Annette John-Hall: Temple reporter was shocked, too

Contrary to the tone of the scores of scathing e-mails she's still receiving, Shannon McDonald insists that she is not antipolice. Nor is she ignorant about what police officers have to face every day.

And despite her dogged journalism skills, no, she's not out to become Brenda Starr, Ace Reporter.

"What I really love is copy-editing," the 21-year-old Temple senior confesses.

Yet a week ago, McDonald quickly learned the power of the pen when a story she wrote in February for Temple's Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab got picked up by major media outlets.

Under the headline "Black and blue," McDonald wrote about Officer William Thrasher, 24, whom she had accompanied on a three-hour ride-along in the crime-ridden 22d District.

Sure, she had expected to sign release forms that cleared the department in case she was shot - or killed. And she had no problem wearing the required bulletproof vest.

But what she never had imagined was the shock of Thrasher's toxic words.

"I had no idea what he was thinking," McDonald says, "but I was surprised that anyone could say something like that to someone with a pen and notepad."

In describing a murder, the two-year veteran told McDonald that the mostly African American residents of the 22d "don't care about each other. They'll shoot each other for drugs, for money, for bulls-.

"These people are f-ing disgusting. It's like they're animals," Thrasher offered, referring to a career criminal who had been shot in the head by another criminal.

"TNS," he told a lieutenant after responding to a call about an argument at a Germantown Avenue eatery. In case you don't know, that's short for "typical (N word) s-." Code that apparently Thrasher and his superiors toss around like a Wiffle Ball.

McDonald wrote: "Comments like this between two white police officers in a predominantly black section of the city only add fuel to the fire."

All I can say is that all the decent, law-abiding families in the 22d should run for cover if Thrasher comes cruising by.

Luckily, that won't be happening any time soon. Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey immediately ordered Thrasher to desk duty pending further investigation.

The commissioner, in fact, had a busy week on the apology circuit. Sorry, he said again, after some of his patrol officers manhandled State Rep. Jewell Williams. And then there were the reports of elite drug-squad detectives raiding and robbing bodegas, which had Ramsey holding a conciliatory meeting with Latino shop owners.

It's all making some people wonder whether the "protect and serve" part of the oath those officers took applies only to themselves.

It has the good cops wondering the same thing.

" 'What's wrong with these people?' is not something [Thrasher] should be asking," says Sgt. Efrain Hernandez, who teaches ethics and cultural sensitivity at the Police Academy. If Thrasher said that, "it's unfortunate, because he did not learn it from here."

"As police officers," Hernandez continues, "we deal with people with views and lifestyles you may not necessarily agree with, but you have to have understanding. Talk with people, not at people."

Due to graduate next month, McDonald worries that the notoriety from her story may hinder her ability to land a job in a tight market.

"I just don't want to be known as the girl who wrote the story about the cop," she says.

But she acknowledges that the experience has been an education.

McDonald grew up in the Wissinoming section of the Northeast - a couple of neighborhoods away from Thrasher, who grew up in Tacony.

"Why would I start a Web site about the Northeast if I didn't love it?" she asks.

Surrounded by plenty of mostly white cop families, McDonald attended all-girls St. Hubert's. In her world, racial diversity was practically nonexistent.

But by listening to her father talking about the students he taught during his 25 years at North Philly schools, and then going on to Temple, McDonald learned that you can't generalize people because of where they live.

"Being at Temple, you first think it's the neighborhood vs. Temple, but then you read the crime report and you see students are stealing from students all the time," she says.

We could use more journalists like McDonald. Good thing her 15 minutes hasn't soured her on her chosen profession.

Just as important, it hasn't soured her on the police.

"I know there's thousands of police officers helping people all the time," she says. "I just didn't see it that day."