Tougher tactics, lofty goals

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey yesterday unveiled a crime-fighting strategy that aims to achieve lofty goals in his first year - 100 fewer homicides and a 20 percent cut in violent crimes - by shifting a relatively small number of officers onto street duty.

To increase visibility, the new commissioner wants to put 200 more officers in uniformed patrols by May 1 in the city's nine most crime-infested police districts - a 5 percent increase in patrol officers.

He also called for more aggressive policing, including more frequent use of "stop-and-frisk" tactics with the aim of confiscating 5 percent more illegal weapons this year.

While Ramsey will disband a 46-officer tactical unit created by his predecessor, he wants to establish a "mobile force" unit of 70 officers working weekend overtime shifts in the nine targeted districts during the summer.

The former Washington police chief called for a substantial increase in surveillance cameras by the end of the year, from 26 to 250.

"There's nothing fancy about the plan," Ramsey said at a news conference at the Wachovia Center, where he was joined by Mayor Nutter. "This isn't Batman and Robin suddenly coming out of a cave somewhere to solve all our problems."

Ramsey, who presented the plan privately to City Council and about 700 police officers before the news conference, did not estimate its cost, but the mayor said the price was not a factor. "I can assure you the items in the plan are more than affordable," Nutter said.

"It's pretty much just back-to-the-basics policing," said John J. McNesby, president of Lodge Five of the Fraternal Order of Police. He said rank-and-file officers greeted the plan with relief after hearing rumors since November.

"Now we can focus," McNesby said. "The Police Department has been more reactive than proactive. Now it looks like we're going to get things done."

While no single element of the plan appears dramatic, the 26-page document establishes ambitious goals and conveys a new urgency in a city where crime rates have increased in four of the last five years, and crimes are less likely to be solved. Perhaps the biggest difference is Ramsey's style and tone, especially when compared to his predecessor, Sylvester M. Johnson, a media-shy 43-year veteran who was uncomfortable ruffling feathers.

"Not to criticize the past commissioner, he was a good man, but sometimes fresh thinking can bring new results," McNesby said, pointing to Ramsey's pledge to improve broken equipment and decrepit district offices.

"We are serious about policing. We are serious about public safety," said Nutter, who said he was not worried about raising public expectations too far.

"They've been too low, too long," the mayor said.

Ramsey's approach contrasts most starkly with Johnson's on the issue of "stop-and-frisk."

While Johnson was reluctant to expand use of the more aggressive tactic, Ramsey and Nutter have embraced it. Ramsey said his staff was preparing training videos to instruct officers on conducting the searches legally and respectfully.

"We're really looking at doing this the right way, not alienating the community," Ramsey said.

Nutter compared Philadelphia with New York, where homicides and violent crime have decreased 75 percent since 1990 partly because the city's police became more aggressive. "We have to set the same standards for ourselves here," the mayor said.

In a departure from a campaign promise he had made, Nutter said he no longer saw a need to declare a formal crime emergency, which would allow police to impose more restrictive curfews and limits on public gatherings. At his inaugural, the mayor issued a symbolic crime emergency.

Ramsey's plan also did not incorporate Nutter's campaign promise to add 500 new officers at a cost of $130 million over five years. Nutter said yesterday that it was "still my commitment to stand by the pledge," but that the cost would have to fit into the budget.

In recent weeks, Ramsey made it clear he wanted to put more of the department's 6,600 officers into street patrols in high-crime areas. He said about 57 percent of the force was now assigned to uniformed patrols - including elite units such as the Highway Patrol - and he wants to increase it to 60 percent.

Ramsey said the new officers would be sent to the nine police districts responsible for most of the city's violent crimes: the 12th, 18th and 19th Districts in the Southwest Division; the 14th, 35th and 39th Districts in the Northwest Division; the 15th District in the Northeast; the 22d District in North Philadelphia; and the 25th District in the East Division. About 114 of the 200 new officers that Ramsey will deploy are rookies scheduled to graduate from the Police Academy in April.

About 46 officers would be freed for district patrols after Ramsey disbands the elite Strategic Intervention Tactical Enforcement team, created in 2006 to flood violent areas at night. Technically, those officers already are involved in uniformed patrols in high-crime districts.

In Washington, where Ramsey was chief from 1998 to 2006, he redeployed 400 officers in his first year on a force about half the size of Philadelphia's department. At the time, only about a third of the Washington force was assigned to uniformed patrols.

Ramsey achieved dramatic crime reductions, but it took most of his nine years to bring the rates down to levels that approximate Philadelphia's worst years. In Philadelphia, Ramsey hopes to achieve similar reductions much more quickly. His goal is to reduce homicides by 25 percent by the end of this year. The city recorded 392 murders last year, 14 fewer than in 2006.

He also wants to increase the homicide clearance rate to 65 percent. Last year, arrests were made in less than 60 percent of homicides. In 2006, the rate was 51 percent, the lowest in the last four decades that the FBI recorded clearance rates.

Ramsey said that the 14 police districts not targeted for the new deployments would not be shortchanged. Those districts will not lose any officers, he said. He also plans to redeploy 10 percent of the administrative staff on a rotating basis to work primarily in the less-dangerous districts.

City Councilman Brian J. O'Neill is a Republican whose Far Northeast district won't be a beneficiary of a heavier police presence, but he nevertheless supported Ramsey's plan.

"I'm confident he gets it, and that in time we will see better staffing and more intelligent policing," O'Neill said, praising Ramsey's pledge to conduct more neighborhood police patrols, including on bicycles and Segways.

In an appendix to his plan, Ramsey promised to hire the Police Executive Research Forum, a respected Washington organization of police chiefs, to conduct an independent review of the department's policies, procedures and training on deadly force.

Nutter asked Ramsey to examine the department's policies in response to public outcry after officers killed three civilians early this month.

Ramsey said there was no need to rewrite the department's policy on deadly force - it is already more strict than required by state law. Instead, the department will improve training to reduce the number of incidents in which officers feel compelled to pull the trigger.

Ramsey suggested devoting less time to marksmanship training and more time to preparing officers to deal with confrontations before shots are fired. He wants the department to acquire additional firearm shooting simulators and an indoor range.

Ramsey promised to work with District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham to study ways to speed up the reviews of officer-involved shootings, which sometimes take years to resolve.