Dept. of Justice delays review of police use of deadly force

Officials of the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday they were postponing the release of their review of the use of deadly force by Philadelphia police.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office said the review would be released at a later date. No reason was given for the delay.

The postponement comes as police investigate the shooting death on Thursday of Philadelphia Police Officer Robert Wilson III during a holdup at a video game store in the Swampoodle section of the city.

A rise in shootings by police in recent years prompted Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey to seek the review.

Ramsey has told reporters the review would recommend several major changes, with a focus on officer training and how his department's police shootings are investigated.

Kelvyn Anderson, executive director of Philadelphia's Police Advisory Commission, said he hoped the study would lead to more consistent attention and greater openness by the department on officer shootings.

"We're so far away from that in this city," he said. "We're just creating more problems by pretending we have transparency."

Police shootings gained national scrutiny after Michael Brown, an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo., was shot to death in August. In Philadelphia, the fatal shooting by police of Brandon Tate-Brown in December has focused attention on claims by his family of inconsistencies in statements by the department. Ramsey has refused calls to publicly release a video of the shooting.

In the two other cities that requested and underwent similar reviews, the Justice Department's reports have stressed the importance of transparency and training to curb excessive force and restore public trust in the police.

In Las Vegas, where police-involved shootings spiked in 2010 and a newspaper investigation into officers' use of force sparked outrage, the department was told to revamp officer training and set up a unit to investigate police shootings only.

In Spokane, Wash., where a 2006 police-involved killing shook the city and sent an officer to federal prison, federal authorities also recommended additional training and an overhaul of use-of-force policies.

It was already apparent, said Las Vegas Capt. Mark McCarthy, that change was needed when the Department of Justice arrived in the city.

"But [the review] did provide us a road map" for change, he said.

Justice Department officials arrived in Philadelphia in December 2013, after Ramsey sought an outside review of his department's use-of-force practices. A spike in shootings in 2012 and 2013 - including seven in one week, four fatal - sparked media scrutiny and led to about two dozen financial settlements totaling $9.5 million.

Since 2008, six Philadelphia police officers have been killed, including Wilson, 30, who was gunned down inside a GameStop store at 21st Street and Lehigh Avenue. He was an eight-year veteran of the department.

In 2012, Officer Moses Walker Jr., 40, was shot and killed during an attempted robbery after completing his shift.

Walker and Wilson were both assigned to the 22nd District

During the same period, 439 Philadelphia officers were wounded by guns or other weapons.

Philadelphia police officials do not reveal the identities of officers involved in shootings or what discipline, if any, is ordered.

The review marks the second time Ramsey has turned to the Justice Department after concerns about police-involved shootings by officers under his command. In 1999, federal officials were brought in to examine firearms practices in Washington a year after he took over there.

The investigation of Philadelphia's force, headed by the federal agency's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), has taken 14 months.

Unlike recent Justice Department investigations into potential civil-rights violations in cities including Ferguson, the investigation in Philadelphia has been a collaboration, in which departments work with federal officials to enact reforms. COPS makes only recommendations, though it expects most, if not all, to be adopted.

"They're not so confrontational. They're trying to focus on what the department can try to improve," said Breean Beggs, a lawyer and community activist in Spokane who represents the city's Civilian Oversight Committee. "It's focused on improvement as opposed to cataloging their sins."

As a result, when federal officials concluded their investigation in Las Vegas, McCarthy said, much of their recommended change was already in place.

"It was a true collaboration. We sat down at the table and we opened up all our books," he said. "They came up with 75 recommendations, and many of those recommendations we had already started working through before the first report ever came out."

After national unrest and demonstrations over the police-involved deaths of Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York, President Obama created the 21st Century Policing Task Force and tapped Ramsey to lead the panel. The task force was created to establish a better national template for building and maintaining trust between police and communities of color.

Philadelphia's review is set to arrive just days after the 21st Century Task Force report was released.

Ramsey has said he is prepared to implement changes from both reports - including a task force proposal to have outside agencies investigate police-involved deaths, which has met with some opposition.

"We'll take both [reports] . . . and look at where we are and make whatever adjustments we need to make," he said this week.

Even as the COPS review was beginning, the Philadelphia department said it had put thousands of officers through crisis-intervention and "reality-based" training. It also enhanced the department's key directive on the use of deadly force to emphasize the "sanctity of life," a reminder to officers that deadly force should be reserved for the most extreme circumstances.

An analysis of police records shows an average of 12 people a year have been shot dead by police since Ramsey took over in 2008. There have been more than 325 police shootings since 2008.

However, last year saw a dramatic drop in police shootings - four fatal among 29 overall, down from 13 deaths and 41 shootings in 2013.

Still, community members like Anderson continue to call for more transparency on police shootings in Philadelphia, which is also a common refrain in other COPS reviews.

In Las Vegas - where the names, ages, and assignments of the officers involved in a shooting are routinely released within days of a shooting, and have been for years - federal authorities still encouraged police to release even more detailed information on officer-involved deaths.

"The department can prevent rumors by actively delivering more detailed and timely information on the incident and on what the department is doing to ensure compliance with policies," the report read.

Philadelphia's department this year added an officer-involved shooting section to its website. The Web page includes statistics and preliminary synopses of shootings, without the names of officers or others involved.

Police and community members in cities that have completed COPS reviews say the reviews were an important first step toward needed reforms.

"The police department started moving in the right direction from the beginning of the study," Beggs, the Spokane lawyer, said. "They understood what the COPS project was looking at, and they started getting ahead of the curve. The big question for the community is whether or not that work at the upper levels of management is going to filter down to the everyday officer."

awhelan@philly.com

215-854-2961 @aubreyjwhelan