In city's busiest police district, walking the beat with a rookie cop

OFFICERS Josh Daniels and Arne Vaughn were pounding the pavement on Frankford Avenue, nodding and talking with passers-by, when a kid toting an iced coffee bigger than his forearm walked right up to them.

"It's free-coffee day," he proudly told the officers, before running to catch up with his friends.

Later encounters were less benign: A woman fearing for her safety at home; a group of high schoolers reeling from a violent robbery.

The interactions had one thing in common: Panicked people had sought out the two officers - and had gone away considerably more calm.

That approachability is one of the goals of the Police Department's unprecedented recent decision to infuse the 15th District, which stretches from Frankford to Mayfair, with 30 rookie officers - including Daniels.

The 15th District is a behemoth, covering a sizable chunk of Northeast Philadelphia. It's also the most densely populated district and the busiest: It routinely records the highest number of calls made to police citywide.

As a result, the district's ranks were stretched thin, leading to a frustrating delay in service: Officers coming in for shifts later in the day often found a backlog of 50 to 60 unresolved complaints, according to Capt. John McCloskey, commander of the 15th.

Part of the problem, he said, is the diversity of the district: Its southern portion, covering Frankford and parts of Wissinoming, fields more calls for aggravated assault, robbery and other violent crimes, to which the officers on duty give priority.

That leaves callers in the north, including Mayfair, frustrated when their reports of domestic disturbances and quality-of-life crimes go unnoticed for hours.

Earlier this year, civic groups in the 15th started an online petition calling for change. By midsummer, it had hundreds of signatures and the support of Councilman Bobby Henon.

Last month, Daniels walked into the headquarters of the 35th District - which covers Olney, Logan and surrounding areas - and found, to his surprise, that he'd been reassigned.

"I had just learned the ins and outs of my first district, and now I have to start all over again," Daniels, 26, told a reporter as the rookie cop's foot beat took him past the emergency room of Aria Health's Frankford hospital.

The Temple University grad has been on the force a little less than a year, and is loving every minute of it.

Even as he was growing up in "farm country outside of Pottstown," Daniels said, he knew he wanted to be a police officer, to help people.

When he took a ride-along with a family friend who's an officer in Chester, he was hooked.

He tested into Philly's Police Academy, and after graduation he was sent to the 35th. It was a culture shock, but the foot beat he walked there turned out to be the perfect training for his move to the 15th.

"We're just trying to make a difference, but people don't always want to help," he said. "When we don't get cooperation, it can be frustrating, but you learn how to work with people."

Minutes later, Daniels had a chance to put that wisdom into practice.

Just feet from the Frankford Transportation Center, on Frankford Avenue near Bustleton, Daniels and Vaughn - a seven-year veteran of the 15th - were approached by a distraught woman.

"Please, I need some advice. I don't know what to do," she said, throwing her arms up in frustration.

A friend she let stay in her home - "I didn't want him to stay on the street," she said - is addicted to PCP, a powerful hallucinogen, she said.

Now, he wouldn't leave, and she was scared.

"I don't know what he's capable of," she said.

Daniels and Vaughn took time to listen to her story, then coached her through the process of getting a restraining order, even providing directions on how to get to the proper office using public transportation.

But more importantly, they calmed her down: By taking five minutes out of their patrol, they let her know that what her options were, and how to keep herself safe.

Not long after that, they repeated the process.

A lanky teen with a scraped knee approached the officers, telling them that an older teen had snatched his iPhone and thrown him to the ground.

Daniels and Vaughn took statements from the victim and his friends, pausing to reassure one of the witnesses that although she wasn't in trouble, she did have to go the district office to give a statement.

And, with a smile on his face, Daniels told the witnesses' panicked mother the same thing when the teen handed him her cellphone.

Daniels and his colleagues were shuffled into the 15th on Sept. 1. Since then, according to McCloskey, his daily backlog has all but disappeared.

And that's good news to Henon.

"One thing we know is that the bad guys are going to do bad things, no matter how many officers you have," Henon said, "but now we're in a better position to deter some of that activity."

Henon applauds McCloskey and the department's leadership for the decision, but is still an advocate for an additional, more extreme measure - splitting the 15th into two districts.

"This is not a new idea, and it's one that has been getting a lot of support," he said, referring to the online petitions.

"Our officers do the best they can with the resources they're given, and we need to make that job easier for them."