The Associated Press
Lafayette Hill, Penn. (AP) -- Nearly three-quarters of a suburban Philadelphia police department have turned on a former colleague for alleged rogue behavior, a remarkable breach of the so-called “blue wall of silence.”
Whitemarsh Township Sgt. Guy Anhorn built a reputation as an aggressive officer who made plenty of arrests, organized the department’s Cop Camp for youth and twice received the Montgomery County Fraternal Order of Police’s award for valor.
But some officers are calling him a rogue who engaged in racial profiling, violated established police procedure and trampled on civil rights. Anhorn, who denies any wrongdoing, retired in July after a 33-year career amid myriad investigations into his conduct.
Twenty-four of Whitemarsh Township’s 33 police officers have gone on record against Anhorn. Many of those officers have testified against him in investigations opened by the township, the FBI, and a county grand jury.
“To have 24 officers in a 33-officer department come out and make statements about the misconduct of another officer is virtually unheard of,” said David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor and an expert on police misconduct. “It’s as rare as a moon rock.”
David Kairys, a Temple Law School professor, called it an “extraordinary event -- even for one police officer to come forward and testify in this way against another officer.”
Five senior police officers laid out the case against Anhorn at an April meeting with the township supervisors. According to documents obtained by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the officers claim that Anhorn randomly followed vehicles, encouraged officers to embellish their arrest affidavits to strengthen their cases, lied under oath about his own trumped-up affidavits, and routinely searched vehicles without cause.
Six black men filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Anhorn, saying he targeted blacks for illegal vehicle stops, unlawful searches and fabricated affidavits of probable cause.
An analysis of cases on file at the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, conducted by The Inquirer and published in Sunday editions, shows that Anhorn’s arrest rate of blacks over the last five years well exceeded the department’s average.
But at the same time, a review of 20 years of cases by the county public defender turned up no cases in which Anhorn’s arrests could be challenged. And Anhorn’s defenders say he is the target of a political plot by officers who disliked his work ethic or wanted to eliminate him as a potential candidate for chief.
“It’s like classic political dirty tricks that has just taken on a life of its own,” said Jack McMahon, Anhorn’s attorney.
Friction in the police department first surfaced after longtime Whitemarsh chief Richard Zolko died in July 2002. The township supervisors hired consultant Charles Hale of Chicago to evaluate the department’s operations; Hale interviewed every police employee and then told supervisors that they had a problem with one of their sergeants.
“If even a portion of the allegations against this sergeant (are) true, (the) department has a serious problem on its hands and swift action must be taken to correct it,” Hale wrote on Dec. 15 to township manager Larry Gregan.
The township then hired lawyer David MacMain to look into the matter. MacMain’s report, submitted in February, found the officers’ claims to be unsubstantiated.
But in a March letter signed by 24 officers, supervisors were told of coercion and intimidation by their superior officers during the MacMain investigation. The officers described a “dangerous” work environment and demanded a meeting -- the one at which the senior officers made their allegations against Anhorn.