There was Frank Rizzo (former mayor). The Philadelphia version of the New York tough guy who inspired a New York prank phone call parody with the same name. Check out the real man in action below:
Jon Rowe
Jon Rowe is a full Professor of Business at Mercer County Community College, where he teaches business, law, and legal issues relating to politics. Of course, his views do not necessarily represent those of his employer.
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Well, he was right, it was creepy and stalkerish.Report
Siding with @zic on this one. There wasn’t really any need for Rizzo to be investigated and it was his house. He had the right to confront the people in the van.Report
Did Pennsylvania have a public records act in 1980? If so, would it have allowed review of where police were assigned to serve as “security” for the then ex-mayor?Report
Yeah, I don’t know anything about the guy other than what I just skimmed on Wikipedia, and it sounds like the whole reason the cameraman was camped out there was because there were questions about Rizzo continuing to enjoy taxpayer-funded security (presumably in the form of those cops who accompanied him in the confrontation); but at the same time, I think it’s pretty clear the reporters were hoping to provoke him.
Doesn’t make what Rizzo did right, and maybe the story they were hoping to break was legit, but still…there’s at least a bit of media harassment going on here, and if I was a former mayor and police chief, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have acted somewhat similarly belligerently about it.
I mean, he presumably had the continuing security in the first place because he feared he had enemies of some kind; so they parked an unmarked van across the street for three hours and waited for him to approach, which he did, with backup.
Obviously he should have handled it all differently, but the whole setup still seems a bit like a deliberate provocation.Report
The reporter would have been best served ignoring rather than making a show of not deigning to respond to the personal attacks. I suppose he’d taken a wound to his pride and felt he had to respond.
Also note that this sort of “jump out of the van and ambush the subject” journalism was pretty common in the 1970’s. IIRC, 60 Minutes did it a lot, too. Is it better today, when interviews tend to be scheduled? Subjects can prepare so they feel like they have more control, and journalists still get good stuff out of them, plus it seems somehow fairer. This kind of this is part of how journalism lost a lot of its prestige in the public imagination.
None of which excuses Rizzo’s conduct, of course.Report
Rizzio, of course, was the notoriously racist mayor of Philadelphia during the time that led to Mumia’s arrest.Report
That doesn’t mean you get to stalk him back. Evil people have rights to.Report
Again, I only skimmed the Wikipedia article on him, but I’m not clear from that that he was “notoriously racist” (the wiki article does mention some racially-progressive steps he took as police commissioner).Report
He was “tough on crime” and “authoritarian” like Giuliani before Giuliani. But Giuliani spoke much more articulately and softly. They both carried big sticks.Report
Giuliani spoke softly?Report
If judged by tone as opposed to content, sure.Report
It’s been a while but i remember his tone being pretty hardcore. He was more than willing to pick a fight and wasn’t particularly diplomatic.Report
I don’t remember him getting in people’s faces and aggressively blustering like Christie, Trump, Rizzo, did/do.Report
I remember him being pretty confrontational and without shame about it. Maybe one of the new yorker types remembers him. I always took him to be a loud mouth.Report
Diplomatic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8Report
Yup that was Rudy. I can think of many words to describe that.Report
And all this time i thought he was arrested for murdering a police office.Report
I don’t know how instructive it is to compare this guy to Trump, but he seems like a lout and a criminal and I find zero fault with the actions of the press in the video clip.
I’m curious… what is the last major city to elect a former police officer as Mayor? Hopefully, it’s been a while and will stay that way.Report