March to protest police intrusion at service

Fourteen years after an arrest at a wedding ceremony touched off a major protest, the Philadelphia Police Department again faces controversy over an attempt by officers to enter a worship service to search for a suspect.

A protest march is planned for today over a July 5 incident at the Chosen 300 Outreach and Worship Center, on Spring Garden Street near 11th. The center provides meals and classes, and holds services for the homeless.

When two officers arrived during a Sunday-morning service to look for a suspect, pastor and executive director Brian Jenkins said he told them that they couldn't interrupt the service and placed his hand on one officer's shoulder when he kept walking in.

" 'If you touch me again, I'm going to arrest your ass,' " Jenkins said the officer told him.

Jenkins said that when he continued to argue with the officers and instructed his staff to contact their captain, the officers waited outside until a sergeant arrived.

In the end, no search was conducted, but Jenkins said that the confrontation disrupted the service and that he and others from the center protested to the police and demanded an apology from the officers.

"I was preparing for a baptism," Jenkins said. "This happened once before, in October of 2008, when a squad of officers came in and disrupted our worship. . . . We let them get away with it then. This time it's not OK."

Religious services aren't legally protected from police searches any more than secular gatherings, but Philadelphia police have a policy requiring officers to "exhaust all other reasonable means of apprehension before making an arrest or taking other police action during religious services."

The policy also requires officers to contact a supervisor before disrupting a service.

The policy was developed after a 1995 incident in which officers interrupted a wedding at the Zion Baptist Church, on North Broad Street, and arrested the groom, who was wanted and later convicted on an armed-robbery charge.

Protests over that incident led to the suspension of three officers and the department's directive to avoid disruption of worship services except in extreme circumstances.

Deputy Police Commissioner Richard Ross met with Jenkins and others about the incident and spoke with worshipers at a Sunday service at Chosen 300 several weeks ago.

"We went to inform them that the department has a policy, and Internal Affairs [investigators] will be looking into it to determine whether that policy was violated," Ross said.

Jenkins said that he and others at the center waited well beyond the 75 days alloted for Internal Affairs investigations to conclude before going public with their complaints. He said that the officers should apologize at a Sunday service, or they should be fired.

Ross said that the officers aren't in a position to comment on an incident while it's under investigation.

Protesters are set to start at the Worship Center at 11:30 a.m. today and walk to City Hall with stops along the way. They plan a rally at City Hall at 2 p.m.