Internal Affairs : Investigated (Blog Post #2)

Mr.Anderson : Hi I'm Kelvyn Anderson I am the Executive Director of the Police Advisory Commission  In Philadelphia

Lydia: How many complaints a year are made to your organization?

Mr.Anderson :  There are approximately 1,000 or so complaints citizens complaints that are filed against the Philadelphia Police Department  annually. That not only includes complaints filed with my organization but also with the Police Department as well.

Lydia: So you would say Police Misconduct is a problem in Philadelphia?

Mr.Anderson: It's an issue in any city in America as a question of how we define what misconduct is and what we intend to do about it

Lydia: What types of complaints are made?

Mr.Anderson : Complaints are usually divided into a couple of broad categories. A Psychical Abuse complaint would be a complaint where an officer used some type of force that caused an injury to the victim. Whether that be a shooting, some other type of psychic confrontation between an officer or a citizen. The other types of complaints include complaints that are called Abuse of Authority. Which the person says that the officer did something in some instances did not do something required by the authority that police officers are given. So yeah Psychical Abuse complaints and Abuse of Authority complaints and those make up the bulk of the complaints we receive from citizens.

Lydia : What is done to investigate these complaints?

Mr.Anderson. : If a citizen files a complaint with our agency or Internal Affairs an investigation is conducted usually consists of taking a statement from the person. If there are other relevant documents that show the situation the person is in such as police reports or surveillance video all sorts of information. Interviews with people who were at the scene. We try to see that a thorough investigation is conducted into the person's complaint.

Lydia : What are some limits to the authority of your organization?

Mr. Anderson: Commission is a civilian oversight agency which means that most agencies like ours don't have the power to actually investigate. We can only make recommendations to take certain actions.

Lydia: Has the city taken any action to help further your Organization?

Mr.Anderson:  Recently some reports from the federal government and commissions that the Police Commissioner Mr. Ramsey have made recommendations in empowering agencies like the Police Advisory Commission. So I think you're going to see other commissions in other cities in the country deal with issues. Not only misconduct and generally how we define what policing is in our country.

Lydia : How many Police Officers actually receive punishments for their actions?

Mr. Anderson: That number is usually lower than complaints actually filed. That depends in large part on the type of complaint. Often it's an officers word against a citizens word. Those type of situations get revised in some neutral way. It's a sustained complaint which means you don't have enough information to prove what the citizen says or what the police officer says. But now that we are going to start to have body cameras some of that will change .

Lydia : What is the process of an Internal Affairs Investigation?

Mr. Anderson: Internal Affairs has a wider authority my agency does in respect to citizens complaints other types of incidents involving police officers. Internal Affairs investigations run from shootings to more traditional types of complaints which we also handle Abuse complaints or verbal abuse complains. Verbal abuse complaints is another category I forgot to mention earlier.

Having gotten information from Mr.Anderson, I wanted to hear the side of the Police Department. I reached out to a friend of mine so I could interview her mother. She responded with that she would ask but I never heard any further than that. So I looked over the internet to find interviews in which any officer in Philadelphia mentioned a change in the handling of affairs.

In my search I found a Philly.com article on the subject.

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey

"We need to get the complaints. We need to be able to do a thorough and complete investigation and let the cards fall where they may," Ramsey said. "I will definitely deal with these five [districts] in the meantime, we have reinforced with our personnel that if a person wants to make a complaint against a police officer, give them the form.”

However the Commissioner in a Metro News Article exposed to have been “quietly beefing up Internal Affairs” . He was quoted to have said, “It’s just for the good of the department. The bottom line is if there’s an allegation against an officer, we have an obligation both to the public and the officers accused to have it resolved as quickly and as thoroughly as we can,.”

Puerto Rican Day Parade screenshot

Do any of you remember the Police officer from the Puerto Rican Day Parade who punched a woman? After the public quieted down, he was rehired in the PPD. So are Philly's citizens really getting their fair trial with internal affairs investigating these claims?

For my Agent of Change, I will be hitting home at SLA and giving Red Stream the facts of the Philadelphia Police Department in a detailed presentation.

Annotated Bibliography (New sources)