If incoming Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel can take one small step his predecessors didn’t, he’ll be beloved by families of homicide victims

A belated congratulations to incoming Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel — and here’s a little advice to help you distinguish yourself from your predecessors: Get your homicide detectives to consistently communicate with victims’ families.

Trust me: If you manage to do that, you’ll be a hero forever to these grieving loved ones.

I know there have been some improvements on this front. After moving from their old, cramped quarters at the Roundhouse at 750 Race St. to their new headquarters in the old Inquirer and Daily News building at 400 N. Broad St., detectives have their own space and — in a move that finally brings police work in the city into the 20th century — city-provided cell phones!

That means there’s no longer any need for investigators to try to fish handwritten phone messages out of an old wooden box full of pink “While You Were Out” notes. (And yes, I’ve actually seen the box.)

In the meantime, though, the communication breakdowns continue.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: There isn’t a week that passes when I’m not hearing from the relatives of a murder victim who are struggling to contact a homicide detective.

And let me be clear here, these aren’t people who expect to have their hands held (though, what would be wrong with that?). They are quick to say that they know investigators are overwhelmed. They just want assurances that their loved ones’ deaths haven’t fallen through the cracks. They also have trouble understanding why the police can’t return a phone message — or, at the very least, why families sometimes aren’t even informed when detectives have retired or passed their cases over to a colleague.

Crystal Arthur, whose son, Kristian Hamilton-Arthur, was killed in 2017, learned that the detective who was working on her son’s case had retired only because another anguished mother told her. Arthur then reached out to the new detective, who promised to call her back. She hasn’t heard from him yet. That was in July.

She’s hardly alone. After not hearing from anyone from the department for more than a year, Renee Whitmore, whose son, Troy Smith Jr., was killed in 2014, got a message from a new detective in August. She returned the call but has yet to hear back.

“Something has to change,” Arthur said when we discussed the ongoing communication issues and the incoming police commissioner. “He needs to make a difference. It seems like the same things just repeat themselves. People make promises to us, and then they don’t make good on the promises.”

And if the new commissioner-designate wonders how important that kind of contact can be for victims’ families, he need only ask the relatively new head of his department’s homicide division, Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, whose brother, Anthony, 34, was killed in 2018, and has the lived experience to appreciate the kind of loss these families are going through.

I talked to Ransom this week and walked away impressed by his thoughtfulness and openness to improving communication, including his recent implementation of a new set of protocols around family notifications and the hiring of a second victim assistance officer specifically to work with families.

Ransom’s plan calls for detectives to reach out to the designated next of kin at least once every two weeks in the first six months after being assigned a new case (though Ransom said it doesn’t relieve them of the responsibility to keep in touch with families of older homicides), then at least once a month for the following six months.

After that, detectives must reach out to family members at least once every three months. Officers will also be required to log each contact into a database, so their supervisors can then track the activity if they’re called by a victim’s family.

“We were dropping the ball, so to speak,” Ransom told me. “And it’s not something that was being done intentionally, it’s just with the amount of homicides coming in, the detectives were falling behind on the notifications, so I wanted to put the onus on the supervisors, whose responsibility it is that the detectives are doing their jobs.”

Ransom also said he’s working on a similar plan for older cases.

“There are a lot of checks and balances that are needed,” he said.

I liked what I heard — and I could envision his plan improving communication, especially if shared widely with victims’ families so they know exactly what to expect, and what to do if they aren’t getting it.

If he’s able to pull this off, Ransom’s plan could potentially be a salve for so many Philadelphians whose unrelenting waves of grief have too often been compounded by official silence.

Look, I understand the department is already down police officers and that adding more officers means spending money. But what this really boils down to isn’t about funding or personnel. It comes down to what most things in the city do: priorities. And in our city — where 400 homicides in 2023 would be considered a sign of progress — giving short shrift to helping victims’ families is unacceptable and unconscionable.

Kevin Bethel, when you were introduced to Philadelphia as our next police commissioner, you said in your comments that police are not our enemy, that they are here to serve.

“I ask you to give us the opportunity to do that,” you told the residents of a crime-weary city, who are eager for your leadership and hanging on your every word.

Well, I’m asking you to take this opportunity to truly serve and make a lasting difference. Put some resources behind plans like those put forth by Ransom. Make it clear to detectives that speaking with families is an essential part of their work, not a side note. And when you have the time, reach out to a few of these families yourself every now and then. I’ve watched your approach over the years, so I don’t doubt you already know this, but they could use every comforting word they can get.

After all, what’s a more basic form of public service than acknowledging someone’s pain and doing something to alleviate it?