Chaos erupts at forum on stop-and-frisk policy in North Philadelphia

NORTH PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A forum Friday night with Mayor Jim Kenney and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross on the status of the controversial stop-and-frisk policy, implemented by the prior administration, ended in chaos and had to be shut down.

The meeting at New Vision United Methodist Church in North Philadelphia started in an orderly fashion with Mayor Kenney saying he kept his campaign promise to end the unconstitutional stopping and frisking of people by police for no reason. He says officers are now required to have reasonable suspicion as required by the Constitution.

"That has ended, there's a plan in place, policies and procedures, directives in discipline and reporting requirements that are unprecedented in the country," said Kenney.

The mayor apologized for what went on before he took office, but for some reason people weren't buying it.

The Rev. Gregory Holston reminded people they were in a house of God, and then unloaded on the mayor himself.

"You can go down to the University of Pennsylvania on a Friday night, stop and frisk every student at that dormitory, and you will find more drugs, more problems," said Holston.

One lady urged attendees to sign a petition demanding police get out of their neighborhoods.

The mayor tried to speak, but kept getting interrupted.

Soon many people, who didn't like how things were going, began to leave.

"The tone of the meeting for me is more negative coming from the community, and it seems like an unwillingness to listen," said There Martin of Germantown.

"We wanna get a petition signed to get more patrols down here," said Clayton Pickens of North Philadelphia.

"We have bigger fish to fry, we got drug dealing going on, we got prostitution," said Arletha Pickens of North Philadelphia.

"I do not wanna here chaos and hollering and screaming," said Mike Campbell of North Philadelphia. "I wanna hear intelligent solutions."

The meeting had to be shut down because of the chaos. No word at this point if it will be rescheduled, but one official says clearly there needs to be a cooling off period.