By Stephanie Farr
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — An Officer-Involved Shooting Investigation Unit was established within the Philadelphia Police Department Jan. 1, Commissioner Richard Ross announced Friday.
The creation of the unit was a result of a Department of Justice study that recommended departmental reforms focused on the use of deadly force by police officers.
Of the 91 recommendations from the March 2015 report conducted by the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the Philadelphia Police Department has completed 61 recommendations and is making progress on an additional 22, officials announced a news conference Friday.
“The Philadelphia Police Department will now be a model for departments across the country,” said COPS director Ronald Davis.
However, one of the study’s major recommendations - that an outside agency should investigate officer-involved shootings - could not be fulfilled, Davis said.
“Philadelphia tried many alternatives but it could not work,” Davis said.
Ross said the department faced three major hurdles. The chosen agency would have to have the expertise to conduct the investigation and it would have to have the capacity and ability to respond when an officer-involved shooting happens, he said.
“You have to be able to get there,” he said.
Finally, Ross said the “elephant in the room” was that the department faced opposition on the proposal from its union, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5.
As an alternative to an outside agency conducting investigations, Ross established the Officer-Involved Shooting Investigation Unit so the process is now bifurcated - the criminal aspect will be handled by the new unit, and the administrative aspect will continue to be handled by the department’s Internal Affairs Unit.
The separation will allow the department to interview officers involved in a shooting within 72 hours, instead of having to wait months until the District Attorney’s Office determines whether to bring criminal charges against the officer.
The department has also updated its use-of-force policy, established new in-service training guidelines, and improved its relationship with the Police Advisory Commission, Davis said.
Of the eight suggested reforms that the department has not yet completed or made progress on, two will be addressed during union negotiations in July and five are under review, Davis said. He added that since the report was penned, the department has begun to address the eighth suggested reform - to keep its website updated with police-involved shooting information.
The DOJ study was requested in 2013 by then-Commissioner Charles Ramsey after police-involved shootings spiked in 2012.
Philadelphia is one of 16 cities to undergo the study and the largest department in the country to take on the challenge, according to Davis and Mayor Kenney.
Ross said the progress his department has made on the reforms is “not an end game” but rather, a move in the right direction.
“We will never get comfortable, whether it be crime fighting strategies or police reform,” he said.
Copyright 2017