Citizens Police Oversight Commission pushes for more investigative power as Philly prepares to negotiate FOP contract

As officials from Philadelphia’s Department of Labor prepare to head into talks with the city’s police union over a new contract, members of City Council said there’s one thing that’s nonnegotiable.

City labor leaders, they said, must persuade the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 to allow the Citizens Police Oversight Commission (CPOC), the civilian-led agency the city has pumped millions of dollars into, to conduct independent investigations of officers accused of misconduct.

“There are some things we will die standing on ten toes behind,” said Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who represents parts of Northwest Philadelphia. “Don’t come back here without that.”

Jones, who sponsored the legislation that created the commission, was adamant at a recent Council hearing about the need for it to have expanded power to investigate and address wrongdoing by police officers.

But the FOP is not likely to give in — and potentially for good reason, said the city’s Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer.

“The independent investigation is one that is going to be a difficult conversation,” Geer said at the hearing, citing what he described as “complications” involving custody of evidence and potentially duplicative interviews with witnesses. “It’s going to be difficult to achieve. … Independent investigations is a steep hill.”

Still, Geer said, labor officials are preparing plans for how to broach the issue, and will push for the change.

The police union feels so strongly that the agency should not have expanded access to internal police investigations of alleged misconduct that it has vowed legal action to try to block it.

FOP President Roosevelt Poplar has said the department’s internal affairs unit already investigates complaints against police, and he sees no need for outside oversight.

State law requires labor negotiations to address discipline and how it is administered, so the looming contract talks provide an opening for the city to seek expanded authority for the police oversight commission.

The agency, created in 2020 amid nationwide calls for police accountability after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has yet to conduct any investigations into allegations of police misconduct. It has spent more than $3 million in taxpayers’ money on its more than two years of work, which so far has consisted of auditing internal affairs reports prepared by the police department, sitting in on police disciplinary hearings, and holding community meetings.

CPOC’s executive director, Tonya McClary, says the commission can’t perform its central mission, to independently investigate allegations of police misconduct, without having that authority added to the police contract. The current police contract expires in June 2025, and the city and the union must submit their term sheets for negotiations by Dec. 31.

The commission sees this moment, the first time the city is negotiating a police contract since the agency’s debut, as the opportunity to give it the ability to do what it was created to do, she said.

“The city of Philadelphia deserves transparent and fair investigations that keep all residents, police officers and communities safe,” McClary said. “To fulfill this mandate, CPOC must be able to independently investigate by conducting our own interviews and gathering analysis relevant to evidence of police misconduct.”

The commission’s investigative unit would conduct their own inquiries into police complaints from start to finish, including taking their own statements, she said, and the agency’s inquiries would avoid duplicate investigations.

Community groups and police accountability organizations have said they support expanded authority for the police oversight commission.

Charito Morales, cofounder and organizer of the grassroots organization Philly Boricuas, said the community’s trust in city police has eroded in recent years. She cited the fatal police shooting of Eddie Irizarry, who was shot as he sat in his car on a one-way street in Kensington after a traffic stop. Police initially said he had lunged at officers with a knife, but later revised that account after police reviewed body camera video that showed Irizarry was seated in his car when an officer shot him.

The case, she said, underscored the need for an objective third party to investigate such incidents.

“They’re supposed to build trust in the community and integrate with the people,” Morales said. “They lie, they cover up. If we want somebody to investigate, we need to have an outsider, a third eye.”