Yet Another Scandal for Philly’s Police

Earlier this week, this city woke up to news reports alleging that in 1998, its top homicide cop crashed his car while drunk and his underlings rearranged the scene to cover up the wreck.

Then on Thursday morning came word from Police Commissioner John F. Timoney that the department’s file on the case had been stolen.

And then later in the day, a police spokeswoman said the file had been found and apparently had been rifled.

The embarrassing series of developments has raised new doubts about the department and Timoney, an outspoken, independent-minded chief who worked his way up the New York City force and came to Philadelphia three years ago.

“This is criminal conduct we’re talking about here, and it has to be dealt with more seriously than he dealt with it,” said David Rudovsky, a lawyer who has monitored the Philadelphia police for the last five years under a federal court settlement.

Mayor John Street has also raised questions. “When people look and see what happened, . . . they think there is a double standard,” he said.

In the past year, the Philadelphia department has been in the national spotlight over the videotaped beating by police of a suspected carjacker, the arrests last summer of 400 Republican convention protesters, few of whom have been convicted, and the melee that erupted at a recent Mardi Gras celebration when drunken revelers vandalized stores downtown.

“Six months ago I couldn’t do anything wrong,” Timoney said to reporters Tuesday. “Now I can’t do anything right.”

The story of Capt. James Brady’s crash in 1998 was first reported Sunday in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which said he wrecked his car and then kept on driving with the air bag smashed against his face. No one was injured.

Police Investigation

According to the Inquirer, the cover-up was orchestrated by Joseph DiLacqua, who was a lieutenant and has since been promoted to captain.

Long before the Inquirer broke the story, the police department’s internal affairs division investigated, and Timoney meted out 20-day suspensions to DiLacqua and Brady. DiLacqua has been sanctioned for misconduct six other times.

Brady and DiLacqua have refused to comment.

Talk radio callers are debating whether Brady really did wet his pants, as the officer who stopped him reported, or whether a beer in his lap or the car radiator had spilled on him.

As for the case file, police Lt. Susan Slawson said in a prepared statement: “The folder has resurfaced and is now accounted for. After examining the case files we have discovered that pages are disheveled and out of place, evidence that the formerly missing documents had been photocopied.”

It was not clear from the statement whether the file had, in fact, been stolen. Neither Slawson nor Timoney returned messages Thursday.

Earlier this week, the mayor continued to sing the praises of his police commissioner, even while seeming to silence him at a news conference. The two released an exchange of e-mails in which Street told the commissioner that nobody bats a thousand and Timoney pledged his eternal loyalty.

The exchange prompted the Philadelphia Daily News on Thursday to superimpose Timoney and Street’s faces on a page-one photo of Art Carney and Jackie Gleason. The tabloid’s headline: “The Honeymooners.”

An independent report released Monday on police discipline found that Philadelphia officers convicted of serious police offenses and even criminal conduct often have their dismissals overturned by arbitrators.

“Some of these officers, because of their known propensity towards violence, instability, anger or histories of drug and alcohol abuse, pose a danger not only to citizens who live and work in this city, and the people who pass through it, but also to the other officers with whom they work,” concluded author Ellen Ceisler, director of the city’s court-ordered Integrity & Accountability Office.

The report supports Timoney’s contention that more severe disciplinary action against Brady or DiLacqua would have been overturned.

DiLacqua is now a captain overseeing evening and overnight patrols. Timoney this week transferred Brady from the prestigious homicide post to the nighttime command unit, known within the department as Siberia.