Cops on Trial

Law and disorder in Philadelphia

Philadelphia police last year arrested Cornell Warren, 20, for reckless driving, cuffed his hands behind his back and took him to headquarters. Along the way, Warren suddenly dashed down the street, with Patrolman Thomas Bowe close behind. In the scuffle that followed, Bowe's revolver went off and Warren fell, fatally wounded. Bowe's attorney argued that the shooting was accidental, and last week a jury acquitted the officer of murder.

Every year, according to the U.S. Justice Department, the Philadelphia police shoot an average of 75 people, which contributes heavily to the force's image as one of the toughest in the nation. This reputation is a source of pride to Mayor Frank Rizzo, who was a cop for 28 years. On a visit to Italy in 1977, he declared that the best way to deal with criminals is "spacco il capo," which can be loosely translated as "break heads."

Last week, in an unprecedented civil rights suit filed in federal district court in Philadelphia, the Justice Department accused Rizzo of pursuing just that kind of policy. The 28-page complaint charges the mayor, other top officials of the city and its 7,866-officer police department with following "procedures which result in widespread, arbitrary and unreasonable physical abuse or abuse which shocks the conscience." The suit accuses officers of systematically beating handcuffed prisoners, unjustifiably shooting unarmed suspects, "inflicting disproportionate abuse upon black persons and persons of Hispanic origin," and failing to investigate complaints of brutality.

Philadelphia's barbaric police practices were first exposed in detail in a Pulitzer-prizewinning series of articles published by the Philadelphia Inquirer. The newspaper reported, for example, that during interrogations at police headquarters, suspects were routinely handcuffed to metal chairs, questioned for as long as 24 hours and often beaten. The officers sometimes were careful to leave no bruises: one technique was to cushion a suspect's head with a phone book and hammer it with a heavy object. But on other occasions, the newspaper reported, officers beat suspects with lead pipes, blackjacks, brass knuckles, handcuffs, chairs and table legs. At times, other suspects were forced to watch the beatings through one-way windows and told by officers that they would get the same treatment if they did not cooperate.

In addition, an independent Philadelphia watchdog organization reports that 147 citizens died in police shootings between 1971 and 1978; according to Rizzo, 13 officers have been killed in the line of duty since 1971. The Justice Department in the past five years has investigated 210 complaints of police brutality in Philadelphia. Last year a delegation of the city's black leaders pleaded with then Attorney General Griffin Bell to take stronger action. On his orders, the department's Civil Rights Division opened an investigation that continued for eight months, culminating in last week's suit.

The Justice Department has asked the court to cut off Philadelphia from all federal funds until the police department improves its behavior. While the suit does not document the charges with specific incidents of abuse, the Government lawyers say they are armed with 1,500 allegations of police brutality if the case should go to trial.

Most likely it will not, even though Philadelphia's top officials insisted that they look forward to their day in court. They claimed that the suit was a blatant attempt by the Carter Administration to win support among blacks. Rizzo reacted with typical bravado. "Hogwash!" he bellowed. "This is an absolute outrage. We want to go to court."

Last fall, however, Philadelphians voted 2 to 1 against changing the city charter so that Rizzo could run for a third term; one of the main issues was police brutality. As a result, before the suit can be tried Philadelphia will have a new mayor. Both major party candidates to succeed Rizzo have vowed to reform police practices. Thus, whoever wins the November election is expected to strike a deal with the Justice Department: a housecleaning of the police department in exchange for dropping the suit.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.