FOR MANY IN NORTH PHILADELPHIA, POLICE CORRUPTION IS NO SURPRISE

Publish date: 2024-08-09

PHILADELPHIA -- Michael A. Nutter never told anyone about his run-in as a teenager with a Philadelphia police officer. While parked with a date on a dark, quiet night in Fairmount Park, all of a sudden a light shone through his car window and a voice bellowed, "Step out of the car."

The voice belonged to a Philadelphia policeman, who sized up the situation and told Nutter to get in his patrol car. Nutter, a black, Catholic-school-educated teenager who had never been in trouble, was terrified. Once inside the police car, he recalled, the officer turned to him and said, "Well, maybe I could make this go away and not have to take you in."

Nutter understood. He left the car $5 poorer. But some 20 years later, Nutter, now a city councilman, recalled the incident as an example of what too many black constituents in his racially and economically mixed district have come to expect from their police force: petty corruption that preys on the community it is supposed to protect.

Like many urban police forces, Philadelphia's police department has a long history of periodic scandals and corruption cases, as well as a reputation for police brutality, particularly under the leadership of Frank Rizzo, the tough-talking police commissioner of the 1960s who later became mayor.

But the scandal now beginning to unfold in North Philadelphia may set a new standard. So far, six officers in the 39th Police District have pleaded guilty to charges of robbery, theft of federal funds, civil rights violations and obstruction of justice. Public defenders and the district attorney's office are reviewing some 1,400 cases involving arrests made by the six, and hundreds of convictions could be overturned.

And the investigation is far from over. The officers involved thus far, all of whom are awaiting sentencing, are cooperating with investigators. Meanwhile, records from other police districts and the city's Highway Patrol have been subpoenaed.

George Porchea is not an atypical victim. He served more than two years in jail on drug charges after, according to his account, several of the corrupt police officers broke down the door of his girlfriend's house, ransacked the place, planted drugs and put him in a van while they then went to get a search warrant. His attorney at the time advised him to plead guilty, arguing that a jury would not believe Porchea's word over that of the officers. Porchea, like many others arrested by the six officers, is now suing the city for compensation.

The section of North Philadelphia that falls within the 39th District is a tale of at least three cities. It includes the mostly white, upper-middle-class East Falls neighborhood where Mayor Edward G. Rendell (D) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R) and his wife, City Councilwoman Joan Specter, live. Abutting that is a working-class, lower-income area, still predominately white. Adjacent to that is a working-class and poor black neighborhood, rife with drugs and full of boarded-up row houses.

This last neighborhood is where the 39th's corrupt police routinely made false arrests, planted drugs, robbed victims and then filed bogus reports to cover up their actions. And to some, the choice of victims raises questions of racism.

"It's not a coincidence that every known victim so far is black," said Nutter, who represents part of the 39th. He said the officers didn't prey on white residents because "they'd have reason to believe the person would complain and that they'd be believed."

For many residents, the problem is less one of corruption than a sense that the police don't care. Take Kieng Lim, a Chinese immigrant who owns a deli in a tough neighborhood. He serves customers from behind bulletproof glass, while drug dealers station themselves outside his shop, often using the pay phone to do their business. Lim said he has complained to police many times about the problem, and sometimes they come and the dealers disperse -- but not for long. "Sometimes they help me, sometimes not too much," he said of the police.

What may be most telling is that the well-publicized exploits of the corrupt officers do not surprise many residents of the 39th.

Certainly, it's not a shock to Lois, a 38-year-old resident who did not want her last name published. Almost 20 years ago, her husband was stopped by police on his way home from work, handcuffed, taken to the police station and charged with robbery. She said her husband, who was later acquitted, was beaten with nightsticks and came home with a black eye. Lois, who is white, said her husband, who is black, told her police "called him N -- that word."

And just last month, her husband was stopped by police while driving his new green Honda Accord. "They were suspicious about what he was doing in this new car," Lois said.

Another woman, on her way to pay bills one recent morning on a main street in the 39th, said residents have good reason to distrust police. "I've seen them take money from people arrested and separate the money and put some in one pocket and some in the other," said the woman, who did not want to be named, describing a scene she saw out her bedroom window one Sunday morning a few years ago.

Others, like Hassan Afghani, are less cynical. Afghani owns a Sunoco A-Plus mini-market at a busy intersection on the border of the 39th District, near the upscale East Falls neighborhood. Police officers from three nearby districts stop at his market for coffee and newspapers, and he said he knows three of the guilty officers personally. "To me, it's a shock," Afghani said. "Over here a majority of people are still trusting the officers."

Jane Dalton, chair of the Police Advisory Commission, a civilian oversight agency established last year, has spoken with many community groups and agrees with Nutter that "there is more distrust in the minority community." She said many minority residents complained that police don't respond quickly, use racial slurs and stop blacks and Hispanics for no reason. But she said the 175 or so official complaints lodged with the commission so far have come from residents of all backgrounds.

But no one believes corruption is unique to the 39th District or that minorities are the only victims. In late August, in another morale buster for police, a decorated veteran officer, Thomas V. Collins, was charged with assault and lewdness after allegedly hitting a white woman who found him in his van with a teenage prostitute, then ramming his van into her truck.

Police Capt. Frankie Heyward, a straight-talking, 30-year veteran of the force who was appointed commander of the 39th District in August, said he intends to fight corruption by putting his officers on notice that dishonesty will not be tolerated and that they all must be vigilant about spotting it and reporting it.

Although the message itself is not revolutionary, Heyward said, "a lot of captains never stressed it, and we have to constantly reinforce it."

Heyward also wants to break the "code of silence" that protects corrupt officers from being turned in by colleagues. His message to officers about bad cops: "They are not your friend, your brother, your comrade; they are a criminal in uniform and should be treated that way." Supervisors will be held accountable for their officers, and officers who have knowledge of criminal behavior and don't report it will be punished, Heyward said.

But Heyward is also a realist about police corruption. "It never goes away, because temptations never go away," he said. "In the past there was numbers and prostitution, but nothing capable of generating money like crack cocaine."

At the same time he's trying to root out rotten cops, Heyward is working to rebuild the morale of several hundred officers in his district, many of whom were not even working there during the time the six officers were planting evidence and stealing money and drugs from residents.

"When you read it day in and day out in the newspapers about corruption, it just kind of beats at you," said Sgt. James Gudknecht, who joined the 39th District in the summer. "I arrested a kid the first week I was here for disorderly conduct, and he said, You're just as bad as the rest of them.' " CAPTION: Philadelphia Councilman Michael Nutter talks with Capt. Frankie Heyward, new commander of the troubled 39th Police District, outside district headquarters.

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FOR MANY IN NORTH PHILADELPHIA, POLICE CORRUPTION IS NO SURPRISE