Editorial for January 24, 2008 edition:


Let’s get frisky

With murders and quality-of-life crimes sparing no section of the City of Neighborhoods, new Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has his work cut out for him.
As the star of a series of "town meetings" held throughout the City of Brotherly Love, including a session last week at Abraham Lincoln High School, the former top cop in Washington, D.C., is off to a pretty good start. He has the power to do something with the earful of complaints and good ideas from the folks who showed up at the forums.
Mr. Ramsey’s predecessor, Sylvester Johnson, was by most measures a good cop and a decent man who made a valiant effort to persuade members of the Pennsylvania Legislature to pass meaningful legislation to reduce gun violence, but his voice was a cry in the wilderness.
Mr. Ramsey, and the clout of working for a mayor who won 83 percent of the vote, should persuade a largely do-nothing legislature to get off its collective butt.
The fear of getting shot and killed on the mean streets has caused too many Philadelphia residents in every neighborhood to impose house arrest on themselves and become prisoners in their own homes.
Mayoral candidate Michael Nutter won the hearts and votes of many in Northeast Philly when he campaigned on a pledge to allow police officers to "stop and frisk" citizens in the battle to curb gun violence. "Stop and frisk" can and should be instituted immediately.
And if the American Civil Liberties Union, better known as the criminals’ lobby, cries racism and whines that "stop and frisk" violates citizens’ civil and constitutional rights, tough apples.
As Mr. Nutter said repeatedly on the campaign trail, citizens have a constitutional right not to be shot. ••

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