Skip to content
Crime & Justice
Link copied to clipboard

2 Philly cops arrested, charged with illegally detaining man

Officers Matthew Walsh and Marvin Jones, both assigned to the 14th District, were suspended for 30 days with intent to dismiss.

File photo.
File photo.Read moreDaily News Photo / Jessica Griffin

Two Philadelphia police officers were arrested Wednesday and charged with illegally detaining a man during an April pedestrian stop in East Mount Airy.

Officers Matthew Walsh, 30, and Marvin Jones, 48, both assigned to the 14th District, were suspended for 30 days with intent to dismiss by Commissioner Richard Ross, the department said.

Both were charged with obstructing administration of law, a felony; and with misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment, tampering with records, and official oppression. The charges were approved by the District Attorney's Office on Monday.

The department said Walsh, a four-year veteran of the force, and Jones, a 10-year veteran, stopped the man in the 100 block of East Sharpnack Street just after 10 a.m. April 17, without the legally required reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

The two officers improperly searched the man — who was not identified — and his vehicle, detained him in handcuffs for about 15 minutes, then drove him a block away and released him, the department said.

Based on surveillance video, internal affairs investigators found that the officers falsified the paperwork they submitted on the arrest, the department said.

A department statement Thursday said that according to "documentation subsequently prepared and submitted by the officers, the citizen was stopped for 'apparently using narcotics.' Also according to the officers' paperwork, during the encounter, the citizen was frisked because he failed to take his hands out of his pockets."

"Based on video surveillance recovered during the course of the IAD investigation, Police Officer Walsh and Police Officer Jones could not have seen the citizen 'apparently using narcotics.' In addition, the citizen was fully compliant at the time of the stop," the statement said.

The investigation "also determined that Officers Walsh and Jones falsified the Vehicle/Pedestrian Investigation Report they prepared and submitted," it said.

Meanwhile, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 said in a statement Thursday that it would provide legal representation for "both officers, who are entitled to due process," as well as continuing their union representation.