Phila Cops 2 When officers are off duty and out of line
Dave Butler
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Second in a series
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When officers are off duty and out of line
On their own time, they used the badge to bully civilians. One wrote up
bogus tickets. Some resorted to their guns and fists.
By Mark Fazlollah, Mark Bowden,
Carol Morello and Richard Jones
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
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When Windell Butler burst into Artie's clothing store in the Northeast
section of the city on a July morning in 1990, he had one handgun in his
holster and another jammed in his waistband.
Store manager Maria Gruninger remembers the weapons, remembers Butler's
profane threat against a store employee, remembers that Butler was
half-dressed for his job.
His job as a Philadelphia police officer.
Officer Butler, clad in a tank top and police pants, rushed to Artie's to
confront salesman William Watkins, who'd accused Butler's wife, also a sales
clerk, of shoplifting.
``You f -- with her,'' a witness remembers Butler yelling as he pursued
Watkins, ``you f -- with me!'' As the store manager evacuated customers,
witnesses said, Butler pursued Watkins to an employees-only area in the
back, and picked up and slammed dow n a rack of clothing.
``I'm a family-oriented kind of guy,'' Butler explained in a recent
interview. ``He said he was going to `get her.' That set me off.''
Witnesses said Butler challenged Watkins to fight, offering to set aside his
weapons. He laid one gun on a table. The incident ended when Butler's wife
asked him to go. He continues to deny that he did anything improper. Watkins
filed a complaint.
When the department questioned Butler he portrayed himself as a calm, polite
fact finder throughout -- ``I was just trying to figure out what was going
on,'' he said. The others present didn't see it that way. Three witnesses,
including Butler's wife, s upported Watkins' version.
The police Internal Affairs Division sustained a complaint against Butler
for ``verbally abusing'' Watkins and for flaunting weapons.
The punishment?
Butler was suspended for two days for conduct unbecoming an officer.
``It was not totally fair,'' Butler recently complained. ``But in this job,
you're guilty until proven innocent.''
The complaint against Butler was one of more than 2,000 citizen complaints
filed with the Philadelphia Police Department from 1989 through last month.
An examination of those cases shows how the department's disciplinary system
seems structured more to p rotect officers than to root out problem cops.
As The Inquirer reported yesterday, there have been numerous instances in
which the department found an officer guilty of misconduct in the line of
duty, yet little if any discipline resulted.
The Butler case and others like it show that when the department finds an
officer guilty of misconduct that had nothing to do with duty, little or
nothing happens.
The pattern repeats itself in many cases:
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The mysterious tickets
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Willie Witherspoon got a summons in August 1991 for failing to pay a ticket
for parking illegally in Center City. The Germantown resident, then 67,
hadn't driven to Center City in years. He assumed it was just a mistake.
Then a neighbor, Francis Smith, got a mailed notice of a parking violation
in Center City. He, too, hadn't deserved it.
Witherspoon and Smith started doing their own detecting.
They wondered if the tickets had anything to do with another neighbor,
Philadelphia Police Officer Robert Bonds, who worked in the Sixth District
-- in Center City.
Smith and Witherspoon were active in East Germantown Against Drugs.
Witherspoon was president. They'd spent many nights conducting street-corner
vigils against drug dealers. They knew Bonds had been raised in the area
and, they say, they thought he was s till friendly with childhood buddies
who had turned to drug dealing.
The signature on their tickets read ``Officer Darryl Braxton.'' Witherspoon
and Smith called the Police Department to voice their suspicions.
After interviewing the anti-drug activists, Lt. Donna Sykes, an Internal
Affairs investigator, traced the origin of the two tickets. They had indeed
come from a pad issued to Officer Braxton, and Braxton denied writing the
tickets. He said his signatur e h ad been forged.
Braxton told Internal Affairs he had loaned ticket books to other officers,
though not to Bonds. Sixth District logs showed Bonds had worked in the
station house on the day the tickets were written. His supervisor, Cpl.
Charles Cooper, said he didn't r ec all Bonds leaving the building.
Sykes checked the information on the tickets. Smith's said he had parked in
a handicapped-only zone in the 100 block of Chestnut Street, where there was
no such zone.
Sykes had the tickets and handwriting samples from Bonds and Braxton
examined by a documents expert, who determined the signatures on the tickets
had been written by Bonds.
Bonds confessed.
``It was out of anger and confusion,'' Bonds told Internal Affairs. ``I was
under stress and confusion at the time. I did it out of anger. . . . I was
stupid for doing it and I realize that after I did it; it was a result of
home stress.''
Bonds was suspended for 10 days.
``I heard he got a week off or something like that,'' Witherspoon said
recently. ``Mr. Smith and I actually told the department that we hoped Mr.
Bonds would not lose his job. But what they gave him wasn't at all
appropriate for what he did. We still s ee him in the neighborhood. All
that's happened is he's stopped speaking to us, like we did something
wrong.''
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Officer as avenging mom
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Shoney's restaurant manager Nelson Figueroa knew he had a problem on Sept.
19, 1989, when the mother of one of his young waitresses called to complain
that her daughter had been sexually harassed by a dishwasher.
As Figueroa recalled, their conversation went like this:
``I'm a police officer and I want that dishwasher of yours fired,'' said
Philadelphia Police Officer Margaret Lederer.
``Ma'am, I can't fire him just because you want me to,'' Figueroa said.
He agreed to talk to the dishwasher and ensure there was no further trouble.
The dishwasher denied harassing the waitress and promised to steer clear of
her.
That evening, as Figueroa was locking the restaurant, in the 9900 block of
Roosevelt Boulevard, Lederer arrived with a friend, identified herself as a
police officer and, says Figueroa, demanded to be let in, saying:
``Where is that bastard? Where is that son of a bitch? The one who's been
touching my daughter?''
Figueroa says he tried to calm Lederer, but when he opened the door, she
pushed him aside, charged into the restaurant and attacked the dishwasher.
When Figueroa tried to pull them apart, he says, Lederer punched him in the
face. The officer chased the d ishwasher outside and down the street.
She later had him arrested on an assault charge.
Questioned by Internal Affairs, Lederer denied Figueroa's account and said
she had reacted ``like a mother'' concerned for her daughter.
Investigators decided Lederer's harassment accusation against the dishwasher
was ``unfounded.'' The assault charge against him was dismissed. The
Internal Affairs investigation concluded Figueroa's version, not Lederer's,
was correct.
Lederer was suspended for one day.
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A crash off duty
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The accident at Frankford and Girard Avenues on July 26, 1992, was just a
fender bender, Jeremy Ferreira says, except for one thing.
The other driver was off-duty Officer Kenneth Hermes and, Ferreira says,
Hermes admitted that he had been drinking.
That explained, Ferreira says, why Hermes was driving on the wrong side of
the street and through a red light.
In an Internal Affairs report, Ferreira and several neighborhood witnesses
said that Hermes got out of his crashed car and hit Ferreira -- first with
fists, then with a short copper pipe. Ferreira had a gash on his head and
other injuries.
Investigators reported that Hermes said he had had several 12-ounce bottles
of beer before the accident, but was not drunk. It was Ferreira, Hermes
contended, who was armed with a copper pipe and he had had to disarm
Ferreira by repeatedly punching him . Hermes told Internal Affairs that he
kicked Ferreira in the buttocks when it was all over. He didn't say why.
There were at least five 26th District officers at the scene because a
police radio dispatcher had issued an ``assist officer'' alert -- the
highest-priority police call.
Both drivers were ticketed for not having the proper paperwork for their
vehicles. Ferreira was fined $102 for driving without a license in his
possession, but four other tickets issued to him were dismissed.
Internal Affairs sustained the complaint that Hermes had beaten and sworn at
Ferreira.
Ferreira sued. His lawyer, Alan Yatvin, said police deliberately ``allowed
Hermes to get away with driving while intoxicated and assault.'' Ferreira
won $5,000 from the city, and $6,000 from Hermes.
Ferreira said his case exemplified a ``blue wall of silence'' and immunity
for police when the victims are from low-income neighborhoods.
Hermes said in an interview that Internal Affairs had wrongly found against
him. He questioned the motives of the police discipline. ``I believe my
suspension came down from the commissioner,'' he said of Commissioner
Richard Neal. ``It might have been r acially motivated. I'm a white male and
he's a black male.''
Neal ordered Hermes suspended for 10 days.
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The scratched car
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Eric Wright says he knew there could be trouble when he decided to evict his
wife, Crystal Wright. She is a 16th District police officer.
gSo rancorous were relations since their separation more than two years
earlier that each had obtained a protective order barring abuse by the
other. They scarcely spoke, though Crystal Wright continued to live at a
house on Mifflin Street that Eric Wr igh t had bought before their marriage.
Eric Wright, a SEPTA manager, said that when he once stopped at the South
Philadelphia house, his wife pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot if
he returned.
On Jan. 15, 1994, he called First District headquarters and asked for police
to come to the house to serve the eviction order. Internal Affairs files say
the officers spoke to Crystal Wright but decided not to serve the order and
left.
Crystal Wright and a friend, Officer Wanda Johnson, of the 16th District,
then went to City Hall, seeking to overturn the eviction order. When they
returned to Mifflin Street, they were accompanied by another friend of
Crystal Wright's, Officer Joseph Aa ron Serious.
While Eric Wright was in the house, someone made scratches in the paint all
around his red, four-door Nissan. He says it cost him $1,926.40 to repair
the car.
In interviews, all three police officers denied to Internal Affairs seeing
or having anything to do with Eric Wright's scratched car.
Serious said he approached the car only to look at the license tag. He said
Eric Wright had been ``causing all these problems,'' and he wanted to be
able to identify him in the future. Johnson said she waited outside while
Crystal Wright collected he r belongings, and saw no vandalism.
Crystal Wright said she knew nothing about it.
A neighbor and the neighbor's 11-year-old grandson told Internal Affairs
they had watched what happened through their front window. They said Crystal
Wright told Serious to ``mess up his car.'' They said Serious crossed the
street and circled Eric Wrig ht 's red car, scratching it with a key.
Internal Affairs concluded that Serious vandalized the car at Crystal
Wright's urging.
Both were suspended for three days.
They are appealing the suspensions, and declined to comment.
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The expert witnesses
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Firefighter Bruce Atkins and Philadelphia Police Officer Jennifer Brunson
were on a motorcycle close behind Virgilio Rivera's cab just after 2 a.m. on
Aug. 2, 1993, when Rivera stopped near City Hall.
Atkins and Brunson almost fell off the motorcycle.
Atkins drove alongside the cab, pulled out a hunting knife and jabbed at
Rivera three or four times through the open cab window.
So, at least, said two witnesses.
They were Michael Cizmar, an FBI agent, and Joseph Passio, a detective in
the major-crimes unit of the Philadelphia Police Department. They happened
to be nearby in an unmarked squad car.
Cizmar and Passio told Internal Affairs they jumped out of the car, took the
knife from Atkins and handcuffed him. They said Brunson pushed Cizmar and,
identifying herself as an officer, ordered him to release Atkins.
``While I was attempting to cuff and search the subject, the female
passenger tried several times to lift this individual off the ground,
stating, `He's a fireman. Let him up. Let him go,' or words to that
effect,'' Cizmar said.
Rivera, who was not injured in the incident, said that after Atkins was
arrested, Brunson rushed up to his cab, flashed her badge, told him she was
a police officer, and said: ``You are a dead motherf -- er.''
Atkins was charged with felony assault and related charges. The case was
dismissed when Rivera did not appear in court.
In a brief interview this month, Atkins said the police version was
incorrect. He declined to elaborate. His lawyer in the case did not respond
to requests for comment.
Rivera, 24, said recently that he had been afraid to go to testify.
``I took it seriously what she said, when a police officer says she's going
to kill you,'' Rivera said. ``Why would she say that and not mean it?''
Brunson told Internal Affairs she had not seen Atkins try to stab Rivera.
She denied that she had interfered with Atkins' arrest or threatened Rivera.
She said she had done nothing improper.
gThe Internal Affairs report said ``Officer Brunson not only verbally abused
Mr. Rivera, but displayed a wanton breach of professional conduct as well.''
The report said her actions were ``on the fringe of criminal behavior.''
She was suspended for five days.
``Jeez,'' FBI agent Cizmar said when told of the discipline. ``I guess
there's nothing you can do.''
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The mall guard and the gun
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Cheltenham Mall security guard Manuel Bromfield remembers being more amazed
than scared by the gun.
Minutes earlier, on a cool Aug. 8, 1991, evening, he had asked the guy who
had stopped at a mall MAC machine to move his car from the fire lane. The
man at the MAC machine, Leonard Johnson, flashed a badge and said he was a
Philadelphia police officer an d wouldn't be parked long.
``Just because you're a police officer, you don't have the right to park
here,'' Bromfield recalls saying. ``You've got to follow the rules over here
just like everybody else.''
He says Johnson responded: ``What are you going to do, give me a ticket?''
Bromfield left to look for a Cheltenham police officer with authority to do
just that. When he returned, he says, Johnson was driving away, so he hopped
into his security vehicle to catch up and record the license number on
Johnson's car. He says John son pulled over, got out of his car, and
exchanged angry words with him. Then, Bromfield says, Johnson reached into
the waistband of his sweatpants and pulled out a black 9 mm Glock, leveled
it at Bromfield's midsection and made a motion as if he were coc king the
hammer.
Bromfield says Johnson told him: ``I'm going to blow you away.''
``I just couldn't believe that a cop would do that,'' Bromfield said
recently. ``I just put up my hands; my eyebrows went up in amazement . . . I
was just in shock.''
gThe standoff ended when a Cheltenham police car pulled up.
gJohnson was taken to the Cheltenham police station, where Bromfield
declined to press charges. He did report it to Philadelphia's Internal
Affairs unit.
Contacted recently, Johnson declined to talk about the case.
``It was 1991 and my career was screwed up because of it, and I just want to
put it behind me,'' he said.
At the time, Johnson denied to Internal Affairs pulling or even showing a
gun to Bromfield, and said he never threatened him. gA second mall guard,
Michael Diaz, said he had witnessed the incident and backed Bromfield's
account. The police inquiry boar d found Johnson guilty and recommended that
he be suspended for two days and given more firearms training.
``Two days? That's all?'' Bromfield said recently when told of the
disposition. ``Man, in the Navy you'd have to go up on captain's mast. You'd
be demoted. Boy. Two days?''
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The profane patrolman
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Anna Thompson wondered why an officer in a Philadelphia police cruiser
pulled her over on Interstate 95 near the Betsy Ross Bridge on the afternoon
of Oct. 26, 1990. She waited nervously as the officer stepped out of his car
and approached. She r olle d down her window.
Officer Joseph Crone, who was less than halfway through his shift, leaned
toward Thompson and said: ``You are one fine-looking motherf -- ing bitch.''
Then he drove off.
Thompson was not flattered. She jotted down the police car's number and the
license plate number. A short time later, Thompson called the department to
complain.
Sgt. Ronald Small, Crone's supervisor, tracked down the car and found Crone
in it, smelling of alcohol. Small had Crone driven back to highway patrol
headquarters, where his supervisor, Capt. Benjamin Braxton, ordered a
Breathalyzer test.
First Braxton gave Crone some time. He instructed that the officer ``be
taken home to change his uniform.''
By the time Crone got back to headquarters, he still registered a
Breathalyzer reading of 0.136, well above the 0.10 that Pennsylvania
considers legally impaired. Crone's supervisors did not charge him with
driving his cruiser while intoxicated.
Officer Crone was suspended for 15 days, according to city payroll files.
``No, it was just 10 days,'' said Crone recently. ``I think that's what it
was. I don't know, maybe they did throw in a few days later on, I don't
remember.'' Police records show that the commissioner ordered Crone
suspended 25 days. Lawyers for the city and for the FOP said arbitrators
apparently lowered the suspension to 15 days.
Asked if he had been cut a break by being allowed time to go home and change
clothes before the sobriety test, Crone said: ``I don't know. That was the
supervisor's decision.''
An Internal Affairs report said Crone's supervisors were ``instructed about
their shortcomings in how they handled this incident.''
Inquirer staff writers Thomas J. Gibbons Jr., Larry Fish, Karen E.
Quinones-Miller and Marjorie Valbrun contributed to this article.
Next in the series ...
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November 20, 1995
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