Many in Coatesville's black community were suspicious.

"It's a plan designed to get rid of certain sectors of the community, not by saying 'You can't live here,' just by making it too expensive," said former council president Rodgers Johnson, an African American.

When Saha refused to sell, city leaders tried to take the farm by eminent domain. When the city lost in court, the project collapsed, leaving the town $8 million in the red.

That was the catalyst for an upheaval in Coatesville's government. Black voters joined with dissatisfied whites to throw out four incumbent council members whom they blamed for the fiasco, including one who had served for 22 years.

The new members, three blacks and a white Methodist minister, voted as a bloc. Before long, they ousted the city solicitor and city manager.

In this atmosphere of change, the black community's long-stewing resentment about the police tactics finally exploded. Town hall meetings became intense debates about whether police were racially profiling.

At one session in 2006, after Inquirer reporters asked him about statistics showing a racial disparity in arrests, District Judge Robert L. Davis went to a council meeting and demanded answers.

He said the numbers confirmed his worry, formed after years of hearing cases, that Coatesville police were rounding up blacks in inordinate numbers.

"That's what I've been seeing here for years," he said in an interview, adding that he was particularly concerned about police citing people for "obstructing highways or public passages." Nine of 10 of people charged under that law were minorities, court records show.

"What's obstructing the highway? It's for standing on the sidewalk, and you do that at Midway Bar & Grill," he said, referring to a Coatesville bar popular with African Americans. When whites do the same thing across the street, he said, police leave them alone.

Police Chief Dominick Bellizzie resigned. Arrests, already down, kept dropping. But the storm continued.

At one boisterous council meeting after Bellizzie's resignation, residents told stories of poor treatment by police and complained about the lack of minority officers.

One African American man stood up in a meeting and declared, "If we can't hire black officers, maybe we need a chief of color."

Police tools

Many of the old guard weren't happy with the new council's choice of Matthews, preferring a popular longtime lieutenant. Even Chester County's district attorney weighed in, calling the hiring process "deceptive."

Matthews took over a department roiled by allegations that police were having sex on the job. In one case, the sex allegedly was not consensual. No charges were filed.

Then, amid rumors that layoffs were imminent, six Coatesville officers resigned.

Immediately, Matthews felt under the gun to show results.

In May, after his officers conducted drug raids, Matthews wrote a letter to the local paper, calling the dealers "an embarrassment to their families and to a proud city."