Voices: Remembering the people's cop

If a television clip or two were all you saw and heard of John Timoney, the temptation would be to dismiss him as a law enforcement throwback.

He spoke in the clipped brogue that affirmed his Irish upbringing. The pinched eyes and flat nose were those of a journeyman prizefighter who led with his face.

He appeared, former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly once observed, to be a Damon Runyon character come to life.

It would be a grievous error, however, to allow the caricature to define the man who rocketed to the top ranks of the New York Police Department before going on to lead police forces in Philadelphia and Miami.

Timoney, 68, died last week following a months-long battle with lung cancer, prompting a stream of eulogies that rightlyhighlighted an improbable life journey – from his arrival in the Bronx  as a 12-year-old boy from Dublin to the executive suites of local government.

Yet at a time when American policing is struggling to maintain or regain the confidence of local communities, the strong bonds Timoney quickly built in some of the most racially and ethnically mixed cities in the country may serve as his most instructive legacy.

"I was just blown away,'' said former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, recently recounting his first meeting with the then-candidate for the police commissioner's job amid local pressure that the job go to an African American.

Rendell said Timoney confidently laid out a plan to attack violent crime as murders were soaring, understanding that the quickest way to win public trust, regardless of a community's makeup, was to produce results.

Immediately after his appointment, the former mayor said his high-profile hire was burrowing into a city where face time in countless church basements and community centers was an investment worth far more than any evening on the local dinner circuit. Though the man wore the map of Ireland on his expressive face and held two masters degrees, he was at ease in any setting.

In Philadelphia, and later in Miami, he was a ubiquitous presence on the street. He rode with the bike patrol, walked the neighborhoods and always turned up when it mattered, and often when it didn't. He personally ran down a purse-snatcher fresh into his Philly tenure in a gritty display that melted the hardest of hearts in a city famous for its hard-boiled nature.

And then, true to the plan that he initially outlined for Rendell, the killings started to decline. When concerns emerged that the police department was under-counting sexual assault complaints, Timoney did the unprecedented. He invited the Women's Law Project in to review the department's files.

Timoney's popularity rarely wavered, even after he and the department were harshly criticized for the heavy police response to protests at the 2000 Republican National Convention. Hundreds were arrested, an ugly scene that city leaders vowed to avoid – and did – last month during the Democratic National Convention.

"The truth is,'' Rendell said, "John could have been elected mayor in a walk.''

The solid résumé  is what drove newly elected Miami Mayor Manny Diaz in 2003 to pursue Timoney to take command of a department staggered by a series of deadly police shootings. " "Miami cops were shooting at everything that moved,'' Diaz said.

In their first meeting, Diaz and the career cop found a common bond in their immigrant pasts. Diaz arrived in the U.S. in 1961 with his Cuban mother, the same year a young Timoney landed in New York with his Irish family.

"We talked about how we, both immigrants to this country, had found ourselves in positions where we could change the course of major cities,'' the former mayor said . "He didn't speak a word of Spanish. In fact, I could barely understand his English.''

As in Philadelphia, the partnership quickly produced extraordinary results. A strict training regimen and close oversight resulted in one stunning string of more than 20 months when Miami police never fired a shot.

Diaz said Timoney's mantra on deadly force as "an absolute last resort was pounded and pounded into the ranks'' and is now steering law enforcement policy nationwide.

Chuck Wexler, who heads the think tank Police Executive Research Forum, described Timoney as "a man ahead of his time'' on issues of deadly force and race.

But in Miami, too, Timoney's methods were not universally welcomed. He battled with the ACLU over police tactics in dealing with demonstrations related to the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in downtown Miami.

Despite his frequent disputes with the hard-nosed police chief, Howard Simon, the ACLU's executive director in Miami, said his respect for the man never faltered.

When Timoney announced his intention to retire in 2009, I called him while reporting an article chronicling the exodus of other police chiefs from major U.S. cities.

Why was he stepping down? Timoney, whom Esquire once dubbed "America's Best Cop," said simply that he had "fulfilled my mission."

Johnson covers the Justice Department and law enforcement for Paste BN.