Ramparts August 1971
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1 ." ~l; ""' 2 , ~ 3 Indeed he would have, leaving a trail of quotes and half- MonQay morning at six, the police staged a series of raids charges hanging in the air for the ever-present mob of re- on three Panther headquarters in separate sections of the porters, who would dutifully trot back to typewriter Of tele- city. Rizzo had alerted the press-as he usually did in such vision studio, carrying Rizzo's double-negatives (an "earthy cases-and representatives of papers and tel~vision statioQs man," they called him) and deep voice into the row-homes rode with the police. of the working-class neighborhoods and the neat semi-sub- Rizzo claimed that an informant had told him of arms urbs of the city's residential Northeast section. It was there caches in tpe Panther headquarter~ as a way of justifying a and in the middle-class Irish and working-class Italian raid oh one of the Panther. he{ldquarters, where reportedly neighborhqods of Kensington and South Philadelphia that the police choppeQdown the d~or and then announced their Rizzo's strength was so great. presence. Rizzo claimed he had "tons and tons" of prob- able cause for the raids. "Don't we have ~he right to defend I T WAS TO BE EXPECTED. Ther~ was-as the Democrat- ourselves?" he asked. "Must we use a double-standard on ic City Chairman, Peter Camiel, so casually said on them because they're Panthers? These people are dan- election nig:ht-only .one m.ajor issue in the mayqralty gerous to the city and the country." race. And Frank RiZZO didn't have tq say a word about it, because the issue was law-and-order. In Philadel- phia this has a v~ry simple definition-it me~ns no riots R zzO NEVERi EX~LAINED THAT THE Panthers actual- from the black and Spanish-speaking residents; it means ly were a different group from the "revolution- containing problems of minority residents; it means keep- aries" he had originally ~laimed were responsible ing the blacks and browns out of white neighborhoods; and for the death of the police sergeant on Saturday itmilitants means stiflingand activists. any individuality . or dissent from longhairs, night. But this would have been an academic point in the weird series of events that continued during that chaotic Camiel said that Rizzo represented the "father image" to week. the people from the neighborhoods, that he gave them a RizzQ held several press conferences, referring to the Pan- sense of security, that at this time in the city's history (in thers as "yellow dogs," 'Imbeciles," and challenging them to the country's too) with so much change, so much turmoil, send their best men against fewer of his best for a shootout Frank Rizzo would somehow keep things safe and simple. an~here and anytime. During one of the raids, a number Ignored by Camiel and Mayor James Tate, also a Rizzo fol- of Panthers were lined up against a wall by police and lower, and the poWerful Democratic machine was the fact forced to strip. News photographers were invited to record that violent crime in Philadelphia was triple that of the the scene, and Rizzo was quoted as saying, "Imagine the big urban rate (up 19 percent) between 1969 and 1970, that Black Panthers with their pants down." drug traffic in the city was desperate, and that the police "~t's sedition, it's treasqn," Rizzo said during a press department had J:ecently released statistics showing that conference. "We're con{ronted by a revolution, this is no crime~as overwhelmin~ly committed by black upon black. longer crime. It must be stopped, even if we have to change Between January 1, 1969, and June 30, 1970, 77 per- some laws to do it. ...It's happening in New York, in Chi- ~ent of the murder victims were black or of Spanish-spea~- cago, on 1he We~t Coast. This is well-planned, well-organ- ing descent. B:lacks and Pu~rto Ricans committed 82 per- ized. It's centrally controlled. They want to overthrow the cent of the murders. During the same period 89 percent of government, and the government is doirig nothing about it. the rape victims were either black or Puerto Rican, as were The federal government has got to act. It's gone beyond the 69 percent of the victims of aggravated assault and battery. police. LOcal government can't do it. We're bound by the Frank Rizzo really solidified his strength in Philadelphia rules of the U .S. Supreme Court. These imbeciles who ar~ and tqok qver the bogus law-and-order issue during two doing the killing are instructed by the Black Panthers. tense wee~s last summer at the end of August when the They're set off by the trash tbat the Panthers ~re putting out city wa~ preparing for the Revolutionary 1>eople'sCongress under the guise of newspapers. ..." which ~helocal press so graciously translated into the "Black Later in the week, when Rizzo arrived at the scene of a Pan~her Conveiltipn." A week before the congress was to non-related shooting in an all-white neighborhood, he was convene, a polic~ sergeant was ~hot and killed in an iso- cheered by 200 persons who urged him to run for Mayor. lated guard house in the remote Cobb~ Creek section of the That weekenq, as the Revolutionary People's Con$!ess was city. The next night, a Sunday, two police officers were convening, a plane carrying a "Rizzo for Mayor" banner wounded in another shooting incident. As the tension be- fl;ew past the New Jersey shore areas where many white came stifling, Rizzo was suddenly all over the papers and Philadelphians spend their summers. In Camden, New Jer- television screen talkin~ of "revolutionary" plots to assassi- sey, a printer said h~ could not supply all the requests for nate policemen. Later, of course, it wquld be seen that i,Rizzo for Mayor" bumperstickers. This fever continued there was no connection between the first shooting on sat- until February 2 when RizzQ finally announced his candida- urday evening and the second on Sunday. But for a while, cy at a press conference in the police administration build- Rizzo was able to make the fear of a "plot" real and in ing. Rizzo promised an open campaign s9 that Philadelphia Philadelphia, mainly through ignorance, any black man would know his exact position on all issues. "There will be with a "natural" bair style was regarded as a Tevolutionary no glib talk from Frank Rizzo,'! he said. and a threat to the peace. The Panthers thus became the Two months later, he still had not spoken before a plack prime suspects in the collective mind of the city and its or a moderately liberal audience. And if he did later in the police department. campaign, it was a greater secret than a CIA operation. It 28 RAMPARTS 4 was only during the final weeks of the campaign that his number 12," Rizzo said, stamping his foot on the floor in a staff began sending out sterile, uninformative "position City Hall corridor. "And that guy ain't walking right to- papers," day." Rizzo followed that with an imitation of a man un- able to walk correctly. I T WAS AN EASY WIN FOR RIZZO. Three liberal can- And then there was the time at a Philadelphia Press Asso- didates, Bill Green, the U.S. congressman; Hardy ciation dinner when Rizzo recognized one of the waiters as Williams, the black Pennsylvania assemblyman; and a young man who had been invo,lved in some racial prob- the former city councilman David Cohen destroyed lems at a South Philadelphia high school a few months earli- themselves. Rizzo won by 49,000 votes, but the three liber- er. "Just about the time we'd get them settled down, he'd be al candidates polled 483 more votes than the former police out stirring up again," Rizzo said. "So this one day, I called commissioner. him over, got him behind a paddy wagon and gave him Rizzo's campaign was classic. "Pornography is so bad two quick shots to the gut. He didn't make any more you can't take the family to the movies," was one of his speeches after that." stock lines. Another was "We've got men riding in one-man Frank Rizzo's Republican opponent in the mayoralty patrol cars where you need a marine division." And then race is another former city councilman, Thacher Long- there was the familiar, "All you have to do to get a job on streth, a former Princeton football player, and a former the school board is to be a militant. Scream outside the ad- President of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Long- ministration building, and they'll hire you for $20,000." streth, like Rizzo, is 50. He said he looks forward to the He spent more time at his campaign stops signing auto- campaign and feels he has an excellent chance to fuse the graphs than discussing the issues. The people, however, did liberal democrats with at least two thirds of the registered .not mind. One day in the Northeast, a man approached him and asked, "Frank, you gonna do something about the Republicans. That would give him a base of about 350,000 votes. Of course, pre-election figures tend to sound like schools?" "You bet," Rizzo said, returning to his autograph session. spring-training predictions in baseball.