By David Gambacorta
Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — The veteran beat cop walked along a familiar stretch of North Philadelphia last fall, with Temple University Hospital peeking over his shoulder.
It had been a few months since activists began marching through streets here and across the country to protest a spate of controversial fatal police-involved shootings. Calls for widespread reforms in law enforcement were growing louder by the week.
But this day was shaping up to be a quiet one — until he spotted a SEPTA driver, who frantically waved him over to her bus.
An unruly rider was refusing to leave. The cop boarded the bus and approached the female passenger. Their exchange was short and to the point:
He asked her to go, and she told him she wasn’t “ ‘leaving this f— ing bus,’ ” according to the officer, who didn’t want to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the incident.
“I told her, ‘I don’t want to use physical force,’ and as soon as I said those words, 45 percent of the passengers had their cameras on me,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ ”
The cop, who’s spent more than a decade in the Philadelphia Police Department, said he immediately ended the encounter. Instead of removing the passenger, he told the driver to call for another bus that could transport the other passengers.
In the grand scheme of things, it was a small episode. Nobody’s life was in danger. But the cop — and many of his peers — would argue that it was an example of the so-called Ferguson Effect, the idea that police officers are becoming less proactive because they’re weary from constant criticism and worried about ending up in a 30-second video clip that makes the wrong kind of headlines.
At first glance, it sounds like the kind of inside-baseball grumbling that you would expect to see on an online message board.
But some prominent names in the law-enforcement world — including FBI Director James Comey and Drug Enforcement Administration Chief Chuck Rosenberg — are firm believers in the “Ferguson Effect” and link it to an increase in violent-crime rates in a number of big cities.
So, is this an actual phenomenon, or just a politically charged catchphrase? And what does it mean for Philadelphia, if anything?
Count Philly Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey among those who are skeptical about the “Ferguson Effect.”
“There’s no data to support it, one way or another,” he said during a recent interview.
“I think it’s logical to think some officers might be a little reluctant to get engaged as a result of what’s been going on, but I’ve not seen it here.
“Nobody wants to be the subject of a viral video. But if you’re doing your job the right way, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
But a handful of longtime Philly cops who spoke to the Daily News on the condition of anonymity said they know that their colleagues are taking a step back — doing what they need to do to get through an eight-hour tour, but nothing more.
“Cops will always respond to 9-1-1 calls. It won’t affect service,” said one veteran investigator, "[but] it will stop people from getting out of the car and telling the dealers to get off the corner.”
A police supervisor said some of the department’s hardest-working and most aggressively proactive officers have a different perspective now.
“They’re afraid of getting caught on the last three minutes of a cellphone video, or putting themselves in a situation where the outcome could get violent and they get grilled for it,” he said.
“Nobody wants to lose their pension for an arrest.”
Reform advocates might say that’s a good thing. The re-evaluation of policing that has played out nationwide ever since former Ferguson, Mo., cop Darren Wilson fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown in August 2014 has focused in part on the need for less-aggressive police tactics.
It goes deeper than that, of course: So much of policing intersects with race, civil rights and politics. There’s no quick and easy answer to any of this stuff.
But John McGrody, vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said the union fields calls from cops who are tired of being second-guessed.
“They feel like they’re being scourged in the media, and they also feel like they’re not being backed by police leadership and political leaders,” he said.
The bigger question is whether the “Ferguson Effect” is having an impact on public safety.
Former Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told the Baltimore Sun in September that his cops “took a knee” after the city was rocked in the spring by riots over the death of Freddie Gray, who suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury while in police custody. Six Baltimore cops were charged in connection with his death.
Batts suggested that cops allowed the city’s crime numbers to soar because he didn’t stand up for them.
As of Nov. 1, violent crime is up a meager 1 percent in Philadelphia from the same point last year. Murders are up 3 percent, aggravated assaults involving guns 9 percent.
But overall part-one crimes, which also include burglaries and thefts, are down 5 percent. The small increases in some categories still pale next to figures from nearly a decade ago.
A story on the Atlantic’s CityLab website in September noted that while some big cities — including Baltimore, New Orleans and Milwaukee — are experiencing a rise in murders, others — including Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Newark — aren’t.
Comey, the FBI director, was publicly rebuked by President Obama after he twice linked crime increases to anti-police sentiment and the “Ferguson Effect.”
The Inquirer reported earlier this week that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said during an appearance at Camden County Police Headquarters that he believes in the “Ferguson Effect.”
But Christie, who’s trying to prop up a wilting presidential campaign, was quick to add that it isn’t a problem in his state, because he supports police.
“I’m on the fence about all of this,” said Jerry Ratcliffe, chairman of Temple University’s Department of Criminal Justice.
While some information could be gleaned from violent-crime and arrest numbers during the last year, it would be difficult to draw a grand conclusion, Ratcliffe said, noting that most American cities have experienced 10 to 20 years’ worth of significant decreases in crime.
It could take years to determine if the current increases are “just a blip, or a turning point,” he said.
“A lot of cops do very little proactive policing,” he said. “But you have others who are ‘hard-chargers,’ and if you see a reduction from them, that might have an impact on violent crime.”
Copyright 2015 the Philadelphia Daily News