A Tough Cop for Mayor

As Philadelphia's police commissioner from 1967 until early this year, Frank Rizzo was a burly monument to law-and-order. He ran the force with an iron hand and the instincts of a street fighter from South Philadelphia where he was raised. During his career, when heads were banged, white or more often black, Rizzo frequently made it a point to be there to do the banging. "I am," he often boasted, a thick finger stabbing the air, "the toughest cop in America." Last week in an emotional Democratic primary, Rizzo, 50, rolled over liberal Congressman William J. Green, with Hardy Williams, a black state representative, running a distant third. Rizzo is now a strong favorite to be elected mayor of Philadelphia in November.

The issue of race was never far from the surface, and it was clearly reflected in the voting patterns. Rizzo captured 49% of the vote, amassing up to 80% majorities in white working-class and middle-class areas. Green, 32, son and namesake of the longtime Philadelphia political boss who died in 1963, polled only 35%, despite glittering endorsements from Senators John Tunney and Edward Kennedy and the tardy backing of Pennsylvania Governor Milton J. Shapp. Green ran most strongly in black wards and well-to-do Chestnut Hill.

Cisco Kid. One of three sons of a Philadelphia policeman, Rizzo more than earned his tough-cop reputation. While still a patrolman, he was nicknamed "the Cisco Kid" for breaking up a gang fight singlehanded. As commissioner, he prevented almost certain race riots by keeping large groups of police at the ready, sometimes loaded onto buses, and rushing them into potential trouble spots at the first sign of a disturbance.

In Philadelphia, with a one-third black population and the highest incidence of black gang violence in the country, Rizzo's tactics have inspired either admiration or dismay. From the beginning Rizzo was so confident of victory that he refused to debate his opponents or make any appeal to the black vote. Instead he limited his campaign appearances--usually no more than one a day --to friendly white neighborhoods and concentrated on polishing his gruff supercop image. "I was there in every crisis when Philadelphia needed me," he told one audience. He did not have to spell out the fact that most of those crises involved blacks, crime and drugs.

Like Wallace. Rizzo's victory and Shapp's support of Green vastly complicate the Pennsylvania political landscape and the selection of the state's 182 delegates to the 1972 Democratic Convention. Shapp is thought to lean toward a Kennedy nomination, while Rizzo presumably favors Washington's more conservative Senator Henry Jackson. Rizzo will probably defeat his G.O.P. opponent, Thacher Longstreth, a former city councilman, so there is bound to be a nasty intraparty fight.

Shapp, of course, would like to be able to deliver the entire state delegation, third largest in the country. But Rizzo is not likely to forget Shapp's answer when asked if he could support the former cop if he won the primary. "In a way," said Shapp, "it would be like me supporting George Wallace for President." Shapp also hopes that the responsibilities of office will moderate Rizzo: "You can't solve the transportation problem by beating on the side of a bus with nightsticks."

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