Dear Commons Community,

The New York City public schools see themselves in a predicament of rethinking their strategy for dealing with the coronavirus.  Over the next two weeks, over one million parents in New York City must make a wrenching decision: Should they send their children into classrooms this school year or keep them learning from home, likely until at least next fall?

Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that parents would have until Nov. 15 to decide whether to enroll their children in hybrid learning, a mixture of in-person and remote instruction, for the remainder of the school year.

The city had originally promised parents they could opt into the hybrid program every few months. But the mayor changed the rules because about only a quarter of the district’s 1.1 million students have shown up for in-person classes since September, far fewer than predicted. That has made it difficult for the city to know how to allocate teachers, the mayor said.

Now, the many parents who have kept their children home, whether for safety, convenience or consistency, need to decide: Is hybrid learning working?

It is a question parents in many other places across the country and world are also facing, as more districts prepare to open for at least some mixture of in-person and remote classes. But the choice is particularly fraught in New York City, once a global epicenter of the virus and now one of the few large urban districts in the United States to offer any classroom instruction.  As reported by The New York Times.  (My colleague, David Bloomfield, is cited in the article.)

“Intuitively, parents understand that the best place for kids is in school,” said Eric Goldberg, an elected parent leader in Manhattan who has chosen hybrid for his own children. “But what is it about the New York City public school experience that is leading families to choose remote learning? When the in-school experience is so compromised and inferior, people think, ‘Why am I doing this?’”

Mr. Goldberg and other parents lamented that the city’s reopening plan focused almost exclusively on reconfiguring school buildings to open safely — which they agreed was the most important goal — but gave little thought to how children were actually going to learn.

As a result, although the city has seen very low virus transmission in its schools so far, many parents and educators have begun to raise urgent concerns about the quality of the hybrid program. In particular, they have questioned a slew of restrictions agreed to by City Hall and the teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, over the summer that limited when and how educators can teach, and that created a major staffing shortage that is not entirely resolved.

That deal, which the city accepted as part of a frenzied effort to reopen schools, held that teachers could not be required to conduct both in-person and remote lessons on the same day — forcing the city to hire thousands of teachers to make up the difference.

The agreement was “probably the biggest screw up” in the city’s halting effort to reopen, said David Bloomfield, a professor of education at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and Brooklyn College.

The same deal discouraged teachers from livestreaming their lessons in school buildings to children learning at home over concerns that it would strain teachers and be ineffective for students. But the practice is being used by some local private schools, as well as in many schools across the country.

In an interview, Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, brushed off questions about whether he would consider renegotiating that deal. Instead, he acknowledged that there were major problems with hybrid instruction, but blamed the city for not anticipating the staffing crunch and not developing a better instructional plan.

“They will say, ‘Oh, it’s the U.F.T.’s deal,’” Mr. Mulgrew said about the city. “They should be saying, ‘We’re incompetent, and we shouldn’t be in charge of this anymore.’”

Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Education, defended the reopening effort, pointing out the difficulty of hiring so many new teachers in a short time.

“Nothing replaces an in-person education for our kids,” she said in a statement. “That’s why we moved heaven and earth to reopen buildings this fall, adding thousands of teachers, an unprecedented testing regime, resources for health and safety, and 350,000 internet-enabled iPads to ensure continuity in instruction.”

The city has spent about $50 million on 5,600 new full-time teachers and substitutes, and has moved an additional 2,000 department staff members with teaching licenses into schools. That is a significant sum for a city that is facing a catastrophic fiscal crisis caused by the pandemic. Last month, the city said it could not afford $900 million in back pay owed to teachers this year under their contract.

Paula White, the director of Educators for Excellence-New York, a teachers’ group that represents thousands of city educators, said the staffing deal was “a watershed moment. Its impact will be felt for some time.”

“Every new teacher represents a significant investment,” she added. “At a time when budgets are strapped more than ever before, every cost has to be weighed against the opportunity cost for other investments.”

But the city still needs to hire several thousand more educators to make hybrid learning work according to plan. As a result, the city abandoned a promise that children enrolled in the hybrid program would receive live teaching on the days they were at home.

The shortage has also meant that many high schools can open their doors only to students taking online classes, because principals did not have enough teachers to staff elective and high-level courses both remotely and in person.

Further complicating the scheduling jigsaw puzzle is that about 24 percent of city teachers have been granted medical accommodations to work from home through December.

Educators across the city say they have found it impossible to abide by the staffing agreement. So, they have created workarounds.

Verneda Johnson, a science teacher in Harlem, said her middle school’s principal and teachers decided to skirt the agreement by establishing that teachers should be able to hold in-person and remote classes on the same day.

“We thought, let’s make the schedule as needed, and if someone ends up with something they find untenable, we’ll fix that,” Ms. Johnson said. “But at the end of the day, you have to do what’s the best for school.”

The president of the city’s principals’ union, Mark Cannizzaro, said educators had “really, really tried to make lemonade out of lemons.” But, he added, “Long-term, I don’t think this is going to be sustainable.”

Jonathan Kingston, whose two sons are enrolled in the hybrid program at Public School 128 in Middle Village, Queens, is furious at the city and the teachers’ union for discouraging the livestreaming of lessons.

P.S. 128 has a staffing shortage, and livestreaming appears to be the only way for students in person and online to learn the same material at roughly the same pace. With little guidance from the city, the school was only able to set up livestreaming starting just two weeks ago.

The city “could have done this in July, August, even September, instead of throwing our teachers and principal into an unwinnable situation,” Mr. Kingston said.

Still, despite the logistical morass, Mr. Kingston and other parents said they would stay in the hybrid program, mostly because their children were so delighted to be back in the classroom.

“So far, we are very happy,” Elga Castro, whose daughter is a third grader at Dos Puentes Elementary School in Washington Heights. “Everything moves to the second place when compared to their happiness about going back to school.”

For all the problems with the hybrid program, educators and parents said remote learning was also far from ideal, though it had improved since the spring.

Some schools are reporting very large remote class sizes, another negative effect of the staffing crunch. Many schools also have not received enough laptops and tablets, and scores of students living in homeless shelters are struggling to log on for their online classes.

Despite such limitations, nearly half the district’s Black and Latino families decided to start the school year remote-only, along with over 60 percent of Asian-American families. White families have opted for remote learning at the lowest rate.

That racial dynamic could undermine the mayor’s assertion that he had a moral imperative to reopen schools for the least advantaged families.

If in the coming weeks only a small percentage of students restart in-person classes, the city has indicated it may increase the number of days that hybrid students can physically attend school, because some classrooms are only about half full.

But if students of color continue to stay away from school in large numbers, the many benefits of in-person schooling — from live instruction to mental health services to hot meals — may not reach many of the most vulnerable students.

That is more evidence that the reopening plan was not built around the needs of children who require more in-person classes, said Mark Treyger, chair of the City Council’s education committee.

Mr. Treyger has recommended that the city essentially start over and offer classroom instruction only to pre-K and elementary school students, children with disabilities and students living in homeless shelters.

“This model is not working,” he said. “I think the time for change was yesterday.”

YES!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

We learned over the weekend that Sean Connery died at his home in the Bahamas at the age of 90.  He had been suffering from dementia for several years.  For those of us growing up in the 1960s, we could not wait for the latest James Bond movie to be released each summer. He was the first Bond and for most of us the best.

Here is a description of his life and career, courtesy of BBC News.

His acting career spanned seven decades and he won an Oscar in 1988 for his role in The Untouchables.

Sir Sean’s other films included The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Rock.

Jason Connery said his father “had many of his family, who could be in the Bahamas, around him” when he died overnight in Nassau. Much of the Bond film Thunderball had been filmed there.

He said: “We are all working at understanding this huge event as it only happened so recently, even though my dad has been unwell for some time.

“A sad day for all who knew and loved my dad and a sad loss for all people around the world who enjoyed the wonderful gift he had as an actor.”

His publicist Nancy Seltzer said: “There will be a private ceremony followed by a memorial yet to be planned once the virus has ended.”

He leaves his wife Micheline and sons Jason and Stephane.  

Daniel Craig, the current James Bond, said Sir Sean was “one of the true greats of cinema”.

“Sir Sean Connery will be remembered as Bond and so much more,” he said.

“He defined an era and a style. The wit and charm he portrayed on screen could be measured in megawatts; he helped create the modern blockbuster.

“He will continue to influence actors and film-makers alike for years to come. My thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”

In reference to Sir Sean’s love of golf, he added: “Wherever he is, I hope there is a golf course.”

Dame Shirley Bassey, who sang the themes to three Bond films including Goldfinger, paid tribute saying: “I’m incredibly saddened to hear of Sean’s passing.

“My thoughts are with his family. He was a wonderful person, a true gentleman and we will be forever connected by Bond.”

Sir Sean, from Fountainbridge in Edinburgh, had his first major film appearance in 1957 British gangster film No Road Back.

He first played James Bond in Dr No in 1962 and went on to appear in five other official films – and the unofficial Never Say Never Again in 1983.

He was largely regarded as being the best actor to have played 007 in the long-running franchise, often being named as such in polls.

Connery made the character of James Bond his own, blending ruthlessness with sardonic wit. Many critics didn’t like it and some of the reviews were scathing. But the public did not agree.

The action scenes, sex and exotic locations were a winning formula.

In truth, his Bond is now a museum piece; the portrayal of women impossibly dated. The action scenes are still thrilling, but the sex too often bordered on the non-consensual.

Thankfully, its been a while since 007 slapped a woman on the backside and forced a kiss. But Connery’s performance was of its time, enjoyed by millions of both sexes and gave the silver screen a 20th Century icon.

He was knighted by the Queen at Holyrood Palace in 2000. In August, he celebrated his 90th birthday.

Bond producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said they were “devastated by the news” of his death.

They said: “He was and shall always be remembered as the original James Bond whose indelible entrance into cinema history began when he announced those unforgettable words ‘the name’s Bond… James Bond’.

“He revolutionized the world with his gritty and witty portrayal of the sexy and charismatic secret agent. He is undoubtedly largely responsible for the success of the film series and we shall be forever grateful to him.”

Star Wars director George Lucas, who also created the Indiana Jones character, said Sir Sean “left an indelible mark in cinematic history”.

“He will always hold a special place in my heart as Indy’s dad. With an air of intelligent authority and sly sense of comedic mischief, only someone like Sean Connery could render Indiana Jones immediately into boyish regret or relief through a stern fatherly chiding or rejoiceful hug.

“I’m thankful for having had the good fortune to have known and worked with him. My thoughts are with his family.”

Just the seven as 007 – Connery’s Bond movies

• Dr No (1962)
• From Russia with Love (1963)
• Goldfinger (1964)
• Thunderball (1965)
• You Only Live Twice (1967)
• Diamonds are Forever (1971)
• Never Say Never Again (1983)

Sir Sean was a long-time supporter of Scottish independence, saying in interviews in the run-up to the 2014 referendum that he might return from his Bahamas home to live in Scotland if it voted to break away from the rest of the UK.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I was heartbroken to learn this morning of the passing of Sir Sean Connery. Our nation today mourns one of her best loved sons.

“Sean was born into a working class Edinburgh family and through talent and sheer hard work, became an international film icon and one of the world’s most accomplished actors. Sean will be remembered best as James Bond – the classic 007 – but his roles were many and varied.

“He was a global legend but, first and foremost, a patriotic and proud Scot – his towering presence at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 showed his love for the country of his birth. Sean was a lifelong advocate of an independent Scotland and those of us who share that belief owe him a great debt of gratitude.”  

Alex Salmond, former first minister of Scotland, who was close friends with Sir Sean, described him as “the world’s greatest Scot, the last of the real Hollywood stars, the definitive Bond”.

He said: “Sean Connery was all of these things but much more. He was also a staunch patriot, a deep thinker and outstanding human being.”

He added: “‘Scotland Forever’ wasn’t just tattooed on his forearm but was imprinted on his soul.”

May he rest in peace!

Tony

Cindy and John McCain

Dear Commons Community,

Cindy McCain, the widow of 2008 Republican presidential candidate and longtime Arizona Sen. John McCain, said yesterday that one specific incident was “the final straw” for her with President Donald Trump. 

McCain, who has since endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, told “60 Minutes” it was Trump’s disrespect for those who had served in the military. 

“For me, the final straw was the, you know, ‘They’re losers and suckers,’” she said, referring to an Atlantic report that Trump had used the epithets to describe fallen soldiers. The report was later confirmed by other news agencies.

McCain said:   “You know, I’m the mother of two veterans and a wife of a veteran, and my father was a veteran. They were not losers and suckers by any chance. It angered me a great deal. It angered me. And so I thought, I can either sit here and be angry or I can do something.”

McCain also spoke about her late husband’s friendship with Biden in a video shown during the Democratic National Convention in August. She formally endorsed Biden about a month later. 

May God bless you, Mrs. McCain!

Tony

Anthony Fauci

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump suggested yesterday he would fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a touchstone of scientific wisdom during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, shortly after the election.

Trump made the comments to a crowd of supporters in Florida late Sunday, the latest campaign stop in his frantic final push before Election Day. As Trump spoke about the coronavirus and derided his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, the crowd began chanting “Fire Fauci!”, a notion the president seemed to be on board with:

Despite Trump’s ongoing insistence that America is ready to return to normal, Fauci has long warned that the country is headed in the wrong direction. In an interview last week, Fauci painted a grim picture for the nation after more than 99,000 Americans tested positive for the virus in a 24-hour period.

“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Fauci told The Washington Post. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

Fauci also praised Biden for taking the pandemic “seriously from a public health perspective.”

The remarks prompted anger and frustration from the Trump administration. White House spokesman Judd Deere told The New York Times that Fauci’s comments were “unacceptable” and broke “all norms.”

“[Fauci made] his political leanings known by praising the president’s opponent, exactly what the American people have come to expect from the Swamp,” Deere said.

CNN reported in July:  “Under federal law, Trump doesn’t have the power to directly fire Fauci, a career civil servant, and remove him from government. And while Trump could try ordering his political appointees to dismiss the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci could appeal — a time-consuming process.”

On Sunday, Trump also suggested that states that have begun to reinstate lockdown measures amid a surging wave of infections would simply end those safety measures the day after the election.

“I just left a state that locked down. I left two of ‘em, and they’re not happy right now,” Trump said. “You know what’s going to happen to them, on Nov. 4, the day after, they’re gonna say ‘alright, we’re going to open up.’”

As of Sunday night, more than 9.2 million Americans have contracted COVID-19 and more than 230,000 have died from the virus.

Trump is envious of Fauci because he is everything a leader should be.  He is honest, humble, and wise.  Trump is a liar, a braggart, and as the conservative George Will described him “a bloviating ignoramus.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In the past three months, I have read three books on Donald Trump:  Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough, Bob Woodward’s Rage, and Michael Cohen’s Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.  I posted about the Cohen book a month ago.  Below is another review, courtesy of The Guardian,  with a slightly different take on it.

In my view, Disloyal was an interesting read and I wish Cohen well!

Tony

Instead, Cohen went down a hubristic path. It would take him to glory: helping Trump to beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US election and then to a job as the president’s personal attorney. And to doom and disaster: a bitter public feud with the White House’s Tweeter-in-Chief and to a stint in jail after he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and to other crimes.

Disloyal is Cohen’s kiss-and-tell account of the decade he spent at Trump’s side. It is an exhilarating and lurid story – part survivor’s memoir, part revenge tragedy. His verdict on the president is brutal. It is, for the most part, convincing. Trump, according to Cohen, is a cheat, liar, fraud, bully, racist and predator. And a gargantuan conman who has succeeded in duping millions of Americans.

As Cohen tells it, Trump is unlikely to quit if he loses November’s election to Joe Biden. Instead, he expects the president to cheat his way to victory, a tactic that has served him well before. Cohen’s reasoning is plausible: that Trump will do anything to stay in power, knowing full well that once he is out of office, federal and state charges and a possible prison cell await.

The Trump who emerges from these pages has the charm and menace of a mafia mobster. From the 26th floor of Trump Tower, he would summon Cohen to fix messes of his own making. They included women with whom Trump had had affairs, who needed to be bought off, and disgruntled contractors and others whom Trump had stiffed. Trump’s directions were always oblique, Cohen writes, leaving room for deniability.

There are gossipy sketches of the president’s family and flatterers. Jared Kushner is a conceited man-boy, Ivanka a bit more likable, according to Cohen. All of the Trump children were starved of their father’s love as children and are now “forever trapped in a cycle of seeking his approval”. This explains why they tolerate his immigrant-bashing outbursts. Trump’s marriage to Melania, meanwhile, is purely transactional – “just another deal, plain and simple”.

Disloyal is illuminating on the theme of collusion with Russia, in which Cohen played a lead role. For four decades, Trump tried to build a hotel in Moscow. In December 2015, Cohen got in touch with Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. While Trump was praising Putin on the campaign stump, Cohen was secretly trying to get Trump Tower Moscow off the ground. Trump knew, of course, as did the Trump kids.

According to Cohen, Trump colluded with the Kremlin, but not in the sophisticated way imagined by some of his critics. His treason, if you can call it that, was of the pedestrian, me-first kind. Trump and Putin were united in their loathing for Clinton, with Trump willing to accept Russian help (hacking, spies, trolls, oligarchs bearing gifts) so long as it benefited him personally.

Cohen is scathing about Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy whose dossier says the Russians have been cultivating Trump for years. One of Steele’s memos alleges Cohen met Russian intermediaries in Prague in summer 2016, something Cohen insists is not true. Trump sucks up to Putin because he loves money and figures – rightly in my view – that the one-time KGB colonel is the world’s richest man, worth a trillion dollars.

Still, Cohen thinks it’s “not entirely impossible” that the notorious dossier pee tape exists. Trump – allegedly – watched two prostitutes perform in his hotel suite while in Russia for the Miss Universe pageant. Cohen wasn’t there. Instead, he describes an outing to a Las Vegas strip club, around the same time, where Trump and his Moscow buddies Emin and Aras Agalarov watched a similar act on stage. They enjoyed it, Cohen tells us.

Why, you wonder, did he spend so long pandering to Trump and his enormous ego? Cohen’s answer: he was made drunk by a cocktail of power, strength, celebrity and complete disregard for the rules. He likens himself to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. Or, switching metaphor, to the canary in the coal mine. After all, he points out, Trump managed to seduce and mesmerise half of America too, not to mention its bewitched media class.

It is Americans, more than Russians, who facilitated Trump’s rise to power and who may yet connive to keep him there. Cohen worked closely with David Pecker, then CEO of American Media and publisher of the National Enquirer. Together, they smothered the stories of Trump’s extramarital relationships with the adult actor Stormy Daniels and the Playboy model Karen McDougal. (Cohen ended up paying off Daniels himself, an illegal campaign expense that helped put him in jail.)

Amid the cover-ups, lying and sleaze, Cohen acknowledges that Trump has dark gifts. These include talent, charisma and pure ruthless ambition, plus what he calls an innate ability to tap into voters’ deep prejudices and fears and to exploit them for his own benefit. The president, he says, lives constantly in the present tense, thinking nothing of the consequences of his actions, a sort of shark who survives by continuous motion.

There are a few things Cohen leaves out. We don’t learn anything about his meetings with the special counsel Robert Mueller and his FBI team, after Cohen broke with Trump in the summer of 2018 and came clean. Nor does Cohen say much about Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, who was slipping off to pass polling data and other pieces of information to a career Russian spy.

Ultimately, Disloyal is an artful work of self-reinvention. It is (ghost?) written in rollicking style and confected to give the impression Cohen is humbly repentant and ashamed. Maybe he is and his moral awakening is for real. Cohen, though, doesn’t dwell much on why he stopped being Trump’s “gangster lawyer”. Perhaps we should merely be thankful that he is now ringer of the nation’s alarm bell and deliverer of cold truth to a complicit Republican party.

Dear Commons Community,

In a show of how stressed the country is, retailers and department stores are making security plans to deal with potential unrest on Election Day.  Major chains like Macys and Norstram have already started boarding up their windows.  In Beverly Hills, the police said they would take a “proactive approach” and close Rodeo Drive, the renowned strip of luxury retailers, on Tuesday and Wednesday, citing the likelihood of increased “protest activity.” The police, working with private security companies, said they would also be on “full alert” throughout Beverly Hills starting on Halloween and continuing into election week.  As reported by the New York Times. 

“The nation is on edge as the bitter presidential contest finally nears an end, the latest flashpoint in a bruising year that has included the pandemic and widespread protests over social justice. Anxiety has been mounting for months that the election’s outcome could lead to civil unrest, no matter who wins. In the retail industry, many companies are not simply concerned about possible mayhem — they are planning for it.

In a show of just how volatile the situation seems to the industry, 120 representatives from 60 retail brands attended a video conference this week hosted by the National Retail Federation, which involved training for store employees on how to de-escalate tensions among customers, including those related to the election. The trade group also hired security consultants who have prepped retailers about which locations around the country are likely to be the most volatile when the polls close.

“I am 50-plus years old, and I didn’t think I would live to see this,” said Shane Fernett, who owns a contracting business in Colorado Springs and has been stocking up on plywood to board up his retail customers. “You read about this in third-world countries, not America.”

For the retail industry, 2020 has been filled with bankruptcies, store closures and plummeting sales as tens of millions of Americans struggled with job losses because of the pandemic. Protests over police violence against Black citizens sent millions of people into the streets, demonstrations that in some cases devolved into the looting and burning of stores in a number of cities. Worries about unrest around the election have been fanned by President Trump, who has declined to say whether he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power if his Democratic challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr., is victorious.

Protests flared again this week after Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man with mental health issues who was carrying a knife, was killed by the police in Philadelphia. That set off looting and clashes with the police in parts of the city. Citing the civil unrest in Philadelphia, Walmart said on Thursday that it was removing all of its firearms and ammunition from its sales floors across the country. On Friday, Walmart said it was returning guns to the sales floor, after determining that the incidents of unrest “have remained geographically isolated.”

This year, businesses have already sustained at least $1 billion in insured losses from looting and vandalism largely set off by the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May, according to

It is on target to be the most costly period of civil unrest in history, likely surpassing damages during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles and many of the civil rights protests of the late 1960s.

The situation in 2020 has drawn comparisons to protests in the 1960s, but Derek Hyra, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University, said recent unrest had been more geographically widespread, affecting a wider swath of businesses.

“Most of the rioting and burning in the 1960s happened within the geography of low-income Black spaces,” Mr. Hyra said. “In the 2020 unrest, more of it happened in downtown and affluent areas.

“It’s not just urban America,” he added. “The protests have been in the suburbs, they’ve been in rural areas.”

Protecting properties from potential damage is not a simple decision. Retailers can risk alienating their customers by erecting plywood, particularly if the anticipated unrest does not materialize.

“You are sending a message when you do that,” Stephanie Martz, general counsel of the National Retail Federation, said. “You don’t want to necessarily engage in this kind of grim forecasting.”

Some companies aren’t taking chances — the iconic Macy’s location in Manhattan’s Herald Square was boarded up on Friday. But other large businesses are keeping their plans vague.

Target, with about 1,900 stores, said in a statement, “Like many businesses, we’re taking precautionary steps to ensure safety at our stores, including giving our store leaders guidance on how to take care of their teams.”

Before Trump, America use to be a beacon of democracy to the world.  Not now!

Tony

Family of Walter Wallace Jr.

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press reported this morning that the family of Walter Wallace Jr. does not want the officers, who have not yet been publicly identified, to be charged with murder because they were improperly trained and didn’t have the right equipment to do their job.  As reported:

“The footage from body-worn cameras that was taken as police responded to a call about Walter Wallace Jr. shows him emerging from a house with a knife as relatives shout at officers about his mental health condition, a lawyer for the man’s family said Thursday.

The video also shows Wallace became incapacitated after the first shot of 14 that two officers fired at him, said lawyer Shaka Johnson, describing footage he said police showed him and other members of Wallace’s family before a plan to release it and 911 calls publicly.

“I understand he had a knife, but that does not give you carte blanche to execute a man, quite frankly,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference outside Philadelphia City Hall. “What other than death did you intend when you shoot a man — each officer — seven times apiece?”

The video shows “instant panic” from officers whose training taught them only how to open fire, he said, noting he saw no viable attempt from officers to deescalate the situation.

“What you will not see is a man with a knife lunging at anyone that would qualify as a reason to assassinate him,” Johnson said.

The mayor’s office said in a news release late Thursday that the body cam footage and the 911 audio would be released publicly by the end of next week.

Police also faced rebuke from Philadelphia leaders as the anguished city bemoaned the department’s response to a year of extraordinary, and sometimes violent, civil unrest.

The City Council, joining leaders of other cities, voted to block police from using tear gas, rubber bullets or pepper spray on peaceful protesters after hearing hours of testimony from people injured or traumatized by them, including a group hit with tear gas as they were corralled near a highway overpass.

“It was undisciplined, it was indiscriminate and it hurt a lot of people,” said Council Member Helen Gym, who introduced the bill.

The moves follow days of protests, store break-ins and ATM thefts after the death of Wallace, a Black man, that led the mayor to lock down the city Wednesday night with an overnight curfew.

The family had called Monday for both medical services and police, but only the latter arrived, lawyer Shaka Johnson said. Less than 30 seconds into the encounter, Wallace was dead, felled by a blast of 14 bullets, he said.

Police have said the two officers fired after Wallace ignored orders to drop a knife. Wallace’s mother and wife were outside, shouting to police about his mental health problems, Johnson said.

In a news conference Wednesday, Outlaw lamented the lack of a behavioral health unit in a department she joined only this year.

She pledged to address that need and also told the council that she supports the goal of their bill, which she said aligns with current police policy. Mayor Jim Kenney also supports the ban in principle but wants to review it before signing it into law, a spokesman said.

The city had a strong record of accommodating protesters in recent years, until the Black Lives Matter protests erupted in the city May 30, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Chaos and violent clashes ensued and broke out anew this week after Wallace’s death in a predominantly Black section of west Philadelphia.

“The unjustified shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. this week has our city both raging and grieving, but also extraordinarily purposeful about taking action,” Gym said.

Raging and grieving indeed!

Tony