POLICE COMMISSIONER Charles H. Ramsey yesterday asked Philadelphians not "to rush to judgment" when watching a video showing baton-wielding cops repeatedly striking, kicking and stomping three young men whom they had stopped after a triple shooting in Hunting Park.
"On the surface, it certainly does not look good in terms of the amount of force that was used," Ramsey said during a news conference with Mayor Nutter at police headquarters.
Ramsey said that an Internal Affairs investigation is under way. He expressed concern for the mental well-being of the entire force, which is still reeling in the wake of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski's slaying last weekend.
Ramsey said officers are on edge, upset and tired from an exhaustive, round-the-clock police manhunt for Eric DeShawn Floyd, the only suspect still being sought in Liczbinski's murder.
D. Scott Perrine, a defense attorney representing the three men, said the commissioner seemed to be making excuses for "barbaric" police behavior.
"[Ramsey] implores Philadelphians to take sympathy on behalf of police officers who engaged in behavior that is indicative of guerrilla-warfare tactics that we would see in Iraq before we liberated that country," Perrine said last night.
On Monday night, a Fox 29 news helicopter hovered overhead as police pulled over a car driven by Brian Hall, 23, on 2nd Street near Lippincott in Hunting Park. The video shows officers yanking Hall and two passengers, Dwayne "Lionel" Dyches, 24, and Pete Hopkins, 19, out of the car.
More than a dozen officers begin to kick and hit the men as they lay on the ground. An officer grips the leash of a riled-up police dog, which circles the suspects, the video shows.
The images are reminiscent of two other police beatings caught on TV news video: A 2005 video showing narcotics Officer Michael Collins striking citizen Charles Baum eight times, and a 2000 incident showing 14 city officers beating carjacker Thomas Jones.
Ramsey said that the latest incident occurred after a team of narcotics officers with the 25th Police District in North Philadelphia witnessed a triple shooting during a drug surveillance at 4th and Ansberry streets. The officers were hoping to arrest drug suspects and question them about the slaying of Andrew Coach on Sunday, Ramsey said.
Police watched as four men got out of a gold Mercury Grand Marquis and walked to the corner. One of them then fired upon three other men standing on the corner. The man who fired took off running and his three companions got back in the Grand Marquis and drove off, with police in pursuit, Ramsey said.
That's when police pulled over Hall, Dyches and Hopkins, Ramsey said.
In answering to the video yesterday, Ramsey and Nutter found themselves in a delicate spot. They seemed to walk a fine line between expressing support for the city's men and women in blue in the wake of Liczbinski's murder and expressing dismay over a video that depicts an undeniably violent police encounter.
"The video is the video," Nutter said. "We have no audio. You don't know what was going on at that moment when the officers approached the vehicle. There will be an investigation and we will move on."
Nutter added: "This is very dangerous work. We had an officer assassinated on Saturday. . . . Everyone has to understand that this entire city has been affected."
Maybe, but IMHO how do you stand up for a couple of gangsters who were involved the gunning down of others right before the incident happened?
