Philadelphia doesn’t need a return to the bad old days of stop-and-frisk | Editorial

No matter the location or time of day, the shootings in Philadelphia just keep coming.

Beyond the devastation of the often overlooked daily shootings, this summer has seen a mass shooting on a busy Saturday night along South Street, a midday shooting on a subway platform near City Hall involving a 14-year-old suspect, an unsolved shooting of two police officers that marred the Fourth of July celebration on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and a sunrise shooting near the boathouses on Kelly Drive.

The shootings disproportionately impact young Black men, but shootings involving women have jumped 62% since 2015.

City Hall and police officials have no answers to the gun violence. Even worse, there is a shameful acceptance of a public health crisis that is cutting down young lives, traumatizing neighborhoods, and extracting an economic toll on the city that one estimate put at a half billion dollars.

In the past week, a 35-year-old man was shot and killed at a busy intersection in broad daylight near a Temple University dorm. Less than four hours later, a 13-year-old girl was shot in the head in East Germantown.

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During one 2½-week stretch this month, 43 people were murdered, leaving the city nearly on pace to match last year’s record of 562 homicides. In all, more than 1,300 people have been shot this year — an average of more than six shootings per day. On one Saturday night this month, there were nine separate shooting incidents across the city.

Obviously, something has to change. But what?

The rise in gun violence has prompted some City Council members to call for the Police Department to reexamine its stop-and-frisk policy. While the idea is well intended, it should be a nonstarter.

The Philadelphia Police Department has a long history of racial discrimination and brutality aimed at the Black and Latino communities.

In 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city, alleging police used racial profiling to illegally stop, search, and detain thousands of people. To settle the lawsuit, the Police Department agreed to collect data on all stop-and-frisks and train officers in the use of the tactic.

In the years since, the practice has continued with significant modifications — chief among them: Officers must have sound legal suspicions to make stops. As a result, the number of stops has fallen precipitously: In 2015, police made nearly 400,000 pedestrian stops; this year, officers are on track for about 10,000 stops.

But troubling aspects remain. An independent analysis of a decade’s worth of pedestrian stop data in 2020 found that Black Philadelphians were still 50% more likely than white Philadelphians to be stopped without reasonable suspicion. What’s more, stop-and-frisk has little impact on reducing crime. Instead, one study found the policy reduces trust in police.

In other words, stop-and-frisk doesn’t work, and only fosters the illegal practice of racial profiling. We need new ideas to address crime in Philadelphia.

The city’s recent $5.8 billion budget includes $155 million for violence prevention programs. While better than nothing, it is beyond underwhelming given the stakes.

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More alarming, an analysis by the City Controller’s Office found most of the funding for prevention programs “will likely take years to produce measurable reductions in gun violence.” Worse still, the analysis found only a paltry $33 million is earmarked for evidence-based programs that lead to short-term reductions in shootings and murders.

That is too little, too late.

Real leadership and urgency are needed to rally government, religious, nonprofit, business leaders, and residents to develop a comprehensive, evidence-based plan to reduce shootings and save lives.

Everyone should act as if their child’s life is on the line — because it is.