The whole world changed as a result of the terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001. Police departments had to change more than most public institutions, however, because we are on the frontline in both preventing further terrorist atrocities and responding to any that might occur.

The Philadelphia police department, although not directly affected by the Sept. 11 tragedy, made a number of major changes in the way we protect those who work, live, study and visit our city as a result of it. We created a new bureau with responsibility for fighting terrorism and dealing with emergencies. The head of this bureau reports directly to me and had been charged with building more effective working relations with other police departments, both in our region and more widely, as well as with state and federal law enforcement authorities. No police department, no matter how large, can hope to deal on its own with the threat of international terrorism. It is very encouraging to see how a new spirit of cooperation has developed between all the agencies concerned.

But the changes that have affected the Philadelphia police department since Sept. 11, 2001, go much further than a new emphasis on dealing with terrorism. Clearly, the most obvious change has been at the top of the organization. In January of this year, Police Commissioner John Timoney resigned to pursue a new challenge in the private sector.

All of us in the department and, I believe, all Philadelphians, were very sorry to see John Timoney go, but no one misses him more than I do. We worked closely together for almost four years and I learned so much from him. I have no doubt that it was because of what I learned from him while I was his First Deputy responsible for operations that Mayor Street asked me to take over from him. I am greatly honored to hold this position and grateful to the mayor for the confidence that he has shown in me and more importantly, for the support that he has provided myself and the whole department since the day he took office.

Although the public tends to think of the police department mainly in terms of our 7,000 or so sworn officers, we also employ 1,002 civilians and 1,037 school crossing guards. Our civilian staff are the unsung heroes of the department and I want to pay special tribute to them. We could not do our crime-fighting job without the scientists and technicians in our forensic science laboratory, our 911 call-takers and dispatchers, our fingerprint technicians, our crime-mapping experts, our administrative staff, our secretaries and our custodial staff.

Although terrorism is our newest challenge, our mission has always been much wider. It is to enhance the quality of life for all Philadelphians by reducing the fear and incidence of crime, enforcing the law and maintaining public order. These are still the principal objectives that we expect our officers and their support staff to pursue.

In my view, our first priority must be to reduce the number of homicides in the city. This number has fallen from around 400 a year, where it had been stuck for about 10 years before 1998, to the low 300s a year, where it has remained for the last three years. This was an important achievement and the department is proud of it. But this number is still far too high. We must reduce it further. And implementing crime control strategies is one of the objectives that I have set for our newly appointed deputy commissioner. (As some of you will know, the new deputy commissioner is the first female to hold this rank since the department began. I am delighted to have been able to make history in this way, but my aim in appointing her was not to make history, but to make sense. Deputy Commissioner Patricia Giorgio-Fox is simply the best person for this particular job and that is why she was appointed.)

Our analysis of these murders has shown that 79 percent were caused by firearms, a far higher proportion than in other major cities in the Northeast. It is therefore obvious that one of the most effective ways of preventing homicides is by reducing the number of guns on our streets. We are determined to do this.

It is also clear from our analysis, and from reading the newspapers, that a very large number of homicides are related to illegal drug activity. As I am sure all readers of this paper know, in the last three months this department has taken its drug fighting efforts up to an entirely new level of intensity and effectiveness. Under the leadership of Mayor Street, we launched Operation Safe Streets to take back our neighborhoods' street corners from the drug dealers who have come to believe that they can operate on them with impunity. This has been an intensive operation and the difference that it has made to those who live in the areas affected has been dramatic. Children can now play outside in safety, folks can walk to the corner store without fear; these are the tangible, immediate results of this effort. We intend to keep up the pressure on the drug dealers until they realize that our streets are not open-air drug markets, but neighborhoods where residents can live and play and work with their families and friends in a secure and welcoming environment.

Operation Safe Streets is not our only anti-narcotics effort. We still intend to go after the drug organizations that supply and profit from the street-level drug dealers and to educate school children and others on the long-term effects of illegal drug use. I am convinced educational campaigns, such as our highly successful Heads-Up program, are our best hope for a drug-free society.

Drugs are sometimes seen as a problem primarily for minority communities. That is because 85-90 percent of those who die violently as a result of drug activity are African-Americans. It is worth remembering, however, that 85-90 percent of those who die as a result of drug overdoses are Caucasian. No racial or economic group in our society has escaped the destructive force of this scourge. That is why we must continue to attack it with every weapon in our arsenal.

As I said at the outset, the events of Sept. 11 have exposed our society to new threats and given our police department new responsibilities. We cannot, and we will not, skimp on these; they protect the liberties that provide the framework of our free society. But, by the same token, we cannot, and will not, allow these new tasks to reduce the intensity of our efforts directed at reducing homicide, tackling illegal narcotics activity and maintaining a civilized quality of life in our neighborhoods.