Another Reporter Who Doesn't Get It

Melissa Dribben of The Philadelphia Inquirer, you are being paged!

In North Philadelphia, Profiling Is A fact Of Life

Since the slaying of Officer Chuck Cassidy, many black men feel targeted by police searching for the killer.

Hey Melissa, do you think maybe that's because Chuck's assassin is a black man?!

A thin, 41-year-old carpenter, Williams was hanging out yesterday afternoon on his stoop, a few blocks south of Albert Einstein Medical Center, where Cassidy was taken after being mortally wounded. He was joined by two friends, Robert Jackson and Gregory Tucker. The three men said that none of them had been stopped in the current manhunt, but that they all have felt harassed by police in the past.

"They run up on you for any reason," Williams said.

This is a great point. When I heard Chuck was killed, the first thing I thought of was "Awesome. Now we can go hassle young black men for no apparent reason. Hell, if we're lucky, maybe we'll get some stick time on their skulls." Mr. Williams, you are an idiot. Of course, The Inquirer seems to be interviewing an awful lot if idiots recently . . .

"Police will stop pretty much anyone," said Demetrius Mitchell. Taking a break from his job as a car mechanic, Mitchell, 26, a former National Guardsman, sat outside a Shell station in North Philadelphia yesterday, noticing a sudden change in traditional street wear. "Not too many people are wearing black hoodies today," Mitchell said. "Whenever a description of a suspect goes out like that, you try not to wear whatever looks like it or you'll get yourself harassed."

Yeah, Mr. Mitchell, we're all about stopping whomever we choose. I mean, why would we want to take a break from all of the stress and maybe get a bite to eat when we could be ruining some black guy's day, right? Riddle me this, Mr. Mitchell: why were you sitting outside a Shell station in the middle of the afternoon? Did you have the day off from work?

What upsets him, Mitchell said, is not that the city is going all out, trying to locate Cassidy's killer, but that killers who claim the lives of average citizens aren't pursued with the same urgency. "They need to catch who they're going to catch," Mitchell said. "But if they do it, it should be for everyone. Not just an officer."

Mr. Mitchell really wants me to write something I'll regret, doesn't he? Well, here goes:

WE GO ALL OUT TO CATCH A COP KILLER BECAUSE THAT KILLER IS MORE OF A DANGER TO THE AVERAGE CITIZEN THAN MOST. OH, AND BECAUSE A POLICE OFFICER'S LIFE (AS WELL AS A FIREFIGHTER'S AND/OR SOLDIER'S) IS WORTH A LITTLE MORE THAN THE REGULAR AVERAGE JOE!

I'm sorry. Every life is precious, but if this nitwit doesn't understand the difference between a police officer's assassination and the murder of a civilian, well, he just isn't paying attention.

And, for the record, I do not believe my life is more valuable than anyone else's, whether I die in the line of duty or not.