National TV grills Nutter, Ramsey on police beatings

The late night capture of the last suspect wanted in the killing of a Philadelphia police sergeant was overshadowed this morning as national television news focused on the unrelated beatings of three African-American suspects by at least dozen white policemen.

Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey were grilled on CNN American Morning, ABC's Good Morning America, and MSNBC's Morning Joe about the beating captured Monday night by a Fox29 news helicopter.

"The citizenry here are very upset about this sergeant being shot down - virtually assassinated on Saturday," Nutter said on GMA. "So the entire city has a certain amount of tension to it."

Dawayne Dyches, 24, Brian Hall, 23 and Pete Hopkins 19, were stopped by police after a brief chase. Several people had been injured in the drive-by shooting which was witnessed by a police surveillance team. Police pursued the car to the 4500 block of Fourth Street and dragged the occupants out of the vehicle.

Six Philadelphia officers have been removed from street duty while the incident is being investigated.

Last night, police arrested Eric DeShawn Floyd, the man wanted in connection with the Saturday killing of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. Floyd, 33, was found shortly after 11 p.m. hiding out with his girlfriend in an abandoned house in Southwest Philadelphia. He surrendered without incident.

The morning television hosts seemed to be largely unaware that tensions in the city have been at a fever pitch since Saturday when Sgt. Liczbinski was killed trying to apprehend several men who held up a Port Richmond bank inside a ShopRite supermarket.

CNN's John Roberts demanded to know if the Philadelphia police department had "a race relations problem." Roberts linked a KKK poster found in an officers locker earlier this year to Monday night's beating.

"This (the beating) has nothing to do with race, and more to do with crime," Nutter replied. He pointed out that a police surveillance team had witnessed the three suspects gun down several people in a drive by shooting minutes before in the city's Feltonville section.

Nutter offered no excuses. He called the beatings "not acceptable."

But he asked MSNBC's Mike Brzenzinksi and viewers not to "rush to judgement."

As he left a morning press conference at FOP headquarters, Nutter commented on his interviews with the national media.

"They're coming in on the tail end of things," Nutter said. "To them it's just one more story. But you can't understand what's happening in this city unless you look at what happened on Saturday and Sunday.

"That's not a justification for what the officers did," Nutter continued. "But that was an anomaly. The incident is not representative of what the department is all about."

Nutter was at the FOP for a ceremony marking a large donation from the Black Elected Officials to a fund for families of fallen city police officers.

During the ceremony, State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (D-12) praised the person who tipped police to where Floyd was hiding.

"In a city known for t-shirts that say 'Don't Snitch,' somebody told the truth," Williams said. "Somebody had the courage to pick up the phone."

Nutter said he did not know know the identify of the tipster was or how much of the $125,000 reward the tipster might receive.

Floyd's girlfriend, who has not been named by police, will be charged with criminal offenses, Nutter said.

"Any person who who harbored or abetted this fugitive can expect to be prosecuted," he said.

Nutter said he felt "anger and disgust" last night as he met Floyd at police headquarters.

"I wanted to see the person who had done this," he said. "It's a disgrace."

He said a "serious message" needed to be sent.

"Stop shooting each other," Nutter pleaded. "Everyone may not have had a storybook childhood," he said, adding that a rocky up-bringing was no excuse for killing another human being.

"Get over it," he said.

Nutter called himself the least of Floyd's problems.

"His whole life is done," he said.

On the morning talk shows, Ramsey said the beating of the three suspects on Monday was not a common occurance.

"We have 6,700 members on the city police force," Ramsey said to CNN's John Roberts. "Occasionally we have someone engaging in conduct we're not especially proud of. It happens in any large organization.

Ramsey said the beating should be placed in context.

"We're going through a difficult time this week," Ramsey said.

A Fox29 television camera was filming from above as a dozen officers kicked and hit the men with batons.

"There's nothing in our policy that allows kicking individuals and taking them into custody this way," Ramsey told ABC's Good Morning America.

GMA host Chris Cuomo called attention to one portion of the video tape in which an officer is seen shuttling between two suspects to deliver kicks to each.

Nutter cautioned against making snap judgments.

"None of the three of us were out there," Nutter said, addressing Cuomo. "The video doesn't tell us everything. We don't know what was in that officer's mind."