HERE AT DAILY DeLEON we've decided to begin a feature called The Daily DeLeon Then, featuring columns, pieces, paragraphs, jokes, observations I wrote on specific days of specific years dating way, way back to. . . well let's start with this one 26 years ago this Friday, during the seventh of my 20 years writing a column called The Scene for the Philadelphia Inquirer. This one involves a coincidence. Two well-known Philadelphians were mentioned in the column of that day, although they weren't as well known then as they are today.

On the left in the photo above is Mumia Abu-Jamal, currently on death row in Pennsylvania for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. One the right is Michael Chitwood, currently the police chief of Upper Darby Township in Delaware County. Let's step inside the Wayback Machine. Set the controls for Jan. 12, 1981. Here's what Clark wrote then:

People: The arming of Michael Chitwood

Homicide detective Michael Chitwood, the highly decorated and outspoken Philadelphia police officer, was just a little too outspoken in recent interviews to suit his superiors. Chitwood, 36, a 16-year veteran, told reporters on more than one occasion that he refused to carry a gun. This stems from an incident when Chitwood said he almost shot a baby who was being used as a shield by a drug dealer who wounded Chitwood's partner in a shootout.

After the incident, Chitwood vowed that he would never carry a weapon again.

Police officials frowned on Chitwood's unilateral disarmament and told him to start packing a piece again while on duty. " Nobody put any pressure on me," Chitwood said. " They just reminded me that it's regulations to carry a
gun. It's still up to my descretion when I use it."

Grass: Marijuana Users Assn. to go up in smoke

The Marijuana Users Association of America has announced that it can't keep its act together.

Oh, wow.

The board of directors of the Philadelphia-based group, whose goal was the legalization of marijuana, voted last month in favor of dissolving the organization at the Jan. 30 meeting of the board. " We're broke," explained executive director Ernesto Luton, who founded the organization after being turned down in his bid to become a Philadelphia police officer when he admitted to smoking pot. The organization went into debt after a costly legal
fight to advertise on SEPTA vehicles.

" I think the reason the organization is failing is because the people in this city who smoke herb are not supporting it," says Mumia Abu Jamal, a newsman with WUHY-FM and a member of the Marijuana Users Association of America advisory board. " I'd hate to see the organization die because I like to see people stand up for what they believe."

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You couldn't make up stuff like that. Within the same year, Chitwood's most famous arrest, Ira Einhorn, would disappear days before the beginning of his trial for the murder of Holly Maddux, whose mummified remains Chitwood found in a trunk in Einhorn's apartment. Within the same year Daniel Faulkner would be dead from a gunshot fired point blank into his head after being ahot once in the back, and Mumia Abu Jamal would be arrested at the scene, gutshot by Faulkner's bullet in his last arrest as a Philadelphia police officer.