The Philadelphia Police Department has a new (long overdue) office for families of crime victims. Please, PPD, don’t blow it.

Around the time Kevin J. Bethel was named Philadelphia’s new police commissioner in 2024, I issued a challenge: treat the families of homicide victims with the care and respect they deserve, but have long been denied. Start, I said, by improving communication between detectives and grieving loved ones who often reached out to me in desperation, hoping I could help them learn more about the status of a particular case.

I didn’t expect much from Bethel, and mentally filed the challenge under “don’t hold your breath,” as the calls from relatives looking for answers kept coming.

Then something unexpected happened. In February, the Philadelphia Police Department launched its first office dedicated to serving the families of crime victims.

Could it be, I wondered? Could the same department that often left families twisting in silence for years be carving out space, resources, and — dare I say it — dignity?

“I knew when I came back that we had to fill this gap,” Bethel told me this week. A former deputy commissioner with three decades on the force, Bethel had been the school district’s chief of safety before returning to lead the department.

“We had to own it now, it wasn’t to pass it off to somebody else,” he said. “If we as a police department were going to change, and if we were going to be a better department and really service our community, we had to start leaning into some of this work.”

Bethel said the challenge I issued didn’t go unnoticed, nor did the pain of grieving families he’d experienced firsthand at the department and the school system. He credited Dorothy Johnson-Speight, founder of Mothers In Charge, for her longtime push to create a victim advocacy unit.

As we talked, Bethel asked for grace while the department builds out the new office — backed by about half a million dollars annually and eventually staffed by a 20-member team.

Grace granted, commissioner. And with it, a measure of cautious optimism because maybe — just maybe — this could be a light for the families still mourning in the dark.

A few days earlier, I had met with Ayanna Greene-Davis, the office’s director, inside police headquarters at 400 N. Broad St., the former Inquirer and Daily News building. It felt fitting, after hoping those in positions of power would listen to the stories I’ve told for years of families scarred by gun violence.

But I didn’t have to explain any of that pain to Greene-Davis. She’s lived it. She’s living it still.

Greene-Davis was 18 when her older brother Emir, 20, was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1997 — a time when support for victims’ families was scarce, leaving loved ones to navigate their grief alone.

“My mother and father didn’t know what to do because they were grieving, too,” she said. “So I kind of buried it just to function, to act like I was like everyone else in high school.”

Eventually, her mother, Victoria Greene, and older sister, Chantay Love, cofounded the Every Murder Is Real Healing Center; the acronym of the group’s name — EMIR — is a tribute to Greene-Davis’ brother.

But Greene-Davis never planned to follow the path laid down by her mother and sister — she dreamed of being a writer. Until the call to the city’s most vulnerable spoke to her.

For roughly two decades — first as a probation officer working at the district attorney’s office under Lynne Abraham, and now as director of the Office of Victim Advocacy and Engagement— she’s focused on prioritizing victims’ families.

“Everything I didn’t get, I want victims to get,” she said. “I don’t want any victim coming here to feel like I felt: marginalized, no voice. I want them to be able to tell us what they need. I don’t want anyone telling them what they think or what they feel; I want them to guide us.”

When I visited the office, her team was away at a training session. The focus of their work, Greene-Davis said, involves ensuring every victim is connected to an advocate within 48 hours. That person will, in turn, direct them to additional services, and offer ongoing support and answers — and yes, that includes getting a detective to return a call, if need be.

I was glad to hear the department isn’t trying to reinvent programming we already have in Philly. For the most part, the city doesn’t lack for services. What families need most is coordination, accountability, and clear communication.

And despite my usual cynicism, it was hard not to feel a sense of hope while talking to Greene-Davis.

Then again, I’ve been here before. The last time I felt this hopeful, the newly hired head of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s Office of Violence Prevention promised a full audit of all publicly funded anti-violence efforts. That audit never came.

Another promise, another entry in my thick “don’t hold your breath” folder.

Still, this feels different. We need this to be different.

I’ve watched Bethel’s style of leadership over the years, especially since being named Philly’s top cop. Whereas Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has often served as our Consoler-in-Chief, Bethel has stood as the Commander of Candor — unafraid to unleash the outrage we should all feel at the chaos gun violence has wreaked on our city.

He hasn’t gotten defensive when I and others have challenged him to do better.

Though this was my first meeting with Greene-Davis, I’ve long followed and written about the work her family has done in the community. And while I gently teased her about the inspirational signs scattered around her office, I couldn’t help but linger on the one on her desk that read, “I got this.”

I hope she does, because too many brokenhearted families in our city have been waiting, and hoping, for someone to say: We’ve got you.