Dueling News Conferences Or Double-Down Safety Message?
There's a law-enforcement tradition in Philadelphia that any reporter on the beat can predict for Dec. 31 -- District Attorney Lynne Abraham holds a news conference to discuss safety during New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations, with a special deterrence on the crazy practice of shooting guns off in the air to mark the holiday. Abraham's term ends next week so this was to be her last news conference on the topic.
Dueling News Conferences Or Double-Down Safety Message?
Chris Brennan
There's a law-enforcement tradition in Philadelphia that any reporter on the beat can predict for Dec. 31 -- District Attorney Lynne Abraham holds a news conference to discuss safety during New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations, with a special deterrence on the crazy practice of shooting guns off in the air to mark the holiday. Abraham's term ends next week so this was to be her last news conference on the topic.
Sure enough, reporters received notice yesterday that they should be at Abraham's office at "11 am sharp!" this morning to hear this annual message. That part we expected. But then Mayor Nutter's staff sent out notice four hours later, announcing that he would have a 10:30 am news conference today on the same subject with District Attorney-Elect Seth Williams and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. Nutter's City Hall office is across the street from Abraham's office but that's still cutting it a bit close.
And that has PhillyClout wondering, since Williams challenged Abraham in a bruising Democratic primary election four years ago that left a lot of bad feelings all around. Did Nutter step on the one thing you knew Lynne Abraham was going to do today with the one guy sure to draw her ire? Abraham's spokeswoman said her office knew nothing about Nutter's news conference.
Nutter spokesman Doug Oliver assured PhillyClout that nothing was amiss between the mayor and district attorney. Rather, he said, Nutter "just wanted to use this as an opportunity to underscore the message so all the news outlets have her voice, the Mayor's, the Commissioners and the DA-elect all saying the same thing."
Just shows what a piece of work Nutter is. Seth Williams will be okay until it comes out that Ramsey has been cooking the books on the crime stats. Then all hell is going to break loose.— Trident252
Follow Chris on Twitter
David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
Follow Dave on Twitter.
Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
Follow Jan on Twitter
Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
Follow Sean on Twitter
