Police Homicide Leader
Bored with his days in several dead-end jobs, he wanted to find a career presenting different daily challenges and an opportunity to be useful to society. Witnessing good and bad police at work while he was growing up gave him the idea to become one of the ‘good cops’ – surely life as a police officer had to be more exciting than working in a store or office. He was right about that!
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Ernest Ransom (ER) was born and raised in North Philadelphia (near 17th and York Streets). Said ER, “I was blessed that I had a mother and father who lived together and who were very strict.”
EDUCATION
For high school, ER attended George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science. He earned a diploma but decided that engineering was not a career path he was interested in pursuing.
FIRST JOBS
While ER’s academic record may have qualified him for financial assistance to attend college, he decided to jump directly into employment to earn money. First, he worked in a store selling shoes, followed by a better paying, indoor job with UPS.
CHOOSING POLICE WORK
ER’s early jobs earned a paycheck, but he found them boring. While considering what types of jobs would be sufficiently interesting to pursue as a career, ER recalled some negative interactions with police while he was growing up and then losing a brother who was the victim of a homicide.
Said ER, “I figured being a police officer would be the best thing for me – its an exciting job and a great career – every day is different.”
Following his graduation from the Philadelphia Police Academy, ER’s first police assignment was foot patrol in the 25th District, then known as the “Badlands District” in North Philadelphia.
“You can call me sheltered, but I had never experienced anything involving people buying or using drugs. Working there was culture shock. At one time I thought about quitting, “I can’t do this!” but I pushed through it.
ER was eventually promoted to a sergeant in South Philadelphia, then a supervisor in South Detectives. “When I was later assigned to Internal Affairs, I felt all my experiences formed the basis for me to become a good supervisor and ultimately, a better cop. When I did that for six years, I read all the complaints about officer abuse, unlawful arrests, and abuse of the law. As I worked on an internal anti-corruption team that investigated police accused of crimes, I realized that we – all the police – can do a lot better if officers get the right training.
When I was the Captain of the 35th District in North Philly, one of the things I used to tell my officers was, “We will not suppress crime through oppression. If you don’t have the reasons or probable cause to stop a vehicle, we’re not going to do that.” But that’s sometimes what the community experiences: cops stopping us – Black citizens – too many times for no reason at all. So, I tried to make sure that didn’t happen, and that our police work was done the right way.
CHALLENGE – ANXIETY OVER PROMOTION
The Philadelphia Police Department’s Homicide Unit was no stranger to scandal. Several ex-detectives have been accused of abusing suspects to secure confessions. Police leaders needed to ensure that their detectives wanted to stay motivated to ‘close’ (solve) cases while still following the law.
When a top police administrator asked ER to take over leadership within the Homicide Unit, he knew that he had a choice to refuse the promotion but was concerned whether he could truly make a positive difference in improving internal procedures, leading to improved public appreciation of the work of the Homicide Unit.
“The pitch to me was, ‘Listen we want some changes in Homicide. There’s some issues that need to be corrected.’ So, I believed that overall police administration would back the changes I would be making.”
STRATEGY TO PROMOTE COWORKERS’ PROGRESS: PRAISE WHILE CORRECTING
ER summarized his new leadership role, briefly as follows: “I’m not trying to minimize what the homicide detectives do but their job is really just investigating. These detectives do a fantastic job. They know exactly what they’re doing. All they need is a little more direction.”
ER decided to focus on letting his detectives know that he would pay attention to details. “My job,’ he said, “is to ensure the supervisors are doing their jobs, and that they’re held accountable for their own actions and the detectives they supervise. When we lack control and discipline over our personnel, bad results occur time and time again. So, I’m issuing orders that make sure the supervisors know our policies and that I’ll hold them accountable for failure to work to our standards. If they can’t do the job, they don’t need to be here.”
ER uses technology to track important statistics such as which supervisors and which detectives have participated in the most – and the least – cases closed. Maybe closing 100% needs to be reviewed for overly aggressive tactics as much as closing only 10% needs to be reviewed for lack of effort or incompetence.
All paperwork coming across RT’d desk is reviewed by him for compliance with the tiniest, important details – to make sure it’s completed accurately and adequately. Some examples: making sure the people placed in cell rooms are monitors; for overtime, email an advance request with the reason why it’s justified; are commas missing? As ER concludes: “My attention to detail shows them that now I’m watching and expect the same attention to detail and conformity to procedures.”
CHALLENGE – SEPARATING HOME FROM WORK
ER lived in Northeast Philly with his family while advancing through the ranks of the Philadelphia Police department. But to his increasing annoyance and frustration, he would often return home to witness – seeing and smelling – neighbors smoking marijuana. He couldn’t keep the odor from coming into his twin home.
One day, ER decided that for the health of himself and his family, they all had to leave the area permanently, concluding “I can’t work every single day trying to stop people using drugs and then come home and having to deal with the same unhealthy conditions over and over again.”
ER believes that living in the city doesn’t give him any more credibility for doing his police work than living away from the city. “I’m still having the same experiences, still going through it every single day, reading reports. But I had to make a hard decision with the health and safety of my family as a priority.”
CAREER SATISFACTION
ER is proud to lead hard-working detectives who are continuously looking for individuals who have committed crimes because closing cases “gets the bad guys (and gals) off the streets, which increases public safety.”
He wants the public to know that the overwhelming number of detectives within the Homicide Unit are following the laws while at the same time, risking their own health and family relationships because homicide detectives just can’t quit at 5 pm when they are following a lead.
Finding a new set of challenges every day keeps ER’s life interesting, and he is most satisfied when the public appreciates how dedicated, honest police work has solved another crime.
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This career story is based on a news article written by Ellie Rushing, published by the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper on March 5, 2023.
