Posted on Wed, Oct. 22, 2003 The Philadelphia Inquirer
Police chiefs' conference opens in Phila.
By Ira Porter Inquirer Staff Writer
For the next few days, Center City should be safer than usual, with more than 15,000 law-enforcement officials from around the world in Philadelphia for the 110th annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Mayor Street welcomed conference attendees yesterday at an afternoon luncheon at the Convention Center, where the event will run through Saturday. Street was one of several big-name guests to greet officers. The chiefs will also welcome U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gov. Rendell, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller this week.
The conference, which is not open to the public, is a chance for officers to network and educate one another about different law-enforcement tactics being employed around the world.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson, who also attended yesterday's opening, thanked the chiefs' association - and its president, Joseph Samuels Jr. - for bringing the conference to Philadelphia for the first time in 37 years. The city hosted the chiefs in 1955 and 1966.
"We have every intention of making this one of the best conferences in the history of the IACP," Johnson said, and then joked that former Police Commissioner John F. Timoney offered to host the conference while he was here - and then left. Johnson, who has urged his officers to attend the conference, said the department would lead several workshops, including one focusing on Philadelphia's antidrug program.
Exhibits will begin today, showcasing 1,600 booths with new technology, mapping systems, vehicles, and a host of other tools used in law enforcement. The conference has 120 workshops listed, covering issues from homeland security, terrorism and community policing to law-enforcement ethics.
Also today, a group of chiefs representing major American cities will formally urge Congress to extend the Brady Bill, which bans assault weapons. The Brady Bill is set to expire next year, and groups including the National Rifle Association have been trying to persuade Congress to let the law expire.
Benjamin Braxton, chief of police in Willingboro, Burlington County, came to Philadelphia yesterday with hopes of taking new tactics back to his department. "We're all talking about issues we may need to know," Braxton said. "We're here to pick up new ideas. Every police chief has some problems, and there is some chief somewhere who has had the same problem."
The problem is as long as some of the LEO brass are in favor of gun bans, then I have a hard time gunning up any sympathy for them. On top of that, the reporter who wrote this piece is obviously a dufus; he doesn't know what the hell the Brady Law is nor that it is not that rotten piece of crap that bans so-called AW's. It is just another demonstration of how the press is deliberately ignorant about the RKBA, because their minds are already made up, not to be confused by actual facts or by some real checking of facts before writing stupid anti-freedom articles.