Judge bars prosecutors from citing Internal Affairs records in pending murder trial of former Phila. cop

A judge on Wednesday blocked prosecutors from telling a jury about a former Philadelphia police officer’s lengthy Internal Affairs history when he goes on trial next week on third-degree murder charges for shooting an unarmed man in 2017.

The District Attorney’s Office wanted to explore Internal Affairs investigations of former officer Eric Ruch Jr., 34, on grounds that these “prior bad acts,” in the language of the law, revealed his recklessness. But Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott noted that the investigations had typically cleared Ruch of any wrongdoing.

“It looks to me, quite frankly, as an attempt to smear him or to pollute the jury pool,” the judge said in a hearing before jury selection begins Monday.

Ruch is the third former city police officer charged with murder since Larry Krasner became district attorney. Shortly after being sworn into office in 2018, Krasner had asked why scores of police shootings over the years had been deemed justified or not questionable enough for charges.

In May, Krasner’s office charged former police officer Edsaul Mendoza with first-degree and third-degree murder in the shooting death of 12-year-old Thomas Siderio earlier this year. The third former officer to be charged with a fatal shooting, Ryan Pownall, is awaiting trial on third-degree murder charges for killing a man in 2017. Before Krasner, the last time a Philadelphia police officer was charged with murder on the job was in 1999, and that case was thrown out ahead of trial.

Ruch, like Mendoza and Pownall, was fired after the shooting.

A grand jury found that Ruch shot and killed Dennis Plowden Jr., 25, after a car chase in December 2017. A grand jury found that Plowden appeared “dazed and lost” after he stumbled out of the crashed Hyundai, and, prosecutors said, appeared to be trying to obey commands given by police as he sat on a sidewalk.

Ruch stayed in the open and fired his weapon. His single shot cut through Plowden’s upraised left hand and tore into his head. Plowden did not have a weapon.

The four other officers at the scene had taken defensive positions around the Hyundai and two unmarked police cars, prosecutors said. They did not fire their guns.

Under Philadelphia police policy and guiding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, police may only fire their weapons when a suspect poses a threat to them or others.

In a report by a defense expert witness, Terrence Dwyer, a law professor and former New York State Police trooper, provided a glimpse into the defense case. Dwyer wrote that Ruch acted reasonably because police witnesses said Plowden had been making suspicious motions with his right hand. Ruch could have thought Plowden was reaching for a gun, Dwyer said.

Last year, the city agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Plowden’s widow. It did not admit wrongdoing.

Ruch joined the force in 2008 and spent his entire career in the busy 35th Police District, headquartered at Broad Street and Champlost Avenue in North Philadelphia. Earlier in 2017, he and other officers shot and wounded a suspect in Germantown who police said had pointed a gun at them. Internal Affairs found it to be a justified shooting. Paul Hetznecker, a lawyer for the man who was shot, said Wednesday that a civil lawsuit is scheduled to go on trial next year.

In their effort to bring up his work history, Assistant District Attorneys Brian Collins and Vincent Corrigan — the same team that recently won a conviction of former police detective Philip Nordo on rape charges — noted that Ruch had been involved in 25 “use of force” incidents and had been the subject of 13 complaints from civilians.

The prosecutors focused on six episodes between 2010 and 2015. Five involved allegations of violence, including Ruch’s striking of one defendant with a baton and his putting another in a choke hold.

However, David Mischak, Ruch’s lawyer, told the judge that only two complaints, one involving a warrantless search of a car, the other a charge that he released an injured suspect without taking him to a hospital, were found to have merit by investigators.