- He switched to the Republican Party in 1986 and campaigned as a Republican for the final five years of his life.
- Like most of his contemporaries, Rizzo was opposed to the construction of public housing in established neighborhoods, most of which at the time housed majority-white populations.
- He was an American police officer and politician.
- He was a member of the Democratic Party throughout the entirety of his career in public office.
- He served as Philadelphia police commissioner from 1968 to 1971 and mayor of Philadelphia from 1972 to 1980.
- Rizzo's relationship with Philadelphia's black community was volatile, with the PPD's reputation suffering among black people. During Rizzo's tenure as division captain and commissioner, critics often charged that he was racially motivated, targeting activities in black neighborhoods.
- He grew up in a South Philadelphia row house neighborhood.
- A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago saw Rizzo ranked as the fifth-worst American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993.[33] When the survey was limited only to mayors that were in office post-1960, the results saw Rizzo ranked as the absolute worst.
- Enlisting in the United States Navy, Rizzo served on the USS Houston cruiser for 19 months before being medically discharged due to diabetes insipidus. Returning to Philadelphia, Rizzo worked for Midvale Steel, helping manufacture naval guns in the lead-up to World War II.
- Although not being elected yet, Rizzo essentially functioned as mayor before the election, as Mayor James Tate had announced on television that he was retiring and naming Rizzo "de facto" mayor of Philadelphia. Asked if this was legal, Tate only laughed and replied that he was retiring. Rizzo finally ran for mayor in 1971.
- A statue of Mayor Rizzo waving in greeting, created by sculptor Zenos Frudakis, used to stand in front of Philadelphia's Municipal Services Building. The 10-foot-high (3.0 m) statue was paid for by private contributions. Following the aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Councilwoman Helen Gym posted on Twitter, "All around the country, we're fighting to remove the monuments to slavery & racism. Philly, we have work to do. Take the Rizzo statue down". Gym's comments started a public debate about the future of the Rizzo statue and mural. Mayor Jim Kenney was open to the possibility, stating that "it is time to discuss the future" of the monument.[49] On November 4, 2017, Mayor Kenney announced that the statue would be moved to a new location, though it subsequently remained in place. In May 2020, the statue was vandalized during protests in response to the murder of George Floyd. Days later on the night of June 2, the statue was removed.
- As mayor, Rizzo's handling of the first MOVE incident in 1978 has been interpreted[who?] as supporting the charge of racism. When members of the group refused entrance to city inspectors, Rizzo evicted them through armed police action. Snipers were positioned around the house and the compound was blockaded by 1,000 police officers refusing any entry of food or water. When the police finally attempted to lay siege to the compound, officer James Ramp was killed in the conflict, and 16 other police and firefighters injured. Though MOVE members disagreed, it was claimed that Officer James Ramp was killed by MOVE gunfire. Eventually, the standoff was resolved without further loss of life, and the members of MOVE were arrested. One unarmed MOVE member, Delbert Africa, was beaten by multiple officers while leaving the MOVE house with his hands up. The incident as captured by the local news media shows Africa being dragged by his hair, struck with an officer's helmet, and kicked in the face and groin once on the ground.
- A reporter who covered the Rizzo years, Andrea Mitchell, recounted routinely brutish behavior at the force as part of a broad pattern of Rizzo bravado.
- He was boisterous and brooding, particularly to media.
- Rizzo was born in Philadelphia; his father Rafael was a Philadelphia police officer.
- A biography of Rizzo, with an introduction written by future police commissioner John Timoney, recounted: "Of one group of anti-police demonstrators, he is reported to have said, 'When I'm finished with them, I'll make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.'".
- During his senior year he dropped out of Southern High School; he later earned a high school equivalency diploma and took government courses at the Fels Institute of Government.
- Rizzo was portrayed in The Thin Blue Lie by Paul Sorvino and The Irishman by Gino Cafarelli.
- In 1967, Rizzo was appointed commissioner by Mayor James H. J. Tate.Through various challenges, racial divisions in particular, facing the city, Tate continued to support Rizzo as police commissioner.
- Rizzo was barred from running for a third term in office by the Philadelphia City Charter. He attempted to vote in a charter change to allow him to attempt a run for reelection but was soundly defeated after urging supporters to "Vote white", which he later admitted was "a poor choice of words".
- Before, during, and after his tenure as police commissioner, the Philadelphia police department engaged in patterns of police brutality, intimidation, coercion, and disregard for constitutional rights, in particular toward the black community. The patterns of police brutality were documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning Philadelphia Inquirer series by William K. Marimow and Jon Neuman.
- Rizzo joined the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) in 1943, rising through the ranks to become captain of the 19th district.
- It was during Rizzo's tenure as deputy commissioner that black and white officers assigned to the city's predominantly black neighborhoods worked in tandem in an attempt to reduce friction between civilians and police forces.
- One of the force's most widely publicized actions under Commissioner Rizzo was raiding the Philadelphia offices of the Black Panther Party on August 31, 1970, one week before the Panthers planned to convene a "People's Revolutionary Convention" at Temple University. The officers performed a strip-search on the arrested Black Panthers before cameras, after a Fairmount Park Police Officer had been murdered. The picture ran on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News and was seen around the world. Days later the charges against the Panthers were dropped for lack of evidence. Subsequently the search was ruled illegal. Four people unrelated to the Panthers were ultimately found guilty of the murder.
- In 1980, Rizzo damaged an NBC KYW-TV camera while they were stationed in a van outside his house in Chestnut Hill. He was surrounded by several police officers who did nothing to restrain him. When KYW reporter Stan Bohrman tried to interview him later over the incident, Rizzo offered to fight him and repeatedly called him a "crumb bum" and a "crumb creep lush coward".
- He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1983, losing to Wilson Goode, who in turn won the mayoral election. In 1986, he became a Republican and ran in the mayoral election of 1987, once again losing to Goode, 49% to 51%.
- Between 1983 and 1986, Rizzo served as a security consultant at the Philadelphia Gas Works, controversially, as he drew a city pension at the same time, and hosted one of Philadelphia's most popular radio talk shows, a tradition later emulated by his son, Republican City Councilman Frank Rizzo Jr.
- In his campaign against the Democratic candidate, former District Attorney (and later two-term Pennsylvania Governor) Edward G. Rendell, Rizzo was expected to again employ hardball tactics. On the Friday four days before his death, he walked through the largely black 52nd Street neighborhood in West Philadelphia with community leaders. But on the following Tuesday, July 16, 1991, he suffered a massive heart attack while campaigning for the general election.[44] He was pronounced dead at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital at 2:12 pm. EDT. Joseph M. Egan Jr. then replaced Rizzo as the Republican nominee. Rendell went on to win the November election and served two terms as mayor.
- Rizzo's police department, Rizzo's mayoral administration, and Rizzo personally faced dozens of lawsuits alleging abuses ranging from physical assault to systemic discrimination and harassment, culminating in Philadelphia's first mayoral recall effort. A 1968 lawsuit charged Rizzo and the Fairmount Parks commission in a class action suit, alleging targeted harassment of "hippies" in Rittenhouse Square. In 1973, a police accountability group alleged Rizzo's responsibility in systemic police discrimination and harassment of Philadelphia minority communities, seeking the establishment of a civilian oversight organization. Another 1973 civil rights action charged Rizzo with assault and conspiracy against political protestors in activities related to his mayoral campaign. Rizzo was also named in a protracted court battle over Whitman Park, a bitterly contested public housing project in South Philadelphia. Upon taking office in 1971, Mayor Rizzo famously proclaimed that Whitman Park would never be built. Rizzo ultimately lost in court in 1979, as Federal District Judge Raymond J. Broderick cited racist motivations in blocking the project.
- As commissioner, Rizzo's department had one of the largest percentages of black officers among large U.S. police departments, with 20% in 1968, at a time when other departments had little if any success in recruiting blacks. However, hiring of black officers declined sharply during Rizzo's tenure as police commissioner. From 1966 to 1970, the percentage of black police officers hired declined from 27.5% to 7.7%. This precipitated a decline in the overall proportion of black Philadelphia police officers: from 21% in 1967 to 18% in 1971.
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