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Did the cops overdo it on South Street?
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Did the cops overdo it on South Street?
On the Saturday before last (the date of the canceled Greek Weekend) Philadelphia police closed down South Street when, they say, an influx of visitors (especially teenagers) overwhelmed the street.
The Inquirer reported on Monday that South Street business owners by and large thought the cops had done a good job – although the article dealt more with police on South Street in general than with the particulars of that night.
Since then, I've gotten a few tips from people saying otherwise.
Anthony K, who works at a South Street bar, told me this story of the Friday night prior to the street shutdown:
[Police] were banging on cars, pulling people out of cars. . . . There were taxis and stuff still coming down South Street and cops were banging on the hoods of cars . . .
[The police] are normally pretty chill. It's like they had brought in the infantry, so to speak. It might have been a little busier than usual, because it was a Friday, but it just seemed like a typical weekend on South Street – certainly nothing out of the ordinary.
It was a bit after last call, it was maybe 2:20, I was still stacking up chair, I happen to see some kid fly the entire length of the French doors, just from one end to the other. I went up to the window and I saw some kid – I didn't see how escalated, but some kid just got beat up by four or five cops, he was flailing in self-defense. . . .
They literally got him between two cars and were beating on the kids – the kid wasn't even fighting, he was just flailing his arms, with five guys beating on him – then the one dude just pulled it off his belt and zapped him . . .I've never seen anything like that. They tased him, he lay there a bit, it was pretty disgusting to see – they let him lie there for a while, his girlfriend was screaming.
Susanna Martin wrote a letter to the Inquirer, and sent me the unabridged version:
I was walking down South Street a little after midnight Saturday night with a friend, and there were a lot of young people of African descent around, as usual on South St. on a Saturday night. In Monday's article, "Crowds put at 20,000 force police to close parts of South Street," a police spokesperson says that the only problems were minor, such as underage drinking and "disorderly conduct," which can apply to almost anything. The only violence I saw that night was the draconian police evacuation of South Street. They cleared the street and the sidewalks using a row of horses, including two cops on horses on each sidewalk, yelling at the young people to go up to Broad Street and shoving them along. Then at least 5 rows of cops on motorcycles cleared the street, which was extremely alarming.
I think I saw one kid get beat up by the cops and arrested, but it was unclear what was happening. It was down the block, and I was trying to get away from the cops on horses. Police on foot were chasing individual young people with nightsticks if they tried to walk down a side street away from South Street where they were being corralled. I yelled that the young people weren't doing anything wrong. I think because I'm a white woman in my late 30s, I was not arrested for yelling at the police. Everyone else was just trying to get away, very calmly I thought, as they were being chased very rudely down the public sidewalks and herded onto Broad Street.
Philebrity had an interesting take on the whole thing, too:
What kind of crazy temperature is the City running these days that this kind of buildup and conflict occurs when nothing is happening at all? And then that, of course, threw us back to something we were saying during the whole flash mob craze: Could so much of this be happening because these kids feel like Center City is somehow not for them, and that the only way they believe they can experience it is like this, en masse in a borderline riot state? And when did it become the police's job to scrub Center City of black youth on the weekends? We know they're there to protect and serve, of course, but on the news the next night, when we saw the SEPTA busses that had been rolled in to take all of these kids back home, we got a very unpleasant feeling indeed.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by IsaiahThompson, Dale Wilcox. Dale Wilcox said: Some accurate reporting about the street where I live http://citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2010/07/23/did-the-cops-overdo-it-on-south-street/ [...]
Good points, but Philebrity's been racism-bating lately for controversy. "And when did it become the police's job to scrub Center City of black youth on the weekends?" Seriously? Really? I do agree with you to a point, though, it seems to be more about fear than anything else. Then again, 20,000 teenagers in a small space during summer is never really a good idea, but neither is having a massive police presence to act as a spark for a fire. Here's my 2-cents on the thing: http://markskull.blogspot.com/2010/07/flash-mobs-violence-and-media-so-really.html I actually happened to be out there with a pal of mine that night and we got caught-up in the middle of everything. The cops were pushing everyone out, and we were annoyed, but wound up just walking up 4th Street instead towards Market. Simple.
The South Street police patrol are not a pleasant site nor are they pleasant servants. I go to Johnnie Rockets with my teenage daughters and their friends for burgers on the weekend and there are two white officers in particular that are very agitated and are either on speed or had to much coffee. You know who they are and you can find them between 3rd & 4th and South They actually pick with the young men. I am over 50 and was park at 3rd and South on a side street waiting for my daughters and her friends to return from the pizza shop. I was parked in a no park zone with my emergency lights on. The little agitated officer approach my car and say "I told you once before to move and I'm not going to tell you again" I never seen this man before and was never told any thing, I try to explain, but he insisted I move now, with a curt tone. I had to drive around the neighborhood 2x. He could have allow me a few minutes he had the authority. The South Street officers are a scary group of men who are mean, disrespectful, emotional disturb and rude. Our Philadelphia finest need to go back to school for crowd control and take some lessons from the New York Police department. New York police officers can show them how to handle a teenage crowd with dignity and respect. And in return they and their badge is respected.
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