Lower Merion officers are planning to protest an officer’s 10-day suspension for using a Taser at a traffic stop

Members of the Lower Merion police union, incensed at what they called unfair discipline against one of their own, are vowing to appeal the 10-day suspension of an officer who used a Taser on a woman during a traffic stop.

The union’s president, John S. Iushewitz, said the punishment against Officer Charles Murphy was “a gut punch” to him and his colleagues and they plan to take the matter to arbitration. They also planned to protest the decision at Wednesday night’s meeting of the township commissioners.

“We agree the officer should face discipline, but the discipline has to match details. There was no excessive force, no bias. I’ve asked anyone to explain why 10 days, and nobody can,” Iushewitz said.

“My belief is that the commissioners are bending to the social media mob or their ideology, and not the rule of law,” he added.

Murphy was the subject of an internal investigation in January after video footage of him using a Taser on Chaine Jordan spread across social media.

Jordan, 36, of Plymouth Meeting, was driving her Volvo sedan on Conshohocken State Road in Bala Cynwyd on Jan. 8 when Murphy attempted to pull her over for tailgating a pickup truck, according to police. Jordan, who police said was driving with a suspended license, initially resisted the officer’s attempt to pull her over, but after “a short pursuit” lasting 1.3 miles, pulled into a parking lot. There, police said, she refused orders to get out of the vehicle, roll down her tinted windows, or provide officers with her insurance paperwork and driver’s license.

» READ MORE: Lower Merion police ‘didn’t use sound tactics’ when they used a Taser on a driver after a traffic stop, chief says

Murphy’s decision to use a Taser on Jordan, who is Black, when she refused his order to get out of her car prompted a departmental investigation and drew criticism from the Main Line branch of the NAACP and police accountability activists.

After a two-month probe, Lower Merion Police Superintendent Michael McGrath recommended that Murphy be suspended for eight hours without pay.

But at a meeting last week, Commissioner Daniel Bernheim proposed to supersede McGrath’s recommendation and increase the suspension tenfold, citing the seriousness of Murphy’s conduct. The measure passed, 9-4, with some commissioners, including Ray Courtney, saying stronger discipline was in order.

The decision was widely supported by community members who felt McGrath’s initial discipline was too lenient.

Murphy was seen on body camera footage approaching Jordan’s sedan with his gun drawn, sparking the tense confrontation. He ordered her to get out of the car, told her she could be arrested for obstruction of justice, and threatened to use a Taser against her. At one point, he threatened to break the window of her car.

Jordan was taken into custody and charged with fleeing an officer and resisting arrest, along with drug possession after officers found oxycodone inside her vehicle.

The backlash against Murphy’s treatment of Jordan was swift and immediate, after a bystander’s footage of the traffic stop spread on social media.

McGrath said Murphy violated multiple departmental policies, including best practices for pursuing drivers, de-escalation, and body cameras — Murphy didn’t properly sync his body-worn camera at the start of his shift, and footage of the encounter with Jordan was recorded only by cameras worn by his colleagues who responded to the scene.

Citizens and police-accountability activists have called for Murphy to be fired and for an outside independent investigation into the department to be conducted.

The president of the Main Line branch of the NAACP, Brian Reese-Turner, decried the initial discipline as too lenient and called for the creation of a review board, similar to the Citizens Police Oversight Commission in Philadelphia, to investigate complaints such as this one.

“One day is not appropriate to correct the damage that’s been done,” Reese-Turner said. “There has to be a restorative practice to the community for what’s been done in this incident. We all watched this video and it was traumatizing.”

Iushewitz defended Murphy, saying that the discipline approved by the board — the longest suspension he had ever heard of them doling out — has had a chilling effect on officers in the township.

“We are afraid to properly and proactively do our job because of that decision,” he said. “It is clear Lower Merion police officers have no support from their board. The message was clear that the officers are subject to the whims of social media.”