Before killing a 12-year-old, a South Philly plainclothes police unit caused frequent chaos, residents say

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : Moskos agrees enforcing gun laws is crucial work.
55% : The gang database "wasn't that accurate," said Reuben Jones, who runs the community organization Frontline Dads and was social services director for Focused Deterrence.
53% : Some in the community, and even within law enforcement, now say there were warning signs long before that.
53% : By the time TJ was shot, the South Task Force already had a reputation in law enforcement circles as a brash and freewheeling group whose members displayed an intense devotion to their jobs and were often found in chaotic situations.
45% : Jillian Snider, an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College, policy director for criminal justice at the free market think tank R Street and a retired New York police officer who spent a decade in plainclothes duty, said the work assigned to these units is inherently risky.
41% : "They're aggressive." 'Somebody's got to ... enforce gun laws'
39% : They did find marijuana, and arrested him.
31% : "The rationale is: Somebody's got to go out there and enforce gun laws," said Peter Moskos, a criminologist and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

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