Tyron Franklin took his last breath in a local fast food restaurant on Jan. 7, 2007, as four bullets ripped through his flesh.
Reportedly, Franklin was shot two more times for being a Patterson, N.J. police officer. This instance only emphasizes the fact that there are people in the world who generally loathe police officers.
Philadelphia has a recent history of violent relations between citizens and officers. Late last year, Officer Charles Cassidy was shot and killed following a string of police shootings. As we know, police officers have one of the most dangerous jobs imaginable, especially in Philadelphia with its high rate of violent crime.
Mayor Michael Nutter plans to eliminate the amount of crime and illegal firearms on the street by heavily enforcing his controversial stop-and-frisk policy. The stop-and-frisk law gives officers wider ability to do just that – stop and frisk any person on the street for weapons without a warrant. This plan makes police officers’ work more dangerous.
On Jan. 30, 2008, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey announced his plan to reduce crime in compliance with Nutter’s declaration of a crime emergency in the city of Philadelphia. His plan consists of more surveillance in areas with high crime rates and enforcing the stop and frisk policy more frequently, as first reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Their plans will fail.
Walking up to a person who may already detest police officers and embarrassing them by frisking them for weapons just adds fuel to the hate and gives them more motive to want to shoot an officer.
Gene Blagmond, public relations consultant for the Fraternal Order of Police in Philadelphia, said he doesn’t see the danger in the plan. He said that this policy does not introduce anything new that police officers haven’t already been instructed to do and hopes that Nutter’s plan is successful.
“It’s something that we’ve always done,” Blagmond said. “We’re completely supportive of him.”
Every officer will be supportive of any plan to decrease the number of weapons on the streets, but I still believe it gives these cop haters easy access to police. The job is dangerous enough as it is, and the stop and frisk policy is like putting cheese right in front of a mouse.
Lana Adams can be reached at lana.adams@temple.edu.
