Joel Mathis

Great Washington Post piece about Gene Gibbons, a lawyer with remarkable success in getting bad cops rehired by the same police departments that deemed them unfit for duty. The un-shocking thing? He's from Philadelphia. His origin story is a little bit unexpected, though. For Gibbons, an affable, barrel-chested man, the path to becoming an advocate for embattled police officers began when he was a teen growing up outside Philadelphia in the early 1980s.  Then 16, Gibbons was driving home in the family station wagon when a Philadelphia police officer pulled him over. Gibbons sat quietly while the officer ran his license. When he returned, the boy asked the officer why he had been stopped. Gibbons said the officer abruptly punched him in the face and told him to go home. “I was stewing mad,” he said. “The police had tremendous power.” So, naturally, he made a career of ... enabling those abuses of power. Huh. Anyway, there are lots of examples in the story of officers who had

Since it now seems to be a common theme on the right that critics of police practices enabled the (horrible, awful, only-to-be-condemned) murders of two New York cops, a question: What is a permissible level of protest regarding police activities? What is a permissible level of criticism? Are any protests or criticisms permissible, or do they by definition contribute to a lawlessness that endangers police lives and thus our civic order?

True story: I got of the Broad Street line in South Philadelphia a few years ago with a group of four or five cops right behind me. As I walked down to the Italian Market, I listened to their conversation behind me. It was gossip, but interesting gossip. Apparently a young new police officer had been assigned to one of the cushiest precincts in the city. Why? His dad was an Internal Affairs officer, and he had marched his son before the precinct's higher-ups and told them, essentially, "You take my boy or I will start vigorously investigating every complaint against officers in this district." I don't know if the story is true--I didn't think the police officers telling me the story would appreciate it if I revealed myself to be a journalist, listening in to their public conversation, so I didn't get in any follow-up questions--but the officers telling it sure seemed to think it was true. So it's good that a few Internal Affairs heads are rolling

Lawrence Crovetti, charged with promoting prostitution—the only man to face sex charges in the case. We get a bit of an explanation in today's Inquirer : John Murray, 56, of Deptford, the club's financial secretary, and Alfred Sanborn, 44, of South Philadelphia, its steward, were arrested on liquor violation charges. The two acted as bartenders during the parties, and the clubhouse did not have a liquor license, police said. Murray and Sanborn were aware of the prostitution, said Deputy Police Commissioner William Blackburn, but police did not have enough evidence to charge them with prostitution-related offenses. The dozens of men seen interacting with the women were not arrested, either. "We weren't privy to the conversations between the males and the females, where there was a price and a particular act that was identified," Blackburn said. "Our main targets were the females." The main targets were the females? Why? If the police are correc

It's been a week full of stories about the corruption of Philadelphia police , but none of that disturbed me half as much as this story about an escape attempt by accused cop killer Rasheed Scrugs. Here's John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police: John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said Scrugs "started to ramp up his antics" earlier this week when he indicated that he didn't want to appear in court. "He's a savage," McNesby said. "They should have finished him off on the street. Now we have to deal with antics." I'm just astonished. Not that McNesby would feel that way, but that he -- as one of the highest-profile cops in the city of Philadelphia -- would feel comfortable publicly advocating that police commit street executions in lieu of letting the justice system work. It's horrifying: I have to live in a city full of cops he's encouraging to behave that way. Thanks to M