PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Police officials say they’ll deploy all 75 officers graduating from the Police Academy next week to Kensington for stepped-up enforcement.
“We are going to give hope back to a community that has lost hope,” Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Monday.
He calls the deployment Phase Two of the Police Department’s plan to reclaim Kensington from open drug dealing, crime, violence and “all the things that have kept that community pretty much imprisoned for a long time.”
“I’ve watched what has happened to our children down there. Our kids cannot play. Our kids cannot walk to school,” he said.
Bethel says Phase One has been in operation since March with a campaign to draw attention to resources available to help people escape from drug addiction.
He says Phase Two will focus more on enforcement, with state and federal partners, existing officers, and the 75 rookies making arrests for open drug use, drug dealing, theft and other offenses.
Deputy Commissioner Pedro Rosario, who is leading the Kensington Initiative, says often just the presence of more officers has the effect of suppressing crime and rallying the community.
“When we put officers into that area, we’re showing our community that we’re putting resources into there,” Rosario said.
Bethel says the ultimate goal is to hand this off to the community, but the Department “will never abandon them.”