Unnecessary Force?

For days now, investigators, police experts and television-news viewers have been watching and rewatching a 28-sec. tape. In that short yet endless sequence, they scan for clues to explain why so many Philadelphia policemen are surrounding a man, stomping and punching him as he lies on the ground, wounded.

It's human nature to try to make order out of chaos--even more, perhaps, when that chaos is captured on video, preserved for dissection. But at this point, none of the labels slapped on the Philadelphia videotape quite fits the known facts.

Police spotted a green Chevy Cavalier driving erratically in North Philadelphia last Wednesday afternoon. When officers ran the license plate, the car came up stolen--carjacked more than a week earlier. The chase was on. Behind the wheel of the stolen car was Thomas Jones, a 30-year-old African-American man with a record of assault, burglary and theft convictions. Two patrol cars wove behind Jones, backing off temporarily when he veered onto a sidewalk crowded with mourners from a funeral procession. A few minutes later, Jones crashed into another car, injuring two people. Then he took off on foot, hopped a fence and raced down the streets of the working-class neighborhood.

In front of one of the row houses, Dolores Dandridge had just placed a table outside to serve her grandchildren lunch. From out of nowhere, she says, nearly a dozen policemen streaked after Jones about 100 yds. from her. Dandridge watched as about five or six officers caught up to him. "The police were swarming around him like bees swarm honey," she says. "They began to beat him, punching him and kicking him. He had his hands in the air, and I didn't see any gun. People were screaming at the police, telling them to stop, that they were going to kill him."

Several officers had their guns drawn, witnesses said. Suddenly, a gun went off. It is still not clear who fired, only that an officer had been shot in the hand. Jones then lunged behind the wheel of a squad car and fled again. Police showered the car with more than 40 bullets, but Jones managed to drive 1 1/2 miles to the corner of Oxford and 26th streets. There, a hovering helicopter from a local TV station captured the now infamous 28 seconds.

What had already been a messy pursuit now got even sloppier. At least seven officers surrounded the car, all with their guns drawn. One officer yanked Jones out of the car. By this time, he had been shot five times. But the video shows well over a dozen officers, some in uniform, some not, some black, some white, converging on Jones. Frantically, they kicked and punched, inflicting more than 50 blows. "He was down on his stomach and was not fighting back," says witness Sherwood Fogle. "What he did was wrong, but he didn't deserve to get a beating like that." Finally a supervisor arrived on the scene, and the officers handcuffed Jones and led him away with his head in a choke hold. He is recovering in a hospital and will reportedly face 25 charges, including attempted murder, aggravated assault and carjacking.