Protest of FOP party for reinstated officers

Carrying signs that read "So This Is Something to Celebrate?" and "Justice Really Is Blind in Philadelphia," about a dozen people demonstrated yesterday in front of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police headquarters on Spring Garden Street.

The FOP had announced that it would hold a party last night to celebrate the return to the force of eight police officers who had been fired or disciplined after a television news helicopter filmed them beating three shooting suspects in 2008.

Last week, an arbitrator ruled that the officers, who had been cleared by a grand jury, should get their jobs back or have their punishments greatly reduced.

"Our Guys Are Back!" read a flier posted on the FOP's Web site that promised an open bar, food, and music at the party. "Come out and show your support."

On a concrete island in the middle of Spring Garden, members of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Action Network, a civil-rights group led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, gathered yesterday afternoon to express outrage.

Michelle Wood waved a cardboard sign at passing rush-hour traffic.

"There's no reason to celebrate," said Wood, whose son Pete Hopkins was one of the three men kicked and punched by police. "My son was beaten almost to death."

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey has described the events of May 5, 2008, as a black eye on the department. At the time, police were conducting a citywide manhunt for the killer of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski.

Police chased Dwayne Dyches, then 24; Brian Hall, then 23; and Hopkins, then 19, from the vicinity of a Feltonville shootout that left three people injured. After a 21/2-mile pursuit, officers dragged the three men from their car. Fox29 footage of the beating made international news. Ramsey fired four officers, demoted one, and suspended three others.

At 4 p.m. yesterday, as protester Pam Africa yelled an obscenity-laden harangue into a megaphone, off-duty officers on Harley-Davidsons began to arrive for the party.

"Welcome to the nonevent of the year," said FOP president John McNesby, who described the party as nothing more than a weekly happy hour.

"We do this every Friday," McNesby said. "Just because this week we issued a flier about our members' being reinstated doesn't make this a big deal."