for BigTrial.net
When it comes to managing protests, the Philadelphia Police Department appears mired in mismanagement.
When the George Floyd protests first hit the city on May 30th, thousands of protesters showed up, and the cops were totally unprepared and woefully understaffed. The result -- widespread and uncontrolled rioting, looting, and arson fires that left behind hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.
Today, the department was totally overstaffed with hundreds of extra cops for two peaceful protests that attracted little more than a couple hundred protesters.
But under the command of First Deputy Commissioner Melvin Singleton, who has taken over the handling of protests from recently demoted Deputy Commissioner Dennis Wilson, the department today brought in 100 bicycle cops, as well as at least 100 other cops who were being redeployed from units that included the Evidence Custodian Unit, the Firearms Training Unit, the Standards and Accountability Division, and the Recruit Training Unit. The police department also called in an additional 50 additional cops from the Major Incident Response Team.
In addition, the department ordered the entire city-wide night work shift, some 200 cops, to come in four hours early. And the department also ordered the entire midnight to 8 a.m. shift, at least 75 to 100 cops, to stay an extra four hours on overtime.
The total cost of the extra police personnel had to run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. All to babysit a couple hundred protesters at two peaceful demonstrations.
The extra cops were assigned to stake out City Hall, Love Park, police headquarters, the Liberty Bell and the Art Museum
But in the morning some 100 peaceful protesters showed up at the school district headquarters, mostly teachers, who were there to say they wanted Philly's cops out of the public schools.
In the afternoon, another 100 peaceful protesters showed up at the Art Museum.
The extra police manpower ordered up by First Deputy Commissioner Singleton has since become a running joke in the department that has earned Singleton a new nickname -- First Deputy Commissioner Melvin Simpleton.
Singleton took over protest management from former Deputy Commissioner Dennis Wilson, who on June 25th, accepted a voluntary demotion to chief inspector. It was punishment for Wilson ordering the June 1st teargassing of protesters who were trying to shut down traffic on the Vine Street Expressway.
It was Wilson who took the fall for the entire department at a humiliating press conference, where Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw subsequently apologized for teargassing the protesters who were in the process of breaking the law.
Talk about self-inflicted damage.
It was the geniuses in the Kenney administration who were responsible for getting rid of former Police Commissioner Richie Ross and Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Sullivan. Under these former leaders, the Philadelphia Police Department earned widespread praise for its handling of Pope Francis's 2015 visit, the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and the Eagles Super Bowl parade in 2018.
But after the Kenney administration got rid of Ross and Sullivan, they brought in rookie Police Commissioner Outlaw from Portland. The department promptly was caught flat-footed by the George Floyd protests. The result was the biggest municipal disaster since 1985 when former Mayor Wilson Goode dropped a bomb on Osage Avenue.
And they're still screwing it up. Police overtime has been a huge budget problem since the George Floyd protests began, running more than $1 million a week for the first dozen or so weeks of the protests.
Simpleton has another problem -- he's being investigated by Internal Affairs for ordering other cops to kneel at a George Floyd protest. That prompted FOP President John McNesby to blast Simpleton, and the police brass quickly agreed that kneeling at protests should be a voluntary activity.
The ongoing destruction of the police department has also earned Mayor Jim 'Clown" Kenney a new best-selling T-shirt being offered by Kevin Consolo [consolosound@gmail.com:]
Meanwhile, while the cops were babysitting peaceful protesters yesterday, the city erupted in even more gun violence. Over the past 24 hours, there have been 14 shootings, four of which resulted in homicides, and two more victims were reported in critical condition.
The murder rate now stands at 238, which is on pace for a record of well over 400 homicides for the year.
Sekou Kinebrew, a spokesperson for the department, said that today's overstaffing levels "were established out of an abundance of caution [given the climate nationally, as this was a national call to action']."
"When determining the staffing levels, a large number of protesters was anticipated," Kinebrew said.
One cop who asked to remain anonymous said that at the morning protest outside school district headquarters, cops outnumbered protesters by at least a 20-1 ratio.
"Defund the police?" the cop cracked. "Except when the command staff has been accused of being unprepared. In that case send double the cops to a place with half the problems. All the while men -- black men -- are dying in epidemic proportions."
Jimmy, the Organ Grinder Mayor, will make a quick trip to Portland Oregon, with his Franchise Police Commissioner Skank Outlaw, to survey the tactics and methods employed by his Comrade Mayor Wheeler on how to manipulate the News Cycle and advance Civil Unrest.
ReplyDeleteThe Riots of the '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago, '89 Tianmen Square in China, and the Arab Spring orchestrated by the Obama supported Muslim Brotherhood, are Benchmarks for the DNC Silver Lining Playbook that the trained Circus Clowns of BLM and ANTIFA will perform moving forward to November.
We can only hope that Kenney and his Tribe will kneel in front of the Tanks brought in to restore order and be removed with the rest of the Rebel Roadkill.