PHILADELPHIA — Officer John Baird's reputation preceded him. When he pounded on row-house doors in his North Philadelphia patrol area, hustlers and hard-working citizens alike grew nervous.
The word on the street was that Baird was a tough cop--tough on dealers flush with cash, tough on their hard-boiled friends and families, tough on anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.
All Philadelphia now knows Baird's reputation. Its public airing in recent weeks has staggered the city's criminal justice system and shaken a Police Department that had hoped a decade of reform would end years of episodic corruption scandals.
Andre Bonaparte ran when he saw Baird coming on a snowy day in November, 1987. Baird was faster. "I told you never to run from me," Baird told Bonaparte, now 27, who had been arrested once on a drug possession charge. Baird took out his regulation flashlight, Bonaparte recalled, hammering at him until he bled. Then Baird and his partner drove Bonaparte to the 39th District station, producing evidence for one more street arrest--a tiny amount of cocaine Bonaparte insisted was not his.
It was the standard whine of the perpetrator, but in this case, as in too many cases in North Philadelphia, it happened to be true. Baird was among a corrupt cell of uniformed officers in the 39th District who shook down drug dealers, beating them, planting evidence and trumping up charges against criminals and innocent victims, most of them poor and black.
Indicted last February by a federal grand jury for violating the civil rights of more than 40 Philadelphians and stealing more than $100,000 in cash and property, Baird and five other officers have pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at the end of the month.
Their admissions have overturned 60 criminal cases--including Bonaparte's--and are threatening hundreds more, setting off legal tremors inside Philadelphia's courtrooms and reinforcing longstanding complaints in the city's poor, minority communities that police corruption and abuse are out of control.
"There is an absolute tie between police corruption and brutality and the racism of white officers," said City Councilman Michael Nutter, who represents voters in part of the 39th Police District. "This wouldn't have been tolerated in a working-class white community."
