Three cops shot in four days was the city's latest shameful headline tragedy.The third officer, officer Charles Cassidy, was shot in the head when he walked into a Dunkin' Donuts in West Oak Lane during an attempted robbery. Cassidy died the next day, making Philadelphia once again a city in mourning.
Two weeks later, two more Philadelphia police officers have been shot in the line of duty.
Yesterday, when plain clothes narcotics officers were serving an arrest warrant on an alledged drug dealer in Frankford, someone fired on them through the window, wounding the officers.
Mayor-elect Michael Nutter called the city's recent cop attacks "insane," and vowed that such lawlessness would not be tolerated. But Nutter doesn't take office until January. In the meantime, current-Mayor John Street and the police commissioner Sylvester Johnson once again called for gun reform that will never happen.
Truth is, when cops become easy targets, the city has no hope.
We have only ourselves to blame. Such brazen lawlessness is the result of our apathy. We've emboldened our criminals, starting with the six witnesses who stopped snitchin' against third grader Faheem Thomas Childs' killers; to our political weakness to pass meaningful gun reform; to our waning outrage over Cassidy's death; to the next senseless shooting.
The next day police arrested Donyea Phillips with attempted murder in the city's latest cop shooting. Phillips is only 16, and his weapon used was a stolen gun.
(Photo credit: Mike Persico)
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