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Within his own ranks, Charles H. Ramsey wants to make it safe for gay and lesbian officers to be out of the closet amid a macho culture that, he acknowledges, keeps most of them in hiding.
"My goal is to create an environment where officers don't feel intimidated in any way," Ramsey said in a recent interview. "If they want to acknowledge [their sexuality], they should feel comfortable doing it."
In another trust-building initiative, Ramsey is considering launching a full-time unit dedicated to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Modeled on the pioneering, award-winning detachment he created in Washington in 2000, it would include two or three officers and a base in Center City's "gayborhood," roughly bounded by 11th, Broad, Chestnut and Pine Streets.
Many say such a unit would improve the under-reporting of hate crimes and domestic disturbances by the city's LGBT residents.
"They don't have faith that the police will do something," Ramsey says. "We want to make sure they feel comfortable telling us about any issue that needs to be addressed. . . . We need to be very sensitive to that."
Ramsey is also considering new liaison units for Asians and Hispanics.
Lt. Jacqueline Daley, an "out" lesbian and special adviser to the commissioner, and Chief Inspector Jim Tiano, a 43-year veteran, are counseling Ramsey on gay initiatives. Both serve on the commissioner's LGBT liaison committee started under John F. Timoney in 1998.
A police unit for the gay community "would be a big accomplishment for the city," says Ralph Riviello, 39, an openly gay physician at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and a committee member. "It gives us a sense of belonging, identity, recognition."
Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal, 57, labels it a win-win: "It would make gay cops feel secure as well as the gay community."
The 2002 death of popular transsexual entertainer Nizah Morris triggered tension between police and LGBT citizens.
When Morris was seen drunk and staggering outside a Center City bar, people on the street called 911 for an ambulance. Instead, a police officer arrived, canceled the call, and drove off with Morris in his patrol car.
At the time, police officials said Morris had not wanted to go to a hospital and asked to be dropped off at 15th and Walnut Streets. Minutes after the officer left her, she was found on the sidewalk, unconscious and bleeding profusely from head wounds. She died two days later.
The LGBT community protested that police had not taken Morris' condition seriously and had not sought medical treatment, per department policy. Her mother filed a civil-rights suit against the city in September 2003; it was settled the next June.
"Some gay people are unsure of how the police will respond when they find out they're gay," says Stacey Sobel, executive director of Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, an LGBT legal group. "The community needs to feel safe in coming forward and that their complaints will be treated seriously."
Hate crimes and police harassment are "drastically" under-reported here, Sobel says.
Over the next two to three years, Ramsey hopes to have all police employees take gay-sensitivity training. Currently, only new recruits do.
The commissioner insists there is zero tolerance for any kind of discrimination in his department of 6,700. He also acknowledges that unless the culture changes, gay men and lesbians will continue to be reluctant to become police officers.
"What people do in their personal lives is not important. . . . I just want good cops," Ramsey said.
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