Today's column defending the Philadelphia Fire Department from disgusting charges that they are "murderers" was well received.
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20140711_The_other_victims.html
I would have been happier had the Fire Department let me tell, first-hand, the emotional damage being called a "murderer" caused among men (and women) whose love of protecting lives sometimes causes them to sacrifice their own.
I still hope to do that.
Meanwhile, a cop who tells me he was on the scene when the community first blockaded the fire house, reports the cops were vilified, too. Neighbors played the race card, he says. White cops and mostly black residents.
I asked him if reporters there heard what he did.
He said yes.
The racial name-calling wasn't reported and (maybe) it shouldn't have been.
"We were complimented by our captain for the way we handled it," he told me, adding that he thought the media was salivating for the cops to get out of line.
That would have been a headline, without doubt.