Heard In The Hall

JUST ANOTHER DAY ON THE FORCE

What did we ever do before Operation Safe Streets?

That, at least, is the question the promoters of the Police Department's
new anti-open-air drug-dealing patrols would like you to ask.

In June, police patrolling in South Philadelphia delivered a four-pound
baby boy who refused to wait until his mother got to the hospital.

The reason that officers were near enough to heed the calls of the frantic
father? Safe Streets, we were told.

The same month, police captured some fleeing suspects in Logan after a
woman reported that the men had raped her in a drug house. As an added
bonus, the officers found a murdered body in the basement of the house. The
officers who responded? Assigned to Safe Streets.

And then, last week, when little Erica Pratt escaped from her captors, a
girl pedaled her bicycle to alert nearby police officers who were assigned
to - you guessed it - Safe Streets.

All of this makes us wonder: Didn't officers deliver babies, capture
violent criminals, and come to the aid of little girls before this program?

Clea Benson