Elmer Smith: George Fencl: 'Flexible as a rubber band, rigid as steel'

CHARLIE PATTON, who served as the late Inspector George Fencl's chief of staff, had the best description of Fencl I've ever heard.

"He was as flexible as a rubber band and as rigid as steel," the retired police lieutenant said of his old boss.

It's a great description of the temperament we look for each year when we confer the George Fencl award on one of Philadelphia's finest.

Fencl, who founded and led the Police Civil Affairs unit, had the tough job of protecting the civil rights of protesters who often dramatized their causes with loud and disruptive demonstrations.

If they stayed on the right side of the line that separates civil rights from civil disorder, Fencl was flexible enough to view traffic tie-ups and minor disturbances of the peace as legitimate protests.

But, if they breached that border, they met the man of steel.

"He had a lot of patience," Patton recalled. "When that ran out, you got locked up.

"But we even did that the right way. I remember a protester from the Jewish Defense League who told me 'at least you guys lock us up with dignity.' "

It wasn't always reciprocated.

"We spent a lot of time standing, sometimes in rain or snow while the people we were protecting were calling us pigs," Patton recalled.

"But we'd stand our ground until George said 'lock 'em up.' "

First time I saw Fencl up close was in the mid-'70s in City Hall. Milton Street culminated one of his housing protests with a raucous disruption of a City Council legislative session.

I marveled at how far Fencl and his men allowed the staged protest to go before Fencl finally nodded to his men to move in. As the cameras rolled, they collected Milton and deposited him just outside Council chambers. Nobody went to jail that day.

"He knew a lot of those guys," Joan Fencl said of her late husband. "We would get a call at home and it would be Cecil Moore or Georgie Woods."

Moore, the late civil-rights lawyer and former city Council member, and Woods, the late activist and radio personality, headed the protests that led to the integration of Girard College.

Fencl was one of a kind. But his kind of cop can be found in every district on every detail. It may be that beat cop who could have arrested your son for a minor infraction but gave him that one last chance we all sometimes need.

Sometimes it's an encounter just after that last chance that distinguishes a Fencl winner.

Twelfth District Patrolman Dannie Percell, a 2006 Fencl finalist, recalled a conversation with a young man whom he had arrested years earlier while on patrol near John Bartram High School.

"Hey I'm getting married and I have a great job," the young man told him. "I'm so glad you locked me up."

Percell came in second that year to patrol officer Annamae Law, who did her best to help the drug addicts and prostitutes on her beat in Kensington.

"I try to help them," she said. "But sometimes incarceration is good for them."

Law, who left a career in health care to become a cop, would sometimes warn prostitutes on her beat about getting into the wrong cars.

"I feel that with the proper help and direction," she said "I can possibly save a few."

Fencl nominees come to our attention sometimes because of their off-duty work. We hear about cops who spend their own money and time backing the causes and people that they believe in.

But they don't come to our attention unless you take the time to say a few words about them in a written nomination and mail it to our public editor, Lorenzo Biggs, by Apil 30th.

Lorenzo is usually as rigid as steel when it comes to deadlines. But he can be as flexible as a rubber band if you're a little late.

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith