Fellow officers testify in case of Eric Ruch, former Philly police officer charged with murder

The former partner of a onetime Philadelphia police officer charged with murder took the stand at the officer’s trial Wednesday and backed his account that he had been fearful that the man he shot to death might have been reaching for a gun.

The partner told the 12 jurors that when he and Eric Ruch Jr., 34, the ex-cop facing third-degree murder and manslaughter charges, confronted a suspect after a car chase in December 2017, the suspect still appeared to pose a risk when he emerged from a crashed Hyundai.

“He’s reaching. He reached into his pocket,” said Anthony Comitalo, who had been Ruch’s partner for two years in the busy 35th Police District at the time of the shooting. “He made a motion like he was grabbing a firearm.”

Prosecutors say Ruch fatally shot Dennis Plowden Jr., 25, without legal justification as he emerged dazed from the crash and was attempting to comply with orders from police. While the defense has emphasized what it says was the possible threat posed by Plowden with his right hand, prosecutors have focused on his other hand — how an autopsy showed that the fatal bullet had tore through his raised left hand before striking his head.

Investigators found no gun on Plowden after the shooting, only packets of suspected heroin in the right pocket of his jacket.

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

Ruch is the first Philadelphia police officer charged with an on-duty murder to see his case go on trial in nearly four decades. He is among three officers to be charged with murder since District Attorney Larry Krasner took office in 2018 and the first to be tried.

Though Comitalo was called as a prosecution witness, his testimony often seemed to reinforce the defense’s arguments.

“From your days in the Police Academy to the streets of the 35th District,” he testified, “you are told a concealed hand that you cannot see can kill you. It’s your biggest threat.”

Comitalo also pushed back against a key prosecution piece of evidence — a sketch of the shooting scene by investigators that showed Ruch was behind a car when he fired the fatal shot. Comitalo said that the sketch was wrong, and that, in fact, Ruch had been standing without cover when he shot Plowden.

He and other witnesses have painted a picture of an urban hellscape at 19th Street and Nedro Avenue at the time Plowden was fatally shot. They said police closed in on Plowden after he led them on a car chase at speeds that a police expert said hit at least 77 mph. Plowden crashed his vehicle into three parked cars, creating a scene in which the pavement was awash in gas, oil, and transmission fluid, car alarms were blaring, and broken car parts were scattered about as numerous police cars arrived.

» READ MORE: City to pay $1.2 million to the widow of a man shot by a Philadelphia police officer

Police gave chase that night after spotting him in a car that the department had said in an alert to the force was tied to a homicide investigation. The alert had warned that occupants of the car might be armed and dangerous, but police said after Plowden’s death that he had no role in that earlier homicide.

In other testimony, former police officer Richard Frank, also called as a prosecution witness, testified that Ruch was in tears when he drove him shortly after he shot Plowden to an interview with a police team that investigates shootings by officers. Frank said Ruch told him at that time that Plowden had “motioned with his hands in his pockets like he was going to shoot him.”

Frank testified in a prison jumpsuit. He was sentenced to a jail term this year on sex-abuse charges.

And another officer at the scene that night testified that Plowden’s right hand could be seen inside his coat pocket after he was shot.

In an unusual development that took place out of the jury’s presence, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott, who is presiding over the trial, grew irate Wednesday afternoon after learning that Jane Roh, the head of communications for the District Attorney’s Office, had tweeted about the case on Tuesday.

The tweets, put out under Roh’s personal account, cited news stories about the case, including a report that the city had agreed to pay $1.2 million to Plowden’s widow.

McDermott said that the prosecutors in the case had told her no one would speak about the trial outside of court.

After testimony was complete for the day Wednesday, Roh and another top Krasner aide, Assistant District Attorney Lyandra Retacco, appeared before McDermott.

“We will bring them down immediately and there will be no more tweets,” Retacco said.

McDermott addressed Roh, saying, “I will warn you, ma’am. You have heard me,” adding that she had power to hold people in contempt when problems persist.