February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Patrick Markey
As the Philadelphia Police Department’s commissioner, Dublin-born John Timoney has carved a slot for himself as one of America’s highest-profile law-enforcement officials.
A former leading New York police commissioner, Timoney is generally seen as a popular leader for the 7,000 officers who police the City of Brotherly Love — a leading U.S. magazine even recently praised him as America’s top cop.
But this week, Timoney is fending off a barrage of criticism after a television helicopter filmed a dozen of his officers surrounding a carjacking suspect and beating him.
The shocking broadcast images show a maul of officers — both black and white — seemingly pummeling the suspect, Thomas Jones, after they dragged him from a stolen police cruiser.
Critics quickly drew comparisons to the 1991 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. But Timoney and other Philadelphia officials have called for full investigations while appealing for calm, a direct approach experts say could save Timoney from serious political fallout.
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"What you see in the video is the rather aggressive actions of police officers. Did they go overboard? The image on the video out of context looks really bad," Timoney said.
"What you see is the final 28 seconds of a 21-minute episode," he said.
Jones was arrested last Wednesday after cops spotted his stolen car driving erratically in Northern Philadelphia. Jones crashed the car into another vehicle as police approached him. Facing off with the officers, he allegedly opened fire with a handgun, exchanging more than 40 shots. One cop was shot and injured.
With a television helicopter buzzing overhead, more than a dozen officers pulled Jones out of the car and beat and kicked him into submission after another brief car chase.
Timoney said the police internal affairs department is now examining the arrest and the shootings while the homicide squad is looking into Jones’s movements before the chase. Investigators believe Jones may have been involved in eight robberies in the days before his arrest, Timoney said.
The local district attorney’s office and federal officials are also overseeing the investigation, he said.
While acknowledging that it is difficult to assess the melee, Timoney said any officers found to have committed abuses will be investigated and prosecuted.
"Who can tell what the officers in that scrum are seeing and what those officers are seeing?" he said.
How Timoney handles this case could become a litmus test of commissioner’s political career, especially in light of persisting rumors about his return to New York or onto Washington, D.C.
Since arriving in Philadelphia in March 1998, he has instigated a wide range of reforms, bringing the department closer to the pro-active crime fighting and zero-tolerance policies he helped forge in New York with former commissioner William Bratton.
Experts in policing said that Timoney’s distinctive hands-on management style and direct approach to the damaging images would serve him well in weathering this crisis.
Professor Robert Castelli, an expert in policing policies and community relations at New York’s John Jay College, said the commissioner’s up-front approach to the incident had so far helped soothe public concerns.
That set the case apart from the Rodney King beating, which heightened tensions between the community and the L.A. Police Department, and later led to rioting and street clashes.
Soon after Jones was arrested, Timoney and Philadelphia’s mayor, John Street, held a long press conference during which they answered all the questions they could.
"They came out front to say they would do everything they could to sort it out," Castelli said. "And that is what you need to do to maintain the public trust."