this is what you get: two police officers on a Friday night in the middle of North Philadelphia, trying to deal with two children walking out of a deli. Curfew rules actually target the parents: If there are three violations, they're summoned to court, and may have to pay a fine. The rationale is that parents, wanting to avoid that, will act more responsibly and keep their kids inside after midnight. The possibility of enforcing this assumes, of course, that the kids are giving up the information, a.k.a. snitchin', which these two aren't.
Finally a heavyset man, perhaps tipped off by a watchful neighbor, shows up. He explains that no, he's not the parent, but he's the uncle, these kids just wanted some candy, they live RIGHT THERE, so can he please just take them home?
Stephens won't have it. Whether it's because a reporter is watching or because he's old-school and does things by the book, he manages to get the kids' names and addresses and, following procedure, fills out a Juvenile Contact Report, plus a Form 7548A, all of which eats up an additional 20 minutes of crime-fighting time.
"Unfortunately, with a curfew violation, this is the paperwork," he says.
The respite is broken by another call. This one's the bread-and-butter of the patrol officer's life: the domestic disturbance. We drive to the 2400 block of Gratz Street.
"Somebody called for the police?" Stephens asks an exhausted-looking man sitting on the steps of a two-story rowhouse.
"Man, that was like four hours ago," he says.
"The dispatch record shows it was one hour ago," says Stephens. I can't help thinking that every citizen should have to look at that dispatch queue Lieutenant Taylor showed me.
"Well, everything's fine now," the man says.
When people talk about the inner city needing a return to "community policing," perhaps they picture a friendly officer walking through a neighborhood like this one, saying hi to good citizens and busting bad ones, maybe taking a moment to set straight a kid who's on the fence between joining a gang or going to college. The reality of North Philadelphia at night is that crime and people are dots on a barren landscape. A cop walking through this neighborhood would spend most of his or her shift in a wasteland. A car is the only way to get to where the victims are, especially when you get a call like the one coming through Stephens's radio.
"Black male with a Tec-9," says the dispatcher, giving an address on Master Street. "Possible snipers."
Stephens flips on the lights and the sirens and hits the gas, and we're flying across 24th Street.
"What did he mean about a sniper?"
"Sounds like they're firing to scare the police away," says Stephens. "They do that because they see us busting someone and they don't want their friend to get locked up. They'll fire just to get police out of the area."
"Over your heads?"
"Right. They don't fire at us because we tend to fire back."
We turn and continue on 24th Street, heading south, as Stephens and the dispatcher mutter back and forth. He hits the brakes, and we turn east on Cecil B. Moore Avenue. There's been a change of plans.
"There's an officer who needs assistance," says Stephens. "Things happen quickly out here."
I expect to see an officer in a gunfight, but we pull up to the Hans Enterprise deli to find something else: a second-year female officer unsure of how to handle two curfew violators. The boys appear to be eight and 12 years old. Neither wants to give his name. Neither wants to give his address. Earlier in the year, Mayor Street made curfew enforcement — 10:30 Sunday through Thursday, midnight on weekends — part of his strategy to combat crime. For anyone who envisioned young Crips and Bloods being locked up en masse, this is what you get: two police officers on a Friday night in the middle of North Philadelphia, trying to deal with two children walking out of a deli. Curfew rules actually target the parents: If there are three violations, they're summoned to court, and may have to pay a fine. The rationale is that parents, wanting to avoid that, will act more responsibly and keep their kids inside after midnight. The possibility of enforcing this assumes, of course, that the kids are giving up the information, a.k.a. snitchin', which these two aren't.
Finally a heavyset man, perhaps tipped off by a watchful neighbor, shows up. He explains that no, he's not the parent, but he's the uncle, these kids just wanted some candy, they live RIGHT THERE, so can he please just take them home?
Stephens won't have it. Whether it's because a reporter is watching or because he's old-school and does things by the book, he manages to get the kids' names and addresses and, following procedure, fills out a Juvenile Contact Report, plus a Form 7548A, all of which eats up an additional 20 minutes of crime-fighting time.
"Unfortunately, with a curfew violation, this is the paperwork," he says.
The respite is broken by another call. This one's the bread-and-butter of the patrol officer's life: the domestic disturbance. We drive to the 2400 block of Gratz Street.
"Somebody called for the police?" Stephens asks an exhausted-looking man sitting on the steps of a two-story rowhouse.
"Man, that was like four hours ago," he says.
"The dispatch record shows it was one hour ago," says Stephens. I can't help thinking that every citizen should have to look at that dispatch queue Lieutenant Taylor showed me.
"Well, everything's fine now," the man says.
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