Philadelphia cops beat up protesters, while letter looters run amok, and businesses burn down

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Mark Crispin Miller

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Jun 16, 2020, 1:11:25 AM6/16/20

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Kudos to the Philadelphia Inquirer for investigating that schizoid

"disorganized response," which was evident all over the US.

MCM

"This failure left, in its wake, wounded protesters, bystanders, and officers, scores of damaged

businesses, and inflamed tensions between police and community residents. And it raised critical

questions about the new police commissioner’s control of the department — deepening the stakes

of a growing national debate over the role police play in society.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/a/philadelphia-police-overwhelmed-protests-city-leaders-george-floyd-20200611.html

‘Sir, it’s chaos!’

Critical mistakes doomed the police response to Philly’s George Floyd demonstrations.

by David Gambacorta, Mike Newall, Jeremy Roebuck and Chris Palmer, Updated: June 12, 2020

The voices over police radio were growing frantic.

What had started calmly at noon on May 30, with large groups of protesters marching peacefully through Center City Philadelphia, had given way by 4 p.m. to throngs of demonstrators converging on City Hall and the Municipal Services Building.

Some chanted and waved signs, demanding justice for George Floyd, the unarmed 46-year-old black man who had been killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis. Others threw bottles of urine and chemicals that, according to police reports, left some officers hospitalized. Still more tried to pull down the bronze statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo, for many a painful reminder of the city’s history of police brutality. Police cruisers were engulfed by flames, sending plumes of smoke into the sky.

Cops moved in with batons.

2:41

INQUIRER STAFF

Police radio recordings and footage from the day show how Philadelphia police lost control of the city's George Floyd protests.

Blocks away, a handful of police officials stood in a command center inside Police Headquarters, where they tried to call in reinforcements and improvise a way out of a deteriorating situation.

“Sir, it’s chaos!” one police official shouted over the radio. “We need so many more at MSB.”

This was the beginning of a wave of unrest that had not been witnessed in the city since the height of the civil rights era — and a new reckoning over systemic racism and continued brutality by police.

Just a day earlier, department leaders considered a comprehensive plan that devoted significantly more personnel to managing crowds on a day of large protests — an approach that the city had successfully relied on for a decade.

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Instead, The Inquirer has learned, they chanced getting through the protest with minimal staffing.

The chaos of that initial day of protest — detailed in hours of radio recordings and hundreds of pages of police reports, along with interviews with police officials and witnesses — would bring the city to a standstill. The department’s fumbled planning would bleed into the next two days, leading to a disorganized response.