Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 80

PAGE 80 THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1994 Readers are welcome-te-stibmit proposed "Guest Opinion" columns to the Editorial Department, Philadelphia Daily News, Box 7788, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101 or fax to 215-854-5691. All submissions are subject to editing. ROBERT J. HALL, Publisher ZACHARY STALBERG, Editor RICHARD AREG00D, Editor, Editorial Page BRIAN TOO LAN, Managing Editor j-wllwipiWiplii This Friday was black with traffic he term "Black Friday" came out of the old Philadelphia Police Department's traffic squad.

The cops used it to describe the worst traffic iams which annu ally occurred in Center City on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was the day that Santa Claus took his chair in the department stores and every kiu in me city wantea to see him. It was the first day of the Christmas shopping season. Schools were closed. Late in the day, out-of-town visitors began arriving for the Army-Navy football game.

Every "Black Friday," no traffic policeman was permitted to take the day off. The division was placed on 12 tours of duty, and even Joseph P. Barrett Dial 911 with your fingers crossed Let's get one thing straight right off the top. The failure of the 911 system Nov. 11 adds a new dimensionof responsibility to the brutal melee that resulted in the beating death of 16-year-old Edward Polec.

Had help arrived faster, Polec might still be alive. Had not several incompetent city employees thought their ego? were more important than their duty, Polec might still be alive. Had a crew of blunderers thought it more important to send help than to push troubled people around, Polec might still be alive. If the worst of these people isn't fired, there won't be much point in fixing the 911 system. There is no better message than the one that says you are expected to do your job and that if you don't, you're out of work.

And if some bureaucrat at, say, the Civil Service Commission restores their jobs at a hearing, fire them again. The message of the tapes from that evening is one of deliberate dereliction of duty. Allowing those guilty of not understanding that their mission is to help, not to practice contemptible dirtbag arrogance toward those needing help, to keep their jobs sends the message that the city just doesn't care about law enforcement. That said, there is work to be done on the city's 911 system. Well more than a half-hour elapsed from the time of the first worried call about rumbling teen-agers outside a the police band was ordered to Center City.

It was not unusual to see a trombone player directing traffic. Two officers were assigned to intersections along Market Street to control the throngs of pedestrians. The department also placed police officers outside parking garages because the "lot filled" signs failed to deter motorists from lining up on the curb lane outside the garage. This reduced street size from two lanes to one. This caused traffic to back up and block traffic at the next intersection.

This caused massive gridlock. In 1959, the old Evening Bulletin assigned me to police administration, working out of City Hall. Nathan Kleger was the police reporter who covered Center City for the Bulletin. In the early 1960s, Kleger and I put together a front-page story for Thanksgiving and we appropriated the police term "Black Friday" to describe the terrible traffic conditions. Center City merchants complained loudly to Police Commissioner Albert N.

Brown that drawing attention to traffic deterred customers from coming downtown. I was worried that maybe Kleger and I had made a mistake in using such a term, so I went to Chief Inspector Albert Trimmer to get him to verify it Trimmer, tongue in cheek, would say only that Black Friday was used to describe the Valentine's Day massacre of mobsters in Chicago. The following year, Brown put out a press release describing the day as "Big Friday." But Kleger and I held our ground, and once more said it was "Black Friday." And of course we used it year af- ter year. Then television picked it up. Today the term seems lost in antiquity, but it was a traffic cojvwho started it, the guy who directed traffic with a semaphore Tvhile standing on a small wooden platform, in the days before traffic lights.

3 ft McDonald's restaurant to the arrival of police on the scene. In between, 911 received many calls from frantic residents of Fox Chase, who reported large numbers of teens some armed with baseball bats raising hell in the neighborhood. The calers were treated as if they merely wanted to interrupt a coffee break. And, as that was happening, young thugs beat the life out of Edward Polec. By the time police arrived and called for a rescue squad, Polec's skull was fractured in six or seven places.

Now that somebody's child is dead in large part because of the inefficiencies of the 911 system politicians are tripping over each other to express their dissatisfaction. But if you look just below the surface, it's clear that slow response time is nothing new to the manpower-strapped Police Department. The problem has been clear. The Police District Advisory Council created a panel to examine 911 and offer recommendations for improving responsiveness. -One finding was that many civilian call-takers are "rude and abrasive and often lack class in their questioning of callers." No kidding.

What's troubling is that the report, submitted more than a year ago, hasn't resulted in any changes that might have had an impact on sluggish response time and perhaps saved Edward Polec's life. Tales of 911 unresponsiveness have circulated among police professionals and in many city neighborhoods for years. What's new is that this time, the slow response occurred in quiet Fox Chase, rather than the inner city. These breakdowns undermine the social order in fundamental ways. If -you can't be certain police are available in emergencies, it is impossible to feel truly safe.

Persistent slow response time also encourages those who prey upon innocent citizens. Just ask the family of Edward Polec. Mayor Rendell and Police Commissioner Richard Neal should boost their response time. The mayor's claim that 1,000 new police officers would fix 911 misses the point. For starters, we can't pay for them.

Besides, the issue here is not how many efficient, courageous cops were on duty, but why after numerous calls for help nobody could bother to send just one. It wouldn't matter if there were 50,000 police officers on the street if nobody bothered to send one. Confidence in the 911 system can be begin to be restored only if the city fires some people, moves quickly toward better training for the radio room staff and beefs up supervision of their work. The technical fixes can come later. Childwatch More than 156,000 of Philadelphians under 18 that's 40 percent live in families so poor they receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Richard Jack. i Don- --'THarrfson Elmer Smith J-inda 5-yiright Moore Wilkinson Brennaru ew t'jWirer wot Joseph P. Barrett was a reporter for the old Evening Bulletin..