Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 80

PAGE 80 THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1994 DAILY RICHARD AREGOOD, Editor, Editorial Page All submissions are to ROBERT J. HALL, Publisher Opinion Opinion" columns to the Editorial Department, THE PEOPLE PAPER Readers are welcome to submit proposed "Guest Philadelphia Daily News, Box 7788, Philadelphia, Pa. ZACHARY STALBERG, Editor 19101 or fax to 215-854-5691. subject editing. BRIAN TOOLAN, Managing Editor I GUESS IZL JUST UNPACK.

WELL, IF IT'S TOO DANGEROUS TO Go TO NORTH CAROLINA, N. SUBSIDE SiGht BASES CAROLINA SUBSIDIES In Our Opinion Dial 911 with your fingers crossed Let's get one thing straight right off McDonald's restaurant to the arrival of years. What's new is that this time, the the top. police on the scene. slow response occurred in quiet Fox The failure of the 911 system Nov.

11 In between, 911 received many calls Chase, rather than the inner city. adds a new dimension of responsibility from frantic residents of Fox Chase, These breakdowns undermine the to the brutal melee that resulted in who reported large numbers of teens social order in fundamental ways. If the beating death of 16-year-old Ed- some armed with baseball bats you can't be certain police are availward Polec. raising hell in the neighborhood. The able in emergencies, it is impossible to Had help arrived faster, Polec might calers were treated as if they merely feel truly safe.

Persistent slow restill be Had not several incompe- wanted to interrupt a coffee break. sponse time also encourages those alive. who tent city employees thought their egos And, as that was happening, young prey upon innocent citizens. were more important than their duty, thugs beat the life out of Edward Po- Just ask the family of Edward Polec. Polec might still be alive.

Had a crew lec. By the time police arrived and Mayor Rendell and Police Commisof blunderers thought it more impor- called for a rescue squad, Polec's skull sioner Richard Neal should boost their tant to send help than to push trou- was fractured in six or seven places. response time. The mayor's claim that bled people around, Polec might still Now that somebody's child is dead 1,000 new police officers would fix 911 be alive. in large part because of the inefficien- misses the point.

For starters, we can't If the worst of these people isn't cies of the 911 system politicians are pay for them. Besides, the issue here is fired, there won't be much point in tripping over each other to express not how many efficient, courageous fixing the 911 system. There is no bet- their dissatisfaction. cops were on duty, but why after ter message than the one that says you But if you look just below the sur- numerous calls for help nobody are expected to do your job and that if face, it's clear that slow response time could bother to send just one. It you don't, you're out of work.

is nothing new to the manpower- wouldn't matter if there were 50,000 And if some bureaucrat at, say, the strapped Police Department. The prob- police officers Civil Service on the street if nobody Commission restores lem has been clear. The Police District bothered to send one. their jobs at a hearing, fire them Advisory Council created a panel to Confidence in the 911 system can be again. The message of the tapes from examine 911 and offer recommenda- begin to be restored only if the that evening is one of deliberate dere- tions for improving responsiveness.

fires city some people, moves quickly toliction of duty. Allowing those guilty One finding was that many civilian ward better training for the radio of not understanding that their mis- call-takers are "rude and abrasive and room staff and beefs sion is to help, not to practice con- often lack class in their of their up supervision of questioning work. The technical fixes can temptible dirtbag arrogance toward callers." No kidding. What's troubling come later. I those needing help, to keep their jobs is that the report, submitted more sends the message that the city just than a year ago, hasn't resulted in doesn't That said, care there about is law work to enforcement.

be done changes that sluggish might have had an im- any Childwatch pact on response time and on the city's 911 system. perhaps saved Edward Polec's life. More Well than a half-hour than 156,000 of Philadelphians more elapsed Tales of 911 unresponsiveness have under 18 that's 40 percent live in from the time of the first worried call circulated among police professionals families about rumbling teen-agers outside a and in many city neighborhoods for Families with so poor they receive Aid to Dependent Children. Editorial Board a Richard dis Don Elmer Signer unnadinda Kathy, Aregoode Harrison Smith Wilkinson Wright Moore Brennan, Mytiov aMichael. ewan Jack.

McKinney mil Days du MOT This Friday was black with traffic $70 CARCE AGRICULTE he term "Black Friday" came out lice The of cops the Department's used old it to Philadelphia traffic describe squad. Po- the worst traffic jams which annually 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 kid in the city wanted to see him. It was the first day of the Christmas shopping season. Schools were closed.

Late in the day, out-oftown 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 the police band was City. It was not unusual player directing traffic. ordered to Center to see a trombone 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 after year. Then television picked it up. Today the term seems lost in antiquity, but it was a traffic cop who started it, the guy who directed traffic with a semaphore while standing on a small wooden platform, in the days before traffic lights. that was a long time ago.

Joseph P. Barrett was a reporter for the old Evening Bulletin. JOSEPH P. BARRETT.