Legendary cop James 'Chopper' Howard

BACK IN the days when everyone was trying to figure out how to get rid of Fidel Castro, Frank Rizzo had the answer:

"Give me seven Chopper Howards and I'll go down there and take him out."

That was only one of the many accolades James W. "Chopper" Howard Sr. received in his 30 years as a Philadelphia cop, much of which was spent in the Highway Patrol and in the stakeout squad.

He was one of the most decorated police officers in city history when he retired in 1985, and certainly one of the most colorful.

He was beloved by his fellow cops for his cheerful personality, his sense of humor and his courage, and was feared by the hoodlums who plagued the city.

When he and his then-partner, William Carlin, were assigned to a tough neighborhood in North Philadelphia in the early '70s, the crime rate dropped 30 percent.

When he retired, the department retired his badge number, 2839.

Chopper Howard, who loved being a cop but whose first priority was always his family, died Saturday. He was 70 and lived in Fox Chase for many years.

He got his nickname because he sometimes carried a Thompson submachine gun on the job.

Some of his exploits as a police officer are legendary.

Robert Hurst, a famous stakeout cop himself, and president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 in the '80s, said he was present when Chopper single-handedly stopped a riot in Holmesburg Prison in 1970.

Jim confronted the two riot ringleaders with a shotgun.

"Aw, he's got nothin' in that shotgun but rock salt," one of the leaders sneered.

Oh, yeah? Jim unleashed a couple of blasts from the shotgun, far enough away to sting the perpetrators, who came to realize, "Hey, this guy's for real!"

That was the end of the riot.

"Good job, Chopper," said Rizzo, then the police commissioner.

Jimmy never did get to Cuba, but he was a favorite of Rizzo, later the mayor. There was no doubt he was Rizzo's kind of cop.

And he never made it to "The Ed Sullivan Show." Sullivan was doing a show on the Philly stakeout squad in 1957 and invited Jim to participate. But a rail accident stopped his train and he never made it to New York.

Jim was a classic cop of the old school, tough as nails in dealing with serious perps but a softy when it came to helping crime victims and, especially, kids.

"If he saw somebody hurting a kid, he would go nuts," Hurst said. "He would put his boot up their butt. He once left a parade when he saw some guy wearing an American flag on his rear-end. That guy could have worn Jimmy's boot for a hat.

"He was a very principled guy," said Hurst, now 70, who left the force in 1988. "If you told an off-color joke around a woman, he would come on you."

As a highway patrolman, Jimmy was a member of the motorcycle drill team that performed at the annual Hero Scholarship Thrill Show, and he was never afraid to try new stunts.

He was the first to crash through a burning wall on a motorcycle.

"Trying those things was a matter of trial and error," said William Daley, Jim's former stakeout partner and a fellow member of the drill team. "Jimmy was fearless.

"He cared about people," he said. "We would go out in the snow in the old Tenderloin, around 8th and Vine, and look for people left out in the snow."

When then-Commissioner Howard Leary established the stakeout squad, Jim was one of the first to volunteer for the dangerous job.

"Nothing ever seemed to bother him," Bill Daley said. "Working with him, it was just a good night."

The closest Jim came to being seriously hurt on the job was in 1968, when he, armed with a machine gun, and other officers burst through the door of the Streets of Paris Cafe in Center City, where a gunman had killed a patron. He took a bullet in his bulletproof vest just above the heart. Other officers felled the man.

Jim was born in Philadelphia to Albert E. Howard and the former Margaret McNulty. He attended West Catholic High School and graduated from John Bartram High.

He was active in his parish, St. Cecilia's in Fox Chase, where he helped establish a Catholic Youth Organization football program and coached the team to several championships.

He liked to kick back at Ocean City, N.J., where he would fish and crab, and where he often suffered severe sunburn from lounging too long on the beach, said his son James W. Jr., a Cheltenham Township police officer.

"He was a people person," his son said. "He was a man of high character. He helped a lot of people."

Besides his son, he is survived by his wife of 50 years, the former Barbara Stairiker; two other sons, Michael C. and Paul F.; a daughter, Christine E.; and seven grandchildren.

Services: Funeral Mass 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Cecilia's Church, 535 Rhawn St. Friends may call at 7 this evening at the Wackerman Funeral Home, 8060 Verree Road, and at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Burial will be in St. John Neumann Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. Jude Research Hospital Campaign for a Cure, Box 187, Memphis, TN 38101. *