Elmer Smith: Can we afford to keep this cop on the force?

IF OFFICER Thomas Schaffling earns one more disciplinary tour at the Roundhouse, I think he gets to stencil his name on the office door.

Schaffling, who has a talent for apprehending criminals, is now spending time apprehending folders from file cabinets while the department figures out what to do with him. Again.

Schaffling landed in limbo last week after firing shots at two patrons he had fought with in an after-hours club in Tacony. He claims they attacked him before he fired wildly at them in the streets.

He has gone from pushing people to pushing papers more than once in a career characterized by alternating acts of bravery and brutality. He might lead the league in administrative interventions. We may never know how many tax dollars have gone to compensate citizens who have had the misfortune to encounter him when he was in his cowboy- cop mode.

Last month, the city settled, likely forking over a tidy sum, after a federal court ruled that police had violated the civil rights of six people who had been maced, beaten and wrestled to the ground at a baby shower that Schaffling and his partners invaded two years ago. Two weeks after that, Schaffling and his partner pulled over two men who said that they were on their way to church. One of them said that Schaffling pointed a gun at him and threatened to blow his head off.

But Schaffling was released from desk duty and returned to the elite Strike Force South unit after an Internal Affairs probe cleared him of any wrongdoing in that alleged incident.

In March 2009, state Rep. Jewell Williams said that he witnessed Schaffling roughly handling and verbally abusing an elderly man after a questionable car stop in North Philadelphia.

Williams said that when he identified himself as a state legislator and asked to speak with a supervisor, another officer at the scene, Timothy Devlin, screamed obscenities at him, handcuffed him and threw him into the back of a police cruiser, apparently for the crime of asking to speak with a supervisor about the brutal and disrespectful way the man was handled.

Williams, who was not charged, was later released.

Schaffling's supervisors are starting to sense a trend.

"There are some issues here," Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross conceded.

"It's a challenge. We've talked to him at length. We've had a couple of investigations. But nothing has ever been sustained."

Ross was careful not to assign guilt during a pending investigation. But he was candid enough to say that Schaffling was a textbook example of a cop whose conduct on and off duty could jeopardize his career.

"You don't do a guy any favor by ignoring incidents," Ross said. "There are oversight mechanisms that can be employed if supervisors take advantage of them in time.

"Sometimes the best way to save a guy's career is to penalize or punish him."

Ross described Schaffling as "a cop who is not afraid to do his job. He's brave, very vigilant. Other cops say he's the guy they want next to them if they have to go up an alley after somebody."

That's good to know. But what distinguishes good cops is how they handle themselves that 90 percent of the time when they're not running up alleys after bad guys.

It's about providing services for law-abiding citizens who make up the bulk of the people they encounter on an average shift.

The best cops are professionals who prevent crimes by their mere presence. They know how to defuse tense situations rather than inflame them.

They may not get many medals for valor. They may never serve in elite units like Strike Force South.

But Strike Force South is short one man this month. Again.

Arbitrators who rule on questionable police conduct can usually find a loophole for a cop to slip through. But this one may not be so easy to dismiss.

Firing a gun in the street at two guys after a personal fight violates common sense and police procedure.

Fortunately, Schaffling managed to miss both men. But he endangered innocent bystanders with his recklessness. That should not be tolerated.

He may be brave and vigilant. But he is not indispensable.

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