One of the unexpected results of last week’s protest marches in Philadelphia was the removal of the statue of the late Police Commissioner and two-term Democratic Mayor Frank Rizzo from downtown. Rizzo’s statue, current Democratic Mayor James Kenney wrote on Twitter, "represented bigotry, hatred and oppression for too many people, for too long." (On Sunday, the city-run Mural Arts Philadelphia painted over in white a mural of Rizzo in The Italian Market at 9th and Montrose Streets).

Kenney was referring to the image of racism that dogged Rizzo from his days facing racially-charged riots in Philadelphia during the 1960’s — something family members as well as people who knew the late policeman-mayor well insisted to Newsmax was totally unfair. "My Dad was a friend to people of all races," Frank Rizzo, Jr., son of the late mayor and himself a former Philadelphia city councilman, told us.