Why Pennsylvania scores high for police misconduct settlement cases

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

Relaxing in her Mount Airy home, Carol Perry reflected on her years in Philadelphia law enforcement.

The retired police officer spent 19 years patrolling what is now officially the Fairmount district. She retired from service in 2005.

Perry responded to all types of calls for service, including break-ins and robberies at retail shops, banks and residential neighborhoods. Car thefts were often a problem, too.

She even assisted with dangerous calls in public housing complexes where drug trafficking caused chaos in the 1990s.

“Sometimes we had shootouts with the drug dealers, chasing them up and down the street,” Perry said in an interview with WHYY News.

She became emotional when discussing the profound loss within the department.

“We had some officers who were killed that were close to me and during that time we had an officer who committed suicide and killed his wife,” Perry said. “We had some officers whose children were killed during that time. So there was some heartache and some pain there.”

Perry believes community hostility toward police is now at an all-time high.

“I think the police brutality has gotten worse and justified or unjustified homicides that were committed by the police department stung the community and stung the world,” Perry continued. “When Black Lives Matter came in and highlighted a lot of violence that was going [on] around the country, I think that the community looked at us as bad or unfair, you know, murderers.”

Perry’s story may help understand some of the findings of a Whitley Law Firm study, originating in North Carolina, that analyzed police misconduct settlement figures nationwide, documenting patterns and covering numerous jurisdictions.

According to the study, Pennsylvania has paid more than $59 million total for four police misconduct settlements, from 2010 to 2014, ranking the commonwealth third-highest (an average of $14.8 million per settlement) in the nation for large payout amounts.

New York leads the nation in settlement costs, averaging $73 million per case and ultimately exceeding $1.1 billion in total settlements.

A closer look at Philadelphia

In Philadelphia, the study showed the city paid $54 million for police misconduct cases settled between 2010 and 2014.

The family of Walter Wallace Jr. received a $2.5 million settlement in 2021, a year after Wallace was fatally shot by police while experiencing a mental health crisis near his home in Cobbs Creek.

However, Wallace family attorney Shaka Johnson called the payment “cheap” in some respects, noting that the family has the right to use the funds to honor Walter’s memory. His death, which occurred months after the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, further fueled demands for police reform. Floyd’s death in May 2020 sparked nationwide protests and calls for accountability.

Similarly, Wallace’s killing deeply affected Philadelphia residents, prompting demands for changes in law enforcement policies, training and accountability measures.

The Whitley study underscores the steep costs of misconduct settlements and the systemic issues they expose. The report highlighted the need for preventative issues, such as improved policies and police training, to reduce wrongful deaths.

“Every dollar spent on a misconduct settlement is a dollar that could have been invested in community resources, safety initiatives, and police training,” the report states. “It’s critical that we work to ensure these settlements become rare, not routine.”

The cases of Wallace and Floyd stand as stark reminders of the urgent need for systemic reforms to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

Michael Collins, senior director of state and local policy for social justice nonprofit Color of Change, blames the high number of misconduct payment settlements on strong police unions in this country.

“The Fraternal Order of Police, which acts to protect indefensible cop behavior, they will negotiate as part of the contract ways in which account is very watered down,” Collins told WHYY News in an interview. “They will, you know, protect officers who are tied to, like, white supremacists. They will protect officers who have previously engaged in misconduct, they will erect obstacles that do not occur for investigations into regular members of the public.”

Collins said police unions invariably protect officers who have previously engaged in misconduct.

“There’s a certain amount of time before you can investigate an officer. We have qualified immunity where officers can escape accountability because of the doctrine of qualified immunity that says essentially, you know, they’re immune from certain lawsuits when they are carrying out something that is within the Constitution,” Collins said. “And then the police departments, the Fraternal Order of Police, will pay out of their own budget, out of their own pocket, to defend these officers in court.”

In response to WHYY News’ request for comment, Shawn Richie of the PPD’s Office of Media Relations and Public Affairs directed inquiries to the City of Philadelphia Law Department. “The Philadelphia Police Department will not comment on settlement cases,” Richie added.