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 Editorial: Tyranny's puppets 12/08/00 - Philadelphia Inquirer Darn right Philadelphians were relieved when the city Police Department deftly handled protests staged around the Republican National Convention. Given a history of local police excesses - plus protest fears fueled by the Seattle brawl - Philadelphia streets could well have deteriorated during those five summer days into tear-gas clouded, nightstick-thumping mayhem. They didn't. Far from it. And that was with several hundred people arrested amid sweltering temperatures. With his ubiquitous street presence, biking-togged Police Commissioner John F. Timoney earned praise for what seemed to be a thoroughly professional transformation of the police force. Yet it's since become clear there were troubling police excesses of another stripe. Though tame by Philadelphia standards, the mass arrests of 75 people at the so-called puppet warehouse in West Philadelphia are proving a major embarrassment. As one arrest after another collapses in court for lack of evidence, the Aug. 1 warehouse raid looks more and more as if it was done on a pretext. The plan appears to have been to detain tactically people who hadn't broken any law yet. The wholesale retreat from misdemeanor criminal charges against 32 people this week was the only possible recourse for the District Attorney's Office. Undercover state troopers failed to identify most of the protesters, let alone link them to any crimes. Sworn statements by the troopers had been the justification for police alleging that these protesters committed crimes and bundling them off to jail for days. And now that these same officers can't even finger the supposed culprits? In any other case, such bungling by police would be grounds for a stern reprimand - and maybe a suggestion they consider another career. (Perhaps union carpenter, since that was the troopers' warehouse cover story?) But let's go out on a limb and predict the Pennsylvania troopers never pay any price for their fuzzy memories - because the arrests were an end in themselves. It's left to those caught up in the bogus warehouse raid to pick up the pieces. That includes warehouse owner Michael Graves. Not only was he jailed improperly, but Mr. Graves faces thousands in repairs following a gratuitous sweep by city inspectors. Another 30 people face charges stemming from the warehouse raid, and the proper course for the city would be to spare them as well. Then again, maybe the "carpenters" will recall what threat they believed these folks posed. When this is all sorted out, it likely will result in a blot on the shiny Timoney record - as well as red ink on city ledgers, should falsely arrested protesters sue and win. Maybe some city leaders and citizens still regard keeping the peace at the RNC as the only thing that mattered. (No doubt, local Tories just wanted a quiet life in the fateful 1770s.) But the freedom to dissent peacefully ought to rank higher on Philadelphia's scale of values. |
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