Police Misconduct

Cheyney University officials said a panel will look into allegations of police misconduct stemming from the early morning arrest yesterday of a student. The five-person panel was convened by university president W. Clinton Pettus after he met with a group of students, spokeswoman Sharon Cannon said. The panel will look into claims by students that Pennsylvania state troopers from the Media barracks may have used unjust force in detaining Michael Vincent Etter, 21, of Philadelphia.

LOS ANGELES - The New Orleans Police Department has engaged in a wide-ranging pattern of misconduct including the excessive use of force and unconstitutional arrests, the Justice Department announced Thursday. In a lacerating report that followed an investigation requested by local officials, the Justice Department found the department had failed to adequately protect the city. There have been complaints about the department for years, but the difficulties reached a crescendo when unarmed people were shot amid the tumult of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Citing a "widespread perception" that police abuse in Philadelphia "has been increasing and becoming more violent," a coalition of community groups yesterday recommended a series of reforms aimed at reducing police misconduct and increasing departmental accountability. The recommendations included requiring the mayor and police commissioner to give yearly public reports on the department; making public all police policies and procedures; toughening the department's deadly-force guidelines; increasing the number of blacks, Hispanics and women on the force, and changing the manner in which the department deals with reports of misconduct.

Neil Ferber's 45 months on death row for a 1981 mob-related double murder he didn't commit will cost the city $4.5 million. A Common Pleas jury yesterday blamed the Police Department, and two officers in particular, with wrongfully prosecuting Ferber as one of two gunmen who blew away reputed mobster Chelsais "Steve" Booras and a dining companion at the Meletis Restaurant at 8th Street near Catharine. The jurors' award included $2.5 million in punitive damages, $750,000 for intentionally inflicting emotional distress, and $500,000 for the suffering of Ferber's ex-wife, Annette.

A former city employee who investigated police misconduct says city officials fired him last year for giving to Philadelphia Daily News reporters information that led to their Pulitzer Prize-winning series on police corruption. In a federal lawsuit filed here Friday, Wellington Stubbs, who was the chief investigator for the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission, created to handle reports of police wrongdoing, said Mayor Nutter and the deputy mayor for public safety, Everett Gillison, retaliated against him for helping the Daily News.

Police misconduct is costing Philadelphia taxpayers a fortune. In the last 28 months, the city has agreed to pay about $20 million in lawsuits arising from citizen complaints, according to city Law Department records and court documents. The payments arose from more than 225 civil cases that the city has either settled or paid since July 1993. The cases include 78 complaints of police assault, 18 of civil rights violations, 50 of excessive force, 56 of false arrests, and 7 of police shootings.

Dumfounding! Unbelievable! Beyond comprehension! I'm talking about the continuing police scandals in our city. To the remainder of the men and women of the Police Department, it is an unwarranted black eye. The majority of officers do their job without depending on manufactured evidence or falsely accusing anyone, but people think, "There's another one of those criminal cops. " All the honest hard work over the span of a career is put aside and forgotten each time people read of yet another cop gone wrong.

Passion, anger, frustration and optimism radiated from testimony at a City Council hearing yesterday on police misconduct. "I fully acknowledge that we have a problem in our organization now and I'm committed to fixing it," said Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. Council members Donna Reed Miller and Curtis Jones Jr. held the nearly seven-hour committee hearing in hopes of garnering suggestions on how to improve police-community relations, publicize methods to file complaints and explore how police misconduct is being addressed.

In the early hours of Nov. 12, 1989, Officer Luis Lazarde arrested two men outside a bar on Germantown Avenue. Both men were taken to the hospital with head injuries that night. The officers who transported the prisoners said they found one of them - Ventura Martinez Perez - bleeding when they arrived that night. They said they saw Officer Lazarde strike the second prisoner - Victor Rodriguez. They also said Lazarde tried to get them to help cover up the incident. Lazarde denied the accusations and said his fellow officers were framing him. In April 1991, then-Police Commissioner Willie L. Williams announced that he was firing Lazarde for misconduct.

Christina Rainville has lit the fuse on another Lancaster County bombshell. Rainville, the Philadelphia attorney who recently won freedom for a Lancaster County woman who had been convicted of murder, has filed an appeal in another high-profile criminal case there, claiming the widely publicized conviction was gained through prosecutorial and police misconduct. The 50-page brief was filed in Superior Court in Philadelphia late Thursday on behalf of Darrel McCracken, 33, who was convicted in January of three counts of third-degree murder for driving a pickup truck that crashed into a car and killed three people.

As a crime-fighting strategy, Philadelphia police need to be worrying more about making repairs to video surveillance cameras that don't work, rather than hassling citizens who happen to point a functioning cellphone camera their way. The 200 anticrime cameras posted around the city should be helping police nab the bad guys, but as many as one in four are down for maintenance. Meanwhile, far too many police officers seem to be camera shy when they have no legal right to be. Despite a directive issued more than a year ago by Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey that officers could be videotaped legally while performing their jobs, the Police Department last week was hit with the first of several federal lawsuits by a rights group that contends officers have intimidated and arrested people who tried to videotape them.

Fla. terrorism case dropped MIAMI - Citing a lack of evidence, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed terrorism support and conspiracy charges against the younger of two Muslim clerics accused of funneling thousands of dollars to the Pakistani Taliban. U.S. District Judge Robert Scola ruled that "no rational trier of fact" could convict Izhar Khan, 26, who is imam at a mosque in Margate, north of Fort Lauderdale. Trial is continuing against his father, Hafiz Khan, 77. Scola said the evidence against him is much stronger.

No, the city's top cop hasn't lost his mind. Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey absolutely took the right step in dismissing an officer accused of participating in fraud schemes designed to bilk the city and state out of property taxes on real estate transactions. The accusations against Elaine P. Thomas represent one more piece of crud thrown at a Police Department that for several years now has stumbled from one alleged act of impropriety by officers to another - from dealing drugs to shaking down convenience-store operators to sucker-punching defenseless women in the wrong place at the wrong time.

WE HAVE argued many times for an independent authority to provide police oversight and accountability, a body to ensure that police don't abuse their power and that when they do, they are disciplined. We now have that authority in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, it's YouTube. The shocking sidewalk slam to Aida Guzman by Lt. Jonathan Josey at Sunday's Puerto Rican Day parade was captured on video, posted on YouTube, and as of yesterday had gotten 1,329,847 views. That means that Josey, who was suspended with intent to fire by Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey on Wednesday, not only hit a woman, but also sucker-punched the entire city and the Police Department in front of the world.

There's more trouble for the Colwyn, Delaware County, police department. Four Colwyn officers and a Darby man filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Thursday, alleging a pattern of police misconduct, including "improper charging and arrests," a coverup by supervisors, and retaliation against officers who tried to blow the whistle. The suit names suspended deputy police Chief Wendell Reed and Cpl. Trevor Parham, who is facing charges for allegedly tasering a juvenile handcuffed in a holding cell in April.

A CRIMINAL-COURT judge didn't believe James Harris when he claimed in 2007 that Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Paige forced him to perform oral sex on him in his police cruiser in Fairmount Park. But Wednesday, eight jurors did. In a three-day civil trial in federal court, a jury found Harris so believable that it declared Paige liable for violating Harris' civil rights and ordered Paige to pay Harris $165,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The jury of four men and four women deliberated for five hours before deciding that Paige, 45, unlawfully detained Harris and subjected him to "invasions of his bodily integrity" in the March 16, 2007, incident in a remote pocket on the Belmont Plateau.

A months-long legal battle in Waterford Township over the posting of allegations of police misconduct and photographs of off-duty officers drinking at area bars on a now-defunct website that attracted a local following took another turn Tuesday night when the Township Committee indefinitely suspended the municipal attorney. The committee contends that in March, solicitor John Maroccia leaked news of the suspension of Sgt. Joseph McNally to the website — WaterfordTwpTeaParty.com — after the officer was accused of threatening a resident with whom he has a long-running dispute.

Daniel Rutland, mayor of embattled Colwyn, declared another state of emergency in the .3-square-mile borough Saturday after his previous order was overturned by council two weeks ago. Allegations of police misconduct became public this month after a juvenile who was handcuffed in a holding cell was allegedly shot with a Taser by a cop on April 24. Those allegations led Rutland to take three officers under investigation by county detectives off...

THE PHILADELPHIA Parking Authority is spotlighted in an A&E cable TV show titled "Parking Wars. " If A&E were to do one on the Philadelphia Police Department, I suggest the title "Fireproof. " Just what do you have to do to get yourself fired, if you're a Philadelphia cop? Just how bad to the bone must you be? The latest awful example is Officer Michael Paige, 45, driving a patrol car marked with the words "Honor, Service, Integrity" — the Philly cops motto — but his honor is besmirched, his service suspect, his integrity questioned.

C ITY COUNCILMAN Curtis Jones Jr. wants to establish a Police Advisory Commission that's here to stay. Jones finally introduced legislation yesterday proposing a change to the Home Rule Charter to make the commission a permanent agency. The commission, which is tasked with looking into complaints about police misconduct, was created under a mayoral executive order in 1994 and could be eliminated at any time. The Fraternal Order of Police has vowed to defeat the bill, and the Nutter administration has yet to reach an agreement with Jones on a charter change.