Hate Mail

"This came with two bullets. Should I throw them away?"

by Duane Swierczynski

This past Monday, our receptionist walked into my office and handed me a piece of paper. It was a handwritten note with big block letters.

"This came with two bullets," she said. "Should I throw them away?"

I looked up at her, not really understanding.

"Wait," I said. "Bullets from a gun?"

"Yeah."

"Can you bring them here?"

She came back a few seconds later with a small white envelope. Inside were two bullets.

"Did you touch these?"

She said no, she didn't touch them.

I ignored the bullets and read the letter.

It was full of threats against the Philadelphia Police Department. It vaguely referred to the murder of Officer Chuck Cassidy, and promised more would follow if the police didn't back off.

I won't quote the letter here; we don't publish hate speech. If this was the sender's goal, too bad.

In fact, it's not clear who the sender was. The note was not signed; there was a name that could be a reference to a street gang, but that's just speculation. (We're looking into it.) Could be just a joke, or another crackpot letter. We receive our fair share here.

Minus, of course, bullets. That was new.

I wish I could tell you that, in that very moment, I knew exactly what to do. But I'll admit it: I was a little flummoxed. It wasn't as if the sender was threatening the newspaper, or anyone in specific. Was this something I should bother the police about?

Well, of course it was. I called Public Affairs. They told me to call 911.

I called 911.

An officer arrived within minutes. I explained what happened, he took down some names, and we waited for some detectives to show up, who would take the evidence and a statement.

The officer looked at the bullets, and told me they were hollow-points, modified to pierce body armor. Much like the vest the officer was wearing. "These would punch right through this," he explained, showing us on his chest, "and explode out the back."

These bullets are illegal. Sending them through the mail is a federal offense.

Then I remembered last week's Slant piece ["We're Not Down," Nov. 22, 2007]. It was written by Joe Leighthardt, a police officer in the city's Central Division. The point: After what happened to Chuck Cassidy, we're not running scared. We're working harder to protect you.

I mentioned this to the officer. I also told him this was sheer speculation. Could have been that piece that inspired the letter; could have nothing to do with it at all.

A while later, the detectives showed up. I shook a lot of hands and repeated what happened. One of them put on blue evidence gloves and collected the letter, envelope and bullets and placed them in a brown paper evidence bag that looks like something you'd find at Acme.

"You guys going to write about this?' he asked, casually.

And that's the thing I've been wrestling with until I sat down to write this column. I don't want to spread hate. If hate were fuel, there'd be enough on our streets to take out Malibu five times over.

But I decided to write about it because a newspaper's first responsibility is to the readers. In short: I thought you should know a few things.

You should know that there are people in this city who hate our police enough to threaten them through a newspaper. Who are disturbed enough to offer illegal rounds of ammunition as proof of intent. Or, at the very least, joke about it. (The police, by the way, are hopeful they can find the sender.)

You should know this is the kind of city we're living in.

You should also think about the people who put themselves in front of those hollow-point bullets every day to protect us.

(duane@citypaper.net)