Five takeaways from our investigation into how Philly narcotics cops misused video cameras
A narcotics squad was secretly using city surveillance cameras in drug cases. When the video surfaced, it contradicted their testimony — and revealed that the system has few safeguards against abuse.
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Scores of drug cases built by a group of narcotics officers — who used Philadelphia’s citywide video surveillance system in their investigations but didn’t disclose it, even to prosecutors — have fallen apart after public defenders began subpoenaing the video.
That video revealed apparent falsehoods in testimony by Narcotics Strike Force (NSF) Squad 2 officers, proving some of the alleged drug deals never happened and people were falsely charged. Philadelphia Police Internal Affairs is now investigating, according to an Inquirer investigation.
The video also highlighted gaps in city policies to protect residents’ civil rights as the city continues to invest millions into an increasingly sprawling, powerful, and interconnected, surveillance system.
This story is about the next generation of scandals for a police unit that has been plagued by decades of them. But it is also about the privacy rights of Philadelphia residents who now may be subject to 24/7 tracking in their communities. Here are the takeaways:
1. The city’s video surveillance infrastructure has rapidly expanded and interconnected.
A decade ago, Philadelphia had just 218 cameras — and half were broken. Today, police and other city officials have access to an integrated network of nearly 7,000 cameras run by the city, SEPTA, and PennDot. They can log in through a smartphone app to control the 4K-resolution, 360-degree cameras, panning and zooming to follow the movements of targets or rewinding to view past footage. Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel says the cameras, along with other new technology like drones and licenses-plate cameras, are going to be a key part of narcotics investigations.
“I think people are unaware of how sophisticated camera systems are nowadays, in terms of resolution, scale and the ease of connecting them together,” said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, an American University law professor who argues that the 24/7 video analytics built into many late-model cameras, capable of tracking license plates or people over time, amounts to an unconstitutional privacy violation.
» READ MORE: Philly narcotics cops secretly used surveillance cameras. Video proved some of their testimony false.
2. The city rolled out new tech first, set policies later.
In New York City, the rollout of any new police technology must be preceded by a public comment period and followed by an independent audit. Here, in Philadelphia, transparency around police tech has been more limited.
The city has authorized 2,400 municipal workers, most of them police, to access the cameras, but did not publish a directive on the use of that system until December 2023, years into its widespread use. While the cameras are in plain sight, the city considers the list of their locations to be sensitive, nonpublic information, and has largely failed to follow a policy requiring visible police decals on cameras.
To date, there is also no policy governing the disclosure of video evidence from the cameras, though one is in development. Disclosure is important since prosecutors are legally required to turn over exculpatory evidence to people charged with crimes. The video automatically deletes after 30 days — long before most criminal cases are resolved.
3. Video contradicted testimony by narcotics cops who secretly used cameras.
A lawyer from the Defender Association of Philadelphia, following a hunch, subpoenaed video and found that NSF Squad 3 was using cameras in surveillances at least since 2019.
The department’s failure to disclose the video was problematic, since it contained evidence many defendants were entitled to. It showed officers had testified falsely about observing some of the drug transactions. It also revealed the officers had failed to document potential witnesses who were searched, then released.
In some cases, the district attorney’s office agreed that officers had testified “inaccurately” — and withdrew prosecution. In other cases, judges reviewed the video and tossed out charges. The DA dropped at least 70 cases involving one officer, Eugene Roher, according to court filings. But other cases are still going forward.
4. Chronic absenteeism in the courts makes it easy for cops to dodge cross-examination.
As the defenders subpoenaed video contradicting NSF Squad 2 officers’ paperwork, some of them simply stopped showing up to court when subpoenaed, thereby avoiding cross-examination. Some cases were delayed as many as five times due to officer absences.
Willful no-shows, however, rarely result in discipline in a court system where officer absences are rampant. Officers missed more than 10,000 court dates last year — in part due to a chaotic scheduling system that is unable to account for vacation days and may book an officer for numerous courtrooms at once. In the past three years, only one officer was disciplined for skipping court.
5. Internal investigations have so far failed to identify a serious problem.
In early 2020, the public defenders provided video evidence to the DA documenting what they said was perjury by one of the NSF Squad 3 officers, Ricardo Rosa. Not seeing any action by 2022, they turned the evidence over to the police directly.
At last, Internal Affairs delivered its findings in 2023. It concluded that Rosa had failed to conduct a complete and proper investigation — a relatively minor infraction — but did not address the perjury allegation.
Internal Affairs is now, once again, investigating officers in NSF Squad 2, but a spokesperson would not share details on the investigation.