for BigTrial.net
With this background, and observing the conditions on 52nd Street in real time, the Police Commissioner authorized the deployment of CS gas without further consulting the Mayor.
The Police Commissioner reported directing a Deputy Commissioner to call her for authorization before deploying CS gas that afternoon. However, she too learned that the CS gas had been deployed in real time over police radio. According to the Police Commissioner, she did not authorize its use.
"The Police Commissioner initially shared this view, testifying on October 20, 2020 before City Council that there was 'no playbook' or 'reference'" for the George Floyd riots. But during her interview with the controller, Outlaw "acknowledged that the City could have better planned for the events that occurred on May 30th."
The police commissioner also told the City Council that “was no specific intelligence, specific to Philadelphia,” the report says, that predicted "the unrest would be as violent and destructive as it was." But, the city controller's report says, the media had carried multiple reports about violence in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago and Memphis.
And Philadelphia did have intelligence that the George Floyd protests would have a "significant impact upon Philadelphia," the city controller's report states.
The city controller's report quotes one supervisor as saying, "There was enough intelligence throughout open source media on what was happening throughout the country regarding riots. The approach taken to planning for this detail completely underestimated what was going to happen and left us woefully underprepared. Had we been better prepared, we would not have lost the city the way we did."
"Another officer agreed with this assessment, noting under the 'planning' section of his after action report: 'Was there any? Department appeared completely unprepared, despite violent protests and rioting in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Portland, Seattle and Atlanta, prior to scheduled protest,'” the controller's report states.
And contrary to what Outlaw told the City Council, the city controller's report noted, the city did have a playbook for how to handle large gatherings. And that playbook was successfully deployed during Pope Francis's visit to the city in 2015, the Eagles Super Bowl victory parade in 2018.
In addition, the police department had handled previous demonstrations that spread to Philadelphia over the 2014 death of Michael Brown in police custody in Ferguson, and the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody in Baltimore.
The problem was Mayor Kenney had previously purged the police department of its former leadership that implemented the playbook, including former Police Commissioner Richard Ross, and Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Sullivan.
And Kenney replaced that leadership with Outlaw.
The city controller's report prompted the editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer today to demand that Mayor Kenney call on Outlaw to resign.
To which the First Street Journal humorously replied, "The Editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer blame the puppet, not the puppet master!"
Outlaw should resign. In a city that had 499 murders last year, and 47 murders over the first 28 days of this year, she is as clueless about how to stop the killing as she was about how to stop the riots, looting and arson fires that accompanied those peaceful protests.
As a low-profile and introverted West Coast native who is usually out of sight behind her desk, Outlaw has the completely wrong personality to deal with an in-your-face town like Philly. She also has completely mismanaged the police department from day one.
But her hire was a cynical political ploy that was all about the optics, and a woke mayor playing to the holy trinity of Progressive Democratic cult values -- race, sex and diversity.
The failure of leadership involving the George Floyd riots can be directly blamed on Kenney's gutting of the Police Department's previous competent leadership, and the hiring of Outlaw.
It's all Kenney's fault. He's the one who should resign. But in a city that's been under one-party Democratic rule for the past 69 years, neither Kenney nor Outlaw is going any where.
At a press conference today, Outlaw told reporters that she had just got through conferring with the mayor and other top city officials, and that they had expressed their support for her to stay on as police commissioner.
"I have not been asked to resign nor will I resign due to the report's findings," she said.
She stated that although she appreciated the "thoroughness" of the controller's report, she insisted there was no "blue print" in the Philadelphia Police Department for how to handle protests on the magnitude of the George Floyd protests.
She also complained that it was "repugnant" for the controller to draw parallels to the 1985 MOVE bombing, which was the last time city police deployed tear gas on its own citizens.
We're all learning from our mistakes, Outlaw said. "We will weather this storm together and we will continue to work through this."
Then, she opened up the press conference to take questions from reporters, saying that she had plenty of time for it.
But when Jeff Cole of Fox 29 asked whether Outlaw considered herself competent to continue to preside over the police department, she abruptly left the podium.