Philly cop cleared in court of falsifying records, says he was targeted for retribution

A former Philadelphia police officer who was fired last year over allegedly falsifying arrest records has been found not guilty, and his lawyer said the officer will seek to regain his job.

Following a five-day trial, Bryan Turner, 30, was cleared by a jury of all counts Tuesday, according to court records. Police last year accused Turner, a seven-year veteran of the force, of adding another officer’s name to paperwork in 2017 to generate potential overtime pay for the other cop.

Turner’s lawyer, Melissa Boyd Freeman, said Wednesday that she presented evidence supporting her client’s assertion that the supposed errors in the records — which she said included an alleged timing issue in paperwork relating to a drug seizure — were unintentional clerical mistakes.

She also said Turner believes the case against him originated as retribution, because the Internal Affairs investigation into his allegedly irregular paperwork was opened about a week after he settled a lawsuit against the city.

In that suit, Turner, who is black, alleged that supervisors in the 24th District had retaliated against him for writing a memo in 2015 detailing what he said were remarks by a lieutenant. According to court records, Turner said he overheard then-Lt. Steven Arch say “that unqualified African Americans [were] being put in positions of power because of affirmative action."

Turner and the city agreed to a settlement of $50,000 in August 2017, shortly after a federal judge dismissed Turner’s claims that the city was permitting a racially hostile workplace. U.S. District Judge Robert F. Kelly’s opinion said in part: “There is ample evidence in the record that Lt. Arch treated officers of all races harshly in the performance of their jobs.”

Arch is no longer listed in payroll records as a member of the Police Department.

Turner, in an interview last year, said he believed that Facebook posts he made during his time on the force — one of which featured him in a shirt that read “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” a line frequently used by Black Lives Matter supporters — contributed to his reputation as a problem officer, and that “once I spoke out” about what he said were racial issues in the department, “I became public enemy number one.”

As for the criminal charges against him, he said: “They found an opening. Something they could get me for. ... They found two paperwork discrepancies, and that’s what they went after me for.”

The Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office both declined to comment on Turner’s case Wednesday.

John McNesby, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said he was not familiar with the circumstances surrounding Turner’s lawsuit against the city two years ago. But he said that because Turner has been cleared in his criminal case, the union would work to help him get his job back.

“If he was found not guilty in a court of law ... he was wrongfully fired,” McNesby said.

Staff writer Claudia Vargas contributed to this article.