A Widow's Nightmare

Hats off today to my upstart DN crime colleague, Dafney Tales, who delivered today with the haunting story of Geraldine Campbell, who's 50-year-old husband, Eugene, was tortured to death in their Mantua home in January.

Eugene, by the way, suffered from kidney disease and had a pacemaker. His killers used boiling water, hot oil, a telephone cord and a hammer on Eugene before finally shooting him in the back.

Dafney describes it a bit better than I do, though:

WITH EVERY PEN stroke, Geraldine Campbell's obsession with her husband's killers intensifies.
Each day, on food-stained napkins, crumpled envelopes of unpaid bills and blank pages of her husband's dialysis book, she sketches dozens of pictures of one of the killer's squinty eyes, large ears, cropped beard and jagged scar across his right cheek.

Like hundreds of murder victims' relatives, 60-year-old Geraldine Campbell is haunted. Haunted by the memory of witnessing the murder of her husband in their Mantua home in January, and haunted by the knowledge that the killers walk free.

...CLICK TO READ ALL OF
"A Widow's Nightmare"

Spitz's Spot: Update

Yeah, he did resign, but I still encourage people to come up with a snappy caption for the photo in the last post.

Spitz's Spot: Guv Spent $80K on Hookers

Even if New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer ends up resigning because of his involvement in a high-end prostitution ring, I imagine it will be weeks, if not months, before the salacious stories stop popping up. (Yeah, yeah, pun intended.)

According to an Associated Press story that was filed on-line just eight minutes, the man once dubbed "Mr. Clean" may have spent as much as $80,000 to get dirty with call girls.

Knowing my readers, I figured most of you would relish a chance to pile on some one-liners, possible headline suggestions and other thoughts. Have at it!

Killers Plot to Whack Cop?

Sorry, folks, I intended to post this last night as soon as the story was finished but ran into some obligatory computer problems.

The story is straightforward and speaks for itself; police officials don't feel this detective was in any immediate danger, but the mere fact that two accused killers started to work on a plot to take him out is flat-out disturbing. For those just joining us, here's what happened:

Two accused local murderers were apparently scheming to take out a cop who put both of them behind bars.
About a week ago, police officials learned that Terrence Snead, 26, and Gerald Waters, 33, were overheard in prison discussing a plot to kill the Homicide Division detective whose investigation led to their arrests, a police source said.

The two accused killers hadn't yet formed an actual plan, but Waters did manage to get the detective's name and home address, which he passed on to Snead, the source said.

Both men are locked up at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia.

The detective and his family didn't appear to be in any imminent danger, but the Police Department has taken normal precautionary measures and assigned extra protection to the detective's family, the source added.

The District Attorney's Office is expected to approve misdemeanor charges of terrorist threats against Snead and Waters.

Homicide investigators last night charged Snead with the Jan. 14, 2007, fatal shooting of Brian Burns, 18, on Newkirk Street near Jefferson in North Philadelphia.

Snead also was charged last night with attempted murder in the shooting of a 29-year-old man in that same case, investigators said.

Snead was first arrested on Jan. 17 in the April 28, 2006, murder of Terrence Hawkins, 26.

Waters was arrested in 2005 for a June 2004 murder, according to court records. *

PD Site Becoming Useful

About a month ago, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey told me in an interview that he planned on giving the department's out-dated Web site an overhaul, with an eye towards making it more useful to average citizens.

" I want to put crime stats on the Web site. People shouldn't have to pick up a newspaper and read a box that says we have 'x' number of homicides. Why can't they just go to our Web site to see how many robberies, rapes and deaths, as well as how many arrests have been made in different categories?" Ramsey said. "We work for the public and the public has a right to know ... being accessible is important."

Sure enough, the site -- www.ppdonline.org -- has added a few new tricks. The city's homicide tally is now prominently displayed at the top of the site (47 this year vs. 61 last year, by the way), and visitors can view updated lists of the city's most wanted criminals, including the 196 fugitives whose mugshots were published by the city last month. Ramsey's 22-page crime plan is also available for your reading pleasure.

From a selfish perspective as a journalist, the updates are good -- and long overdue, especially when compared to the NYPD's site, which has long offered weekly breakdowns of crime across their city.

Snowball Shooter ID'd

This is a few hours late, but here it is nontheless: homicide investigators today identified Jose Mendez, 24, as the triggerman who took the life of 15-year-old Teven Rutledge over an errant snowball.

Police said Teven was horsing around with his friends in Feltonville on Sunday when he accidentally hit Mendez in the face with a snowball. Mendez returned later in the day and responded in kind, shooting Teven once in the head. He died on Monday at Temple University Hospital.

Police officials believe that Mendez will attempt to flee the area and is still armed and dangerous. Tipsters are urged to call that new hotline I told you about yesterday, 215-686-TIPS. If the tipline doesn't work, you can always resort to dialing 911 or calling homicide directly at 215-686-3334 or -3335.

Numbers Game

The media was big on updating homicide numbers on a seemingly daily basis during the past three years. We've inexplicably gotten away from that practice this year, but the numbers fell into my lap yesterday so I figured it would be worth a quick post. All together now:

As of 2/25/08, there were 44 homicides in Philadelphia. On that same date a year ago, we were at 57. Commissioner Charles Ramsey has been quick to point out, time and again, that it is still early -- and the middle of winter.

In other numbers news, the Police Department today announced that they now have an all-purpose, 24/7 tipline for citizens -- 215-686-TIPS. The number, of course, is similar to the Citizens Crime Commission's tipline, 215-546-TIPS. Plan on seeing the numbers mixed up in a news story near you soon.

Update: A Closer Look

The first of our two-part package on police-involved shootings and Internal Affairs investigations ran today. All told, it was pretty well received.

I did have several readers who wrote in and complained that I was an anti-cop bleeding heart liberal who never leaves the confines of my desk, but after I sent rational emails explaining the point of the story, several admitted that they based their angry opinions on the headline without reading the story itself. Sometimes, it's the little things in life ...

Thursday's portion involves two stories that my colleague Dan Geringer did on two extremely controversial cases -- one involving an unarmed man who was fatally shot in 2006, the other a teen who was shot and killed while wielding a clothing iron. Again, I hope folks understand that the intent is not to beat up on all cops everywhere who spend their days and nights sticking their necks out on the line. The fact is that the city has a backlog of shooting cases, and some raise more questions than others. Our intent was to look at some of those questionable cases and see where they stand now.

Of course, we were given a fresh reminder tonight about the danger police officers can face at a moment's notice. At least nine cops responded to a robbery in progress at 53rd and Ludlow in West Philadelphia and were met by gunfire from one of the thieves. Police officials said four cops returned fire, wounding the suspect in the arm. Clearly, though, it could have gone the other way, and we could have been dealing with a worst-case scenario of several officers being wounded.

That said, we'll see how Day Two of our series goes. (There isn't a Day Three, by the by.) As always, stay tuned.

A Closer Look

A quick word about the Daily News' two-part police-involved shooting package, which begins today.

Plenty of time and space has been devoted in newspapers, TV reports and blogs to lamenting the high number of fatal police-involved shootings over the past few years. (There were seven in '05, 22 in '06 and 15 last year.) More often than not, though, I felt the coverage placed too much emphasis the numbers themselves and the wisdom of self-proclaimed experts from out of state.

The topic was revived when this year started off with three fatal police shootings, including the controversial New Year's killing of Abebe Isaac in Germantown. I knew we'd have to dig in, so to speak, but I thought it was worth looking at shootings from a different angle. A colleague then raised a simple question: whatever happens to cops who fire their weapons?

Somehow, we media types never followed up on the recent spurt of controversial (and not-so controversial) cases. My personal curiousity centered on the Internal Affairs process itself. How do cops investigate themselves? How long does it take to clear an officer who fired his weapon? How much time does he or she spend off the streets while the investigations go on?

The process, I found, was slow by design, with some cases taking years for District Attorney Lynne Abraham to clear, and cops were often back on the street after five days, regardless of how questionable their shootings might have been.

I wasn't exactly reinventing the wheel, either. The Police Department's Integrity and Accountability Office asked many of these questions four years ago in a highly detailed, 85-page report. But it was almost immediately apparent that most of the concerns they raised -- about the training cops receive and the inner-workings of investigation process -- went mostly unaddressed by the previous mayor and police commissioner.

The election of Mayor Nutter and the appointment of Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey also gave this story an added boost. Ramsey dealt with sky-high police shooting totals when he took over the Washington, D.C. force in 1998 and managed to get their numbers down with better training. He also professed to be concerned about the length of internal affairs investigation in Philadelphia, calling it a "pubic confidence issue" when cases "drag on in some cases for a year or better."

At the same time, we tried to devote some space to the issue of better training -- which Ramsey whole-heartedly favors -- against the backdrop of a violent city like Philadelphia.

Having spent more time than I can remember over the past three years in some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods -- sometimes with cops, sometimes not -- I don't question the danger that police officers face on a daily basis. Nor do I doubt that in some instances where a cop fires his weapon, there isn't a better alternative.

The point of this package was to take an honest look at the investigation process and the issue of training as it is, and ask if there aren't ways to make it better. Stay tuned.

Quick Turkey Bit

Just wanted to send Happy Thanksgiving wishes along to all of the readers and posters who are a part of the Philly Confidential family and always keep the conversation here worthwhile, enlightening and fun dysfunctional. Hope you all have a peaceful holiday and plenty to be thankful for this year.