Posted on Mon, Jun. 9, 2008
Making the police safe for gay officers
By Gail Shister / Inquirer reporter
Philadelphia’s new police commissioner is pushing a more open attitude toward brotherly love in the city.
Within his own ranks, Charles H. Ramsey wants to make it safe for gay and lesbian officers to be out of the closet amid a macho culture that, he acknowledges, keeps most of them in hiding.
“My goal is to create an environment where officers don’t feel intimidated in any way,” Ramsey said in a recent interview. “If they want to acknowledge [their sexuality], they should feel comfortable doing it.”
In another trust-building initiative, Ramsey is considering launching a full-time unit dedicated to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Modeled on the pioneering, award-winning detachment he created in Washington in 2000, it would include two or three officers and a base in Center City’s “gayborhood,” roughly bounded by 11th, Broad, Chestnut and Pine Streets.
Many say such a unit would improve the under-reporting of hate crimes and domestic disturbances by the city’s LGBT residents.
”They don’t have faith that the police will do something,” Ramsey says. “We want to make sure they feel comfortable telling us about any issue that needs to be addressed. . . . We need to be very sensitive to that.”
Ramsey is also considering new liaison units for Asians and Hispanics.
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