Shot Clock

NEWS AND OPINION

Cops are quicker on the draw these days.

By Kia Gregory

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted May. 10, 2006

Burden of proof: Raymond Pelzer was the fourth person killed by Philly police in a week.

Four months into the year, and we've already seen 12 fatal shootings by cops.

Last week, in response to the rise (up seven so far from last year), Mayor Street said police officers simply can't wait till they're fired upon to decide if their lives are in danger.

Louis Fornwald disagrees.

Sitting at his dining room table, which is covered with legal papers, protest fliers and pictures of his son Milo, Fornward slow boils with anger and pain.

"I tell people every day," says Fornwald, a small man with a warm face and a full head of silver hair, referring to how police shot and killed his son three years ago.

Fornwald is able to talk about Milo, his middle child, in short spurts. But then he has to stop and regroup as his eyes well with tears.

"He was growing up," says Fornwald, hesitatingly. "You don't get a lot of chances."

Somewhere along the way, Milo went from high school honor student to petty drug dealer.

Around 4:30 p.m. on June 10, 2003, at the intersection of Moyamensing and Moore in South Philadelphia, police officers assigned to Operation Safe Streets watched as a white woman stood at Milo's passenger window while his friend Kenny rolled her a $5 blunt.

The cops pulled in front of the car, and Kenny jumped out and ran. Milo put the car in reverse, hitting a SEPTA bus, then pulled forward, hitting the police cruiser's bumper.

Standing in front of the car, officer Fred Girardo yelled for Milo to stop. When he didn't, Girardo, 31 and a six-year veteran of the force, fired into the windshield. The first bullet hit Milo in the shoulder. The second struck him in the head.

Milo faced charges of aggravated and simple assault, possession of an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering another person and narcotics violations.

He died the next day.

Days after the shooting, Milo's family and friends marched and protested outside the neighborhood's 4th District police headquarters.

Two days before Christmas a police investigation concluded Girardo had fired his weapon unnecessarily. He was transferred to another precinct and given additional firearms training.

Fornwald put copies of the investigation memo with "KILLER COP!" scrawled in thick black marker on newspaper honor boxes throughout his South Philadelphia neighborhood.

Almost a year later police settled Fornwald's civil complaint for $240,000.

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