Philadelphia police chief who chaired Obama task force to retire

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who led the United States' fourth-largest police force for nearly eight years while building a national profile as a community policing expert, said on Wednesday he would retire.

Ramsey, a 47-year veteran of three police departments, will step down in January, when Mayor Michael Nutter leaves office due to term limits.

He is one of 19 black police chiefs among the country's 66 largest departments, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

His tenure saw a sharp decline in Philadelphia's homicide rate, but was also marked by the widespread use of controversial stop-and-frisk tactics as well as protests over the police shooting of a black man in December.

Last November, President Barack Obama tapped Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a former Department of Justice official, to head a task force making recommendations on how police departments could improve community relations.

That effort was in response to widespread protests following police killings of several unarmed black men, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City.

"They lost faith in us to a large extent, and we've got to restore that," Ramsey told Reuters in December.

Robinson described Ramsey as a pragmatist, not an ideologue, who brought his practical experience - and a sharp sense of humor - to bear.

"He has strong views, but a very mild manner," she said.

Ramsey, who came out of retirement in 2008 to head the 6,500-officer Philadelphia department, was confronted with his own crisis weeks after joining the task force, when Philadelphia police shot to death a black man named Brandon Tate-Brown during a traffic stop.

Prosecutors declined to bring charges after concluding that Tate-Brown appeared to have been reaching for a handgun. Protesters have repeatedly confronted Ramsey in the ensuing months.

Ramsey earned praise in 2013 when he responded to a spike in officer-involved shootings by asking the Justice Department to review his department.

The resulting report was sharply critical of the department’s training and use-of-force policies and recommended numerous reforms, which Ramsey has embraced.

"He should get enormous credit for that,” said Mary Catherine Roper, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

Roper also credited Ramsey for negotiating a settlement with the ACLU over the city’s stop-and-frisk policy. However, she said, changes have been slow to take hold, which is "certainly not helpful for community relations."

At Wednesday's press conference, Ramsey was asked about the anti-police-violence protests that engulfed Baltimore and Ferguson over the past year.

"One of the biggest mistakes any of us could make is thinking it couldn't happen here," he said. "Relationships are fragile – you got to just keep building."

Ramsey had previously served as chief of police in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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