The Philly airport has no cameras in its parking garages, which caused challenges after Officer Richard Mendez was killed

As Philadelphia police sought to apprehend the suspects involved in the fatal shooting of Officer Richard Mendez in an airport parking garage Oct. 12, they analyzed evidence including ballistics, cell phone records, and items found at the scene.

But one key piece of evidence was missing: Surveillance video of the crime.

That’s because Philadelphia International Airport, which serves more than 25 million passengers a year, has no video cameras in its parking garages — a reality that has led to questions from officials including District Attorney Larry Krasner.

Police and prosecutors were still able to build a case that led them to three suspects who were arrested in the last week and will face charges of murder, attempted murder and related crimes in the killing of Mendez and the wounding of another officer, Raul Ortiz. Two of the three men — Alexander Batista-Polanco, 21, and Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, 18 — were arraigned and jailed without bail Thursday, while the third, Hendrick Peña-Fernandez, 21, was awaiting extradition after being apprehended in New Jersey earlier in the week.

Still, Krasner said video was among the tools that law enforcement officials “need and deserve” to investigate gun crimes, saying in a statement: “Installation of surveillance video technology in parking spaces at the airport is a safety and prevention measure that ought to be prioritized with urgency.”

Heather Redfern, a spokesperson for Philadelphia International Airport, said Friday that the garages “were constructed almost 50 years ago, at a time when cameras were not part of the infrastructure.” Before the shooting, she said, the agency had already been planning to rehabilitate the garages “and was in the process of testing camera technology.”

The airport will begin installing cameras once that testing is complete, she said, but she couldn’t provide additional details, such as how long it would take, and how many cameras would be installed.

“The safety, security, and peace of mind of airport guests and employees are our top priority, as well as the countless others who work in and around the airport,” Redfern said, adding that the Parking Authority and a private security firm, Allied Security, would be increasing staffing levels and working with the Police Department’s airport unit to combat potential crime.

The lack of cameras around the airport was not an issue that arose following the shooting of Mendez and Ortiz, who were preparing to start their shift when they heard glass breaking and sought to interrupt a potential car break-in at the Terminal D garage. More than 100 car thefts have been reported at the airport this year, police statistics show — nearly triple the pace of last year. About a third of those thefts were from a garage.

Thefts from inside vehicles have also risen sharply at the airport, the statistics show: Through Oct. 12, there were 79 such thefts reported, compared with just 14 through the same date in 2019.

Police in June sought to raise public awareness about the issue, saying groups of thieves had been coordinating robberies at rental lots, where companies often leave keys in the cars.

And though reports of the crime have been more common, car thefts at the airport are hardly new or limited to Philadelphia. Thieves have targeted cars at airport lots in places as varied as Denver; Charlotte, N.C.; and Palm Beach, Fla., where the local CBS TV station reported earlier this year that its long-term lots also lacked security cameras.

In Philadelphia, about 11,000 of the airport’s 15,000 parking spaces are in garages, according to a spokesperson for the Parking Authority, which manages the operations of the garages but does not oversee security or facility maintenance.

Without video depicting potential suspects in Mendez’s killing, authorities were heavily reliant on cell phone records, according to affidavits of probable cause for the arrests of Batista-Polanco and Martinez-Fernandez. The affidavits provided this account of how the case came together:

After the crime, detectives interviewed several witnesses, including relatives of another suspect, who was fatally shot during the attempted car theft — Jesus Herman Madera Duran, 18, of Camden — and they were able to identify an array of phone numbers they wanted to investigate. When they received records back from various cell phone companies, investigators could see that phones they believe were possessed by Duran, Batista-Polanco, Martinez-Fernandez, and Peña-Fernandez had moved together throughout the night of the crime.

Detectives plotted the movement of the phones, which showed the men driving south along the I-95 corridor before the shooting, then stopping at the airport about 11 p.m. Shortly after that, the phones tracked the men moving toward Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where the wounded Duran was dropped off after being shot. Surveillance video from the hospital captured Duran being pulled from a car and onto the floor of a parking garage before the driver sped away.

About 11:15 p.m., Batista-Polcano’s phone was turned off, and it would remain shut down for several hours — making it impossible to track his device. Still, phones connected to Martinez-Fernandez and Peña-Fernandez remained on, and records showed them traveling into New Jersey and eventually stopping in South Brunswick.

That’s where police later found a Dodge Durango burned beside a road near a warehouse — the same car that authorities say the men had used to flee the airport, and to drop Duran off at CHOP. Surveillance video from the warehouse captured a man setting the Durango on fire, then driving away in another vehicle.

By Wednesday, authorities had arrested all three surviving suspects: Batista-Polanco, Martinez-Fernandez, and Peña-Fernandez.

And despite the lack of video from the airport, Joanne Pescatore, chief of homicide in the District Attorney’s Office, said she believed the evidence against the men was strong.

“I’m very confident in this particular case,” Pescatore said earlier in the week.

Officials said Pena-Fernandez was extradited Friday to be charged in Philadelphia. A preliminary hearing in the case is tentatively scheduled for next month.