Ubiñas: SWAT officers put guns in kids' hands

YOU HAVE TO give Philadelphia police officers credit for attending Fox Chase Community Night Out, part of a national anti-violence event to fight crime.

And it's no surprise that the uniformed SWAT cops came armed with a few "toys" to attract residents to their table - a police van, a helmet, a couple of bulletproof vests.

But when one of the toys is a semiautomatic rifle, you have to be stunned at the imprudence of putting the gun in the hands of children.

Marion Brown certainly was. Besides being a Fox Chase resident, Brown is a co-coordinator of a local chapter of Heeding God's Call, a faith-based movement to prevent gun violence. In a city with so many shooting deaths, the concerned citizen was more than a little taken aback when she saw children holding the gun.

She didn't want to make a scene; she was glad to see the officers there. So she discreetly asked the officers if the gun was loaded. They told her it wasn't. And then she asked if they thought it was such a good idea to let the kids pose with the gun like it was some toy.

The parents wanted pictures of their kids with the gun, the officers told her. And sure enough adults are seen smiling and looking on in the photos she took.

Despite her feelings on that, what really bothered Brown was that, as she watched, she didn't hear the officers offer the kids any warnings or advice about handling guns.

"Not once did I hear the officers say anything like, 'This is not a toy,' or, 'Never point a gun at another person.' " As far as she could see, there was no gun-safety literature provided either.

The next day, Aug. 6, Brown emailed her concerns to Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and the commander of SWAT, Capt. Winton Singletary.

"I have great respect for Philadelphia police and the dedicated people in blue who work to keep our neighborhoods safe," she wrote. "But it is inappropriate use of our tax dollars [and] police resources to arm children with playful ideas about assault weapons." Especially, Brown said, in a city with so much gun violence. And just weeks before a 9-year-old shooting an Uzi in Arizona accidently killed her instructor.

A month later, she was still waiting for a response. So I called Lt. John Stanford, a department spokesman.

Stanford was quick to point out that in the photos the gun never left the hands of the highly trained SWAT officers. He also said that he was told that they had earlier shared gun-safety lessons with the children.

"However, hindsight is 20/20," Stanford said. "Bottom line is, we will not be doing that type of interaction like that in terms of allowing the kids to do photo-ops with our officers with the guns. While one set of parents are there and they want their kids to do that, we can see how someone else might have a different view of that."

After my conversation with Stanford, Brown said Singletary contacted her and told her essentially the same thing. He also told her that he had verbally instructed his officers not to put guns in children's hands again.

Brown said she appreciated the call, although she said she wished the officers had continued to speak to the children about gun safety as they posed for pictures with the weapon. But the more she thought about her conversation with Singletary, the more unhappy she became with how he handled it.

"They need a written directive and we, the public . . . need a copy of the written policy stating that the police will not put automatic weapons in children's hands," she said.

A written directive would be good.

Some common sense would be even better.

Phone: 215-854-5943

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