The Philadelphia LGBT Police Liaison Committee got a visit from the city’s top cop last week.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey was the guest speaker at the committee’s March 8 meeting at the William Way LGBT Community Center, and reviewed the department’s current and future plans for LGBT inclusion and sensitivity.
The committee reported to Ramsey the success of its most recent LGBT diversity training, late last month, with the incoming class of freshman officers.
Ramsey noted that the city’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan will claim 600 officers in 2014 and 2015, and that the mayor recently unveiled plans to hire 400 new officers in the coming years, so the training will be integral.
“We’re going to have a lot of new people who are going to need this training, so this is a great opportunity to reach all of these new officers,” Ramsey said. “We have a gay community across the entire city, and the officers need to be aware of that, and they need to understand and recognize hate crimes and ensure that they’re being documented correctly.”
An overview of hate-crimes law and procedure is currently included in police academy training and in occasional retraining for veteran officers, Ramsey said.
In order to heighten awareness of LGBT issues among experienced officers, Ramsey invited the liaison committee to produce a condensed version of the video they present at their diversity training to be shown during roll-call training at the districts, which the committee pledged to create.
Applications for the new class of police cadets, which the department sought to recruit from the LGBT community, are due March 16, and Ramsey noted the requirements this year were a departure from previous years.
Applicants must now be over 21, have 60 college credits — or certain previous police or military experience — and have had their driver’s license for at least three years. The residency requirement was also removed, so recruits do not need to live in Philadelphia.
However, “laterals” — those who are already working as police officers in other departments — can still only come from the state of Pennsylvania, which Ramsey said the department is working to change.
“We need to expand our base as much as possible,” he said. “Other departments are doing it and it’s very competitive.”
The committee raised the question of a Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, which would be comprised of LGBT department members to raise awareness about the community within the force and serve as an outlet for the community.
Ramsey spearheaded the creation of a GLLU when he was at the helm of Washington, D.C.’s department, but said Philadelphia’s police force is in a different position.
“At that time, D.C. had a very serious problem within the police force in how people were being treated,” he said. “There was complaint after complaint, I had to have regular meetings with officers, they weren’t reporting hate crimes. It was just a really bad situation. Philadelphia just doesn’t have those same kind of issues.”
With a slashed budget, Ramsey noted he will also have to be cutting specialized units like a GLLU. If, however, tensions were to rise like they did in D.C., he said he would consider working with officers to create such a group.
Ramsey also took questions from committeemembers about ongoing issues such as the stalled plan for a police-operated surveillance camera at 13th and Locust streets. Commiteemember Rick Lombardo briefed the commissioner on the plan, which he said has been held up in the Managing Director’s Office, and Ramsey said he would look into the matter.
However, he noted that the police camera system has been “disappointing.”
“There have been problems with the wireless networking, with the wiring — a high percentage are just not working,” he said. “The program has been not good throughout the city.”
He said the department is relying more steadily on private surveillance cameras, especially those registered with the city.
“The business and private cameras are playing a larger and larger role in fighting crime,” he said. “We’re relying more and more on the private cameras and if we have them registered, it’s so much easier for investigators. If a camera captured an incident or maybe an escape route, it saves us so much time if the cameras are mapped.”
The commissioner and the committee also commended Deputy Commissioner Stephen Johnson, LGBT liaison, on his first year in the position, and the committee discussed organizational plans, such as growing its membership.
Those interested in joining the committee can learn more at www.facebook.com/lgbtpoliceliaison.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].