November 15, 2007
Former Police Chief Ramsey Heads to Philadelphia
Former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey has been named police commissioner of Philadelphia by Mayor-elect Michael Nutter, reports the Associated Press.
Ramsey came to D.C. in 1998 after serving for 31 years in his hometown of Chicago, and became Washington's longest-serving police chief in more than three decades, serving as top cop in the District until the end of 2006, when he was replaced by incoming Mayor Adrian Fenty.
Since we've had a little bit of experience with Ramsey, allow us to offer some advice to Phillyist now that he's heading to their town. Kindly ask your readers not to steal his car. Oh and if he starts up with that Crime Emergency business again, do let us know.
All told though, we think it's fair to say that Philadelphia is getting a competent and experienced top law enforcement official. Chief Ramsey may have been given the boot by our current mayor, but he's also largely credited with improving police training and overhauling a corrupt and fractured department. We wish Ramsey the best of luck in Philly.
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Ramsey has his work cut out for him. Good luck, Chief! Now, please put your hands in the air and BACK AWAY FROM THE CHEESESTEAK!
Bad move.....Philly is nothing like dc. No economic base for jobs or suburb to push your problems out to (Pg county)
Let's wish him good luck and a safe venture as shooting cops has become sport up in the city of brotherly love.
I'll still never forget his made for tv movie quote that sent chills through the spines of all viewers during the sniper hunt: "We have the sniper like a duck in a noose"
Oooo, tingly spine. Maybe John Mohammed can offer writing scripts while the strike looms in LA
What? Ramsey was an awful police chief. He couldn't reduce the crime rate. Under him the number of homicides solved went down precipitously. He refused to hire more cops. He was a great showboater -- always impressing the national politicians as the model "big city police chief," when in fact he was more like Clancy Wiggum. When New York and LA were implementing cutting-edge policing programs, he was fighting the City Council for a 17 percent pay raise -- and without any meaningful performance to justify it. Experienced he may be; competent, hardly.
Don't know if he's contemplating a career change after the Philly gig, but based on the photographic evidence above, his future as a ventriloquist does not look bright.
zippy - have you ever heard of or been to philadelphia? people do have jobs there. yes. and last i heard it was not floating above the earth. the suburbs do exist.
Sommer - are you on crack? Ramsey was a terrible police chief. Under him we got more of the same - MPD remained totally reactionary, responding to crime (barely) instead of trying to prevent it.
He also flat out lied repeatedly about assigning officers to foot patrol. He kept saying he made it mandatory for them in each neighborhood and that simply wasn't the case.
Plus, he travelled with a huge entourage, like some banana republic potentate. I'll never forget his posse closing down an entire lane of 15th ST NW so he could have front door parking for his dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill.
He sucked.
risenc: "What? Ramsey was an awful police chief. He couldn't reduce the crime rate. Under him the number of homicides solved went down precipitously."
Crime rate stats through 2006 here:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm
Ramsey became chief in 1998, homicide rates for those years:
1997 - 301 (year prior to him becoming chief)
1998 - 260
1999 - 241
2000 - 239
2001 - 231
2002 - 264
2003 - 249
2004 - 198
2005 - 195
2006 - 169
Maybe the solved rate went down as a result of the overall decrease in homicides (and some of this is likely due to the overall decrease in violent crime nationwide) but there's no way to look at that and say it isn't a huge drop.
He has his work cut out for him in Philly.
@Mojotron: A reduction in murders is nothing to sneeze at, but look at the other crime categories -- little to no reduction over Ramsey's career, even as crime was dropping across the country. Plus, the "solved rate" as an absolute measurement wouldn't make any sense (rising murders would mean more solved murders, and why would anyone tout that?); it's obviously a percentage of total murders. That's in many ways the better measurement, in any case, since homicide can rise and fall for reasons unrelated to a department's ability to stop them (better economy, decreased population), while the ability to solve the homicides that do occur is almost wholly the responsibility of the department. As the Post noted in a Jan. 2003 editorial, "The homicide closure rate, nearly 55 percent, is well below the 70 percent rate police racked up in 1997 before Chief Ramsey's arrival in 1998."
Do we all need to be reminded what Ramsey walked into in DC in 1997? Let's be real, the city was a mess, the department was totally dysfunctional and had an abominable reputation. He came in and cleaned house! You have a least a dozen officers who were indicted for drug charges (the infamous 1990-1991 academy classes.) The Washington Metropolitan Police Department now has a respectable reputation, thanks to Charles Ramsey and his leadership. Are we always going to like decisions our Chiefs make, of course not! No one can make everybody happy, not going to happen. Philadelphia has scored big with Ramsey.
Wow, a number of statements in this thread that are simply untrue.
1. Philly has "no economic base for jobs?" What? and "No suburbs?" Go to Union Station, get on a train heading north, get off at 30th St. Station, then post. By the way, if you think PG County is place to "push problems" to, then you have never been to Chester or Camden.
2. Ramsey did not make the "duck in a noose" statement. That was Cheif Moose from Montgomery County. Both African American police cheifs, but very different people. In fact, while MPD did have detectives assigned to the sniper case, since only one shooting occurred in DC proper, their role was limited compared to police agencies from MD, VA, and the FBI and ATF.
3. Ramsey never travelled with any sort of entourage. I know because I live less than 2 blocks from his house in Southwest. I used to see him literally every day. He had no driver, no security detail. He drove himself, parked on the street, and even got parking tickets in both his marked and unmarked cars. He was also very friendly and approachable to his neighbors. In fact, the only time I ever saw him with another cop at his house was when he and Capitol Police Cheif Gainer (his neighbor) would stop and chat.
4. The biggest problem Ramsey faced, and it is one that will also haunt the new chief, is that MPD must compete with literally dozens of federal police agencies within the city that all over better pay and better working conditions. No other city in the country has a situation like that. But until the MPD can get its salary and benefits up to the levels offered by the Park Police, Secret Service Uniformed Div, Capitol Police, etc, then they will always struggle to recruit good cops. Right now a first year officer in a federal agency can make, with overtime, nearly double what an MPD rookie makes, not have to patrol any high crime areas, and generally be respected by the public.
5. Finally, about foot patrols. It is clear that Ramsey was not a believer in the widespread use of foot patrols. He is not alone. Many who study criminal justice have raised those questions. Remember, while many on this board were complaining about foot patrols, many in the city were complaining about response times. You can't have both. Once you take officers out of cars, their response time increases. It is a tough trade off and not easy to find the right balance.
Cdirector:
Yes, you can have decent response times and foot patrols.
Case in point: I had a breakin in the Dupont area a year ago. Cop response time: 2 hours. Getting someone to show up to dust for fingerprints: nearly 12 hours. This wasn't because they were all out on foot patrol. It's because by and large MPD is still dysfunctional. Dispatch is a joke, too many cops just don't care, and they view the citizen making the complaint as the problem.
So what is an added three or four minutes walking back to a parked vehicle on a response time of 2 hours?
And you are thinking reactively, not proactively. The ultimate response time is to prevent the actual crime before it occurs. Sitting hermetically sealed in a cop car is NOT going to prevent the crime. Maybe walking the beat will. What we're doing now certainly isn't working.
DC has more metro cops per capita than nearly all other major cities. Yet our response times are a joke. That has nothing to do with foot patrols. Half the damn city force could be out on foot patrol and we should still have stunningly good response time because we have so damn many people drawing a salary as MPD employees.
And I stand by my statement about Chief Ramsey and his dinner posse. I sat there and watched it. And I've heard anectdotally from more than one actual DC cop that this was common practice for him..... sometimes closing actual traffic lanes or commandeering illegal street parking so he could park close to his dinner destination.
If that's not riding with a posse I don't know what is.
But far more important is the fact that he presided over a reactionary, inept police department. And he did damn little to change that.
1. Ramsey was police chief between 1998 and 2006.
2. Crime went down between 1998 and 2006.
3. Therefore, Ramsey is responsible for the decline in crime.
If you liked that, I can also prove that the rise in global temperature is directly related to the decline in the number of pirates.
You people need to realize that violent crime is nothing compared to the thousands being killed EVERY DAY by dihydrogen monoxide poisoning. And yet our City Council fails to take bold action on this silent killer. Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
-Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
-Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
-Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
-DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
-Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
-Contributes to soil erosion.
-Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
-Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
-Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
-Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
-Given to vicious dogs involved in recent deadly attacks.
-Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S.
-Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.
He definitely has his work cut out for him in Philly. That shithole is by far the most uncivilized urban area on the east coast.
I take it you've never been to Richmond?
Ah, Richmond. My favorite one-word response to all those that suggest ending gun control will make DC a magical crime-free wonderland.