Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey's Last Day On The Job

Aubrey Whelen at the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a piece on Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey's last day on the job.

Charles H. Ramsey sat in an office with empty walls, behind a desk with empty drawers. His bulletproof vest slumped in a chair nearby. His bags were, quite literally, packed.

"I guess everything in life comes down to the last hour," he said.

It was 2 p.m. on New Year's Eve. At 3, he would walk through the doors of Police Headquarters for the last time as Philadelphia's police commissioner.

Ramsey, 65, was commissioner for just under eight years, brought in amid a skyrocketing murder rate and mayoral campaign promises to bring down crime in a city that seemed plagued with it.

Five officers were killed in the line of duty in his first 13 months. That part of the job never got easier. "It's still hard," he said

... For his successor, Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross, he will leave "some crime," he said. "Enough to stay busy."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://mobile.philly.com/beta?wss=/philly/news&id=363955371

Note: I met Charles Ramsey a couple of times over the years and I interviewed him in his office at the "Roundhouse," Philadelphia Police headquarters, on a story about homeland secuity for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/05/a-look-at-philadelphia-police.html