![]() Gibbons left the force in 1971 on disability and went on to spend 31 years as a journalist with the Evening Bulletin and Inquirer newspapers. Six other officers were shot the same weekend as Gibbons in August 1970, including a sergeant who was killed. The bullet in his back ricocheted through his abdomen, causing significant internal damage and four months in a hospital bed. He also is uniquely tied to the political and violent tumult of the late 1960s and early 1970s.Ī day before the infamous raid and strip searches of the Black Panthers, Gibbons was shot three times, twice in the right arm and once in the back. Gibbons remembers Rizzo fondly for his tough policing, describing the 6-foot, 2-inch Italian American from South Philly as the guy who “when he entered a room, everything else stopped.” January 1999: City officials dedicate the 10-foot tall bronze statue of former Philadelphia mayor and police commissioner Frank Rizzo, Sr. “For all of this flaws, Rizzo never publicly defended white separatists.” It’s a cultural and historical debate that is clearly coming to a head because of the president, and the really irredeemable things he said (Tuesday),” she said of Trump’s most recent statements regarding the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Still, Mitchell said, she understands why some in Philadelphia want to debate Rizzo’s legacy, and its embodiment in a statue placed at the heart of the city on public property. But from a distance, I would say he is not analogous to those Confederate leaders who tried to overthrow the government.” "He was a twice-elected mayor of Philadelphia, who was clearly controversial in his years as police commissioner. ![]() Lee, or Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the Dred Scott decision," said Mitchell, who began her career as a radio and television reporter for KYW during much of the Rizzo years. And Rizzo doesn't belong in the same category as long-gone Confederate leaders whose statues are coming down across the country, Mitchell and Gibbons said. His bark included a bite, unlike President Trump's verbal attacks. and NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, Rizzo can't be easily compared to other politicians. ![]() Lowlights from his time as police commissioner include an incident in 1970 of officers raiding the Philadelphia headquarters of the Black Panthers and forcing the men to strip in public.įor those who knew and covered him, like former cop and retired Inquirer reporter Thomas J. Police Guard Frank Rizzo Statue Amid Talks to Remove Bronze of Former Philly Mayor.Police on Wednesday and Thursday guarded the statue after a vandal pelted it with eggs. Last year, an anti-police brutality group called Philly Coalition for Real Justice petitioned for its removal. It's not the first time activists have demanded the stature be removed. "If there's a group of people or folks in the city who want to reconsider the placement of the statue, whether it be removed or relocated, that's up to them to go through the same process as the people who erected it," Kenney said. 'Take Down the Rizzo Statue': Philadelphia Councilwoman Wants Controversial Former Mayor Removed from Center City.The first-term Democrat tweeted Tuesday that “all around the country, we're fighting to remove the monuments to slavery & racism. ![]() Kennedy Boulevard is gaining steam, thanks to support from a councilwoman, Helen Gym. Removing the statue of a waving Rizzo from its prominent location outside the Municipal Services Building on John F. KYW-TV reporter Stan Bohrman interviewing Frank Rizzo outside the former mayor's home in 1980. ![]()
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