The story also notes the following…
An officers' union scheduled an unusual no-confidence vote next month in an effort to oust him. Timoney said he will formally ask the city manager, to whom he reports, and the city's ethics board to determine if he did anything wrong.And in case you were wondering, no, the no-confidence vote isn’t solely over what were apparently free rides in an SUV…
The chief also said there were issues other than the SUV involved in the union decision to hold a no-confidence vote, which he labeled as politically motivated. (Union treasurer William) Scarola acknowledged that the SUV was "a catalyst" among officers who have chafed under rules they perceive as limiting their discretion and treating them as "guilty until proven innocent" in disciplinary matters.This is par for the course with Timoney, by the way; by that I mean that he knocks heads together to get police to abide by his way of doing the job, and when things go bad at a certain point, the long knives come out.
On the one hand, Timoney gets results, I give him that; his famous “bike patrols” during his time as Philadelphia police commissioner resulted in at least temporary crime deterrence, and they also publicized him through photo-ops printed obligingly by area newspapers. And though there are many fine men and women in law enforcement, there are at least a few in need of Timoney’s tough measures.
On the other hand, when things blow up with Timoney, they do so in a big way. In New York City, he criticized Howard Safir, the successor to his former boss, police commissioner William Bratton (he keeps coming up, as he did here and here), calling Safir a “lightweight,” and that led to Timoney’s dismissal. In Philadelphia, he rounded up everyone in sight (tear gassing a few in the process) during the 2000 Republican National Convention held in Philadelphia; this tells of the 2004 trial that acquitted the last three activists held on charges, and yes, I recall those detained for possessing “instruments of crime” such as cell phones and handheld data organizers (I have not been able to determine the cost of the litigation surrounding these incidents, but I’m sure it is exorbitant).
His handling of the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia (as well as the World Economic Forum in New York City, in which he worked as a security consultant) made Timoney attractive to Miami with the Free Trade of the Americas Summit upcoming in that city (along with the attendant legacy of police corruption in every department inherited by Timoney), and I recall that the bike patrols returned in that area also for a time.
I should probably detest Timoney, but part of me doesn’t. As I said, he gave us results, which was important to me as a one-time Philadelphia taxpayer, though he did so by trampling on civil rights of legitimate protestors on occasion. And you have to be a special type of a person to work on a police force in a major city in this country, knowing that the flow of guns to criminals will proceed unabated as more join their ranks due to missed opportunities in education, joblessness, and the easy availability of drugs (among other factors). We’re basically talking about what is, in many ways, a losing battle.
Also, Timoney has dealt with family troubles, including the fact that his son was nabbed in a pot bust two years ago. This and other incidents in Timoney’s personal life were discussed in Elsa Walsh’s fine profile of him in The New Yorker last March, which I can’t link to online, unfortunately (adding to the narrative of Timoney’s life and career, which represents a Greek tragedy in many ways, I guess).
I will await the outcome of the no-confidence vote, along with everyone else, and hope that Timoney make it. If he goes down, though, I hope a more substantive case is made against him than the fact that he took some free rides in a fresh “whip.”
Update 9/5: Timoney has brass ones for standing up to the FOP, as he does here.
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