Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey has prepared his anti-crime plan for the mayor, and he was meeting with City Council members, rank-and-file officers, and the media on Wednesday morning at the Wachovia Center (above) to detail the plan. Mayor Michael Nutter was also there to take questions. Mayor Nutter's first official act, Executive Order #1-08, declared a crime emergency and directed Commissioner Ramsey to study the problem and draw up a plan to deal with it.
Chief Ramsey has made it clear that getting more officers on the street will be a cornerstone of the plan. And he wants them to be more visible. He has set an example, wearing his uniform and riding in a marked car, Car 1, for the public to see.
Ramsey says his plan is nothing fancy -- just a return to the business of policing. At the core of his plan, he has identified the nine police divisions in the city that are most ridden with crime, particularly homicides. By May 1st, he says, they will redeploy 200 more officers onto the streets, in uniform, to patrol.
In addition, Ramsey says, they will be reaching out to the community and getting patrol officers better integrated with the community, and expanding the use of surveillance cameras. He says they hope to go from 26 cameras to 250 by the end of the year.
And "stop and frisk" is part of the plan. Ramsey says there will be additional training in this standard police practice:
"So we want to do it and we want to do it appropriately. And one of the things I mentioned to the officers is the fact that because it has gotten so much attention from the media, there'll be a great deal of scrutiny around how we implement that particular tactic, even though they have been doing it for a number of years."
The crime-fighting plan also lays out some lofty performance goals, including reducing the number of homicides in the city by 25 percent by the end of 2008.
Mayor Nutter says the crime-fighting goals set out in this plan are attainable and residents can bank on it:
"Quite frankly, I hope that the hopes and expectations of citizens in this city are raised, because they've been too low for too long. I want people to have great expectations because we're going to deliver well, but we only get to do that with the publics help and support."
Nutter says he doesn't yet have a price tag for the additional manpower and equipment; he says he'll work with City Council to find a way to pay for it.
