This past weekend, four murders in 12 hours.

For anyone who needs to refresh the count, that's a grand total of 101 deaths in four months.

Sure, that's 20 less than at the same time last year. But our deeply-rooted homicide epidemic is not about to be weeded out any time soon, new mayor or no, even under the spit-shined watch of new Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey.

Fighting this epidemic takes the will and might of every officer.

Which is one of the reasons that a group of officers came together over the weekend to discuss a threat to all officers.

At a hotel on City Avenue, the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers discussed, among many other things, the insidious rise in racial incidents that, if not checked, can create a culture as toxic as a mushroom cloud and jeopardize officers and citizens alike.

Vile 'pranks'

In Hempstead, N.Y., a hangman's noose was discovered in the locker room of the police department after a black cop was named deputy chief.

And here in the City of Brotherly Love, Ramsey suspended and reassigned a pair of narcotics cops after stickers reading "Blue by Day, White by Night," with a split depiction of a cop and a Klansman, were found in their lockers.

All over the last seven months.

Each instance was referred to as an isolated incident - a "prank" - by the alleged perpetrators.

Only I don't hear anybody laughing.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked that this kind of stuff continues.

"Racism is alive and well in America, especially in institutions of law enforcement," says Rochelle Bilal, a veteran Philly officer who is president of the Guardian Civic League, a 51-year-old organization that represents 3,000 retired and active black officers. The organization works with other community groups to put together programs for children as well as offering professional development.

"There have to be serious steps made to punish people who reveal their racist tendencies in the department," she says.

Bilal knows firsthand the impact of these "racist tendencies."

And she need look no further than www.domelights.com, a local law-enforcement Web site.

Its slogan: "The voice of the good guys."

In a public forum called "Philadelphia Blue," writers who I assume are police officers, from the jargon they use, devote an entire thread to thrashing Bilal, their fellow officer.

"She's an angry black woman who wants more than equality ... more than the bonus points she receives for the color of her skin. She will not rest until the African Americans who can fill out an application work beside us. No test. Welfare to work."

Those could be Bilal's brothers and sisters in blue, the very people who should be willing to take a bullet for her.

If Bilal is scared, she's not showing it. But she does have on her cell phone a picture of the racist stickers that caused a stir. And she sometimes jokes that cops like her could use their own witness protection program.

Still, Bilal, along with the many other black officers at the gathering, made sure to point out that the vast number of white officers are good, trustworthy cops.

I wonder if Ramsey's ears are burning.

Domelights' criticism goes all the way to the top. On another thread, Ramsey is described as "clueless" and accused of playing the "race card" by suspending the officers who had the racist stickers in their lockers.

Ramsey told me yesterday that he was familiar with the site. "But I haven't gone on it and don't intend to," he said.

"God bless 'em. Just because you have a few people voicing their opinion doesn't mean it's widespread. ... I think we have a good department."

Maybe the commissioner needs to read on.

While the site's contributors made much of the department's "double standard" against the suspended officers, complete with theories as to how they were "set up," not one person decried the stickers as racist.

Not one.

Maybe next year, every police association will come together - as a visible deterrent - to root out a problem that threatens us all.