Despite reforms, 85% of fired Philly cops are reinstated through arbitration
“The system is clearly broken,” said Tonya McClary, head of the Citizens Police Oversight Commission. City officials are seeking arbitration changes in negotiations with the police union.
The vast majority of fired Philadelphia police officers return to the force under a grievance arbitration system that has frustrated police commissioners for decades, according to a new report by the city’s Citizens Police Oversight Commission.
The analysis, published Wednesday, found that 85% of those fired officers were reinstated by an arbitrator between 2022 and early 2024 after the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 contested their terminations.
“Too frequently, [Philadelphia Police Department] officers who were justifiably fired turn to grievance arbitration and are reinstated,” the report states.
The commission found that in 20 cases published by the city, arbitrators reinstated 17 officers. Thirteen of those received lesser discipline; four received no discipline.
“The system is clearly broken,” said Tonya McClary, the commission’s executive director, adding: “It’s alarming that a lot of these officers that the police commissioner — who is well versed in this — has let go, that they have been brought back.”
The lopsided outcomes have continued despite a 2021 police contract change that created a Police Termination Arbitration Board of specially trained arbitrators to hear the cases.
CPOC’s report concluded that it is too early to tell whether that new board had led to improvements, because all but three of the arbitration cases that have been published by the city involve grievances filed prior to December 2021, when the new system went into effect.
City officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. The FOP declined to comment.
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Sgt. Eric Gripp, a Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson, acknowledged Wednesday that police arbitration is a “long-standing challenge” in Philadelphia and elsewhere that can create “tension between public trust concerns and due process rights for officers.”
“Although individual outcomes can be influenced by specific case details and labor agreements, overturned termination decisions may certainly erode confidence in our disciplinary process, raising questions about thoroughness of investigations or potential reforms to the arbitration system,” Gripp said in a statement.
Gripp said the department had conducted a review of its internal affairs processes and had made changes to strengthen investigations.
Police commissioners in Philadelphia have been complaining about the arbitration process for years, saying it is tilted in the FOP’s favor and sometimes protects bad cops.
A 2019 Inquirer investigation, “Fired, then Rehired,” examined 170 previously confidential arbitration decisions and settlements and found that the FOP was successful about 70% of the time in having police discipline overturned or reduced. (CPOC’s analysis is narrower, looking only at terminations, and excluding pre-arbitration settlement agreements.)
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“Philly is not a bad police department at all. It’s good,” former Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey told the newspaper in 2019. “But it will never realize its full potential as long as you have a system in place like this. Any organization is only as good as the people in it. The majority of people are good people. But in our profession, the few taint the many. And that’s the problem.”
FOP claims city too quick to fire some cops
The FOP, however, has argued that police commissioners have been too quick to suspend or fire officers without due process, sometimes relying on what the union describes as incomplete internal affairs investigations.
Commissioners “just fire with no just cause, zero investigation, and then point the finger at us,” then-FOP president John McNesby said in 2019.
Over the years, the FOP has filed grievances on behalf of officers disciplined for everything from minor departmental violations to lying under oath, sexual assault, steroid use, and domestic violence.
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Arbitrators often find that there is not enough evidence to uphold the terminations, or, even if there is, that the punishment is too severe, according to The Inquirer’s analysis.
Sometimes, arbitrators will get creative. For instance, an officer fired for hiring a prostitute was reinstated in 2018 by an arbitrator who noted that the cop was an “impressive young man who is quite articulate” and an “otherwise acceptable employee.” As another mitigating factor, the arbitrator said the prostitution ordeal had not been publicized and was therefore less of a problem for the police department.
Some cops are repeatedly fired or disciplined, but still get their jobs back or suspensions reversed through arbitration — often with back pay. That can affect morale in the department.
“It has an obvious impact on the public, but I don’t think people understand the impact it has in the police department,” McClary said. “It has a ripple effect.”
Negotiations on the FOP’s new contract are now underway. The current contract runs through June.
City officials have proposed significant changes to the arbitration system, including limits on back pay for reinstated officers, a uniform burden of proof for all arbitrators, and a pilot program for expedited arbitration.
“As Mayor [Cherelle] Parker has said, we can support the brave women and men that make up our police force, without any tolerance for misuse or abuse of their power,” Cara Leheny, first deputy director in the city’s labor department, wrote in a letter last month in response to questions from City Council members.
The FOP in the past has been reluctant to give ground on arbitration.
The union is seeking in the new contract to limit what the public knows about officers accused of misconduct, by prohibiting the city from releasing police personnel records that are “otherwise covered by an exemption in the Right-to-Know Law.”
That would likely include the arbitration records that the city currently posts online, and which CPOC used for its report.