Yeadon officials have asked the Department of Justice to investigate its police department

Officials in Yeadon have asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation into the borough’s police department after one person died by suicide and another attempted suicide while in police custody in the span of four months.

In a letter sent Thursday to U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero, Yeadon Borough Council President Sharon Council-Harris said, “The current state of the Yeadon Borough Police Department presents an extreme concern for the human rights of those citizens taken into custody by the police.

“I have high confidence in [the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office’s] ability to evaluate local law, but I am firmly convinced, after the second incident, that the state of the police department has risen to the level of human-rights violation, and pray that the Department of Justice will intervene before our community has to suffer a third, tragic and preventable incident,” Council-Harris wrote.

A spokesperson for Romero said Friday that she could not confirm the letter had been received by the office, nor whether an investigation was underway.

Council-Harris’ letter came days after a 34-year-old woman was found unresponsive after attempting to hang herself in a holding cell inside Yeadon’s police station. The woman, whose name has not been released, was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. She suffered permanent brain damage as a result of oxygen deprivation.

The request to Romero also contained previously unknown details about the incident. The woman was arrested in connection with a domestic assault Tuesday afternoon, according to Council-Harris’ letter. During her arrest, she threatened to kill herself. The officers placed her in a holding cell, despite her warning, the letter said, noting that the entire interaction was recorded on the officers’ body-worn cameras.

She was discovered 20 minutes later by officers, who stabilized her until medics arrived.

County investigators have opened an investigation into the recent suicide attempt, according to a spokesperson for District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer. The two officers involved in the woman’s arrest have been placed on desk duty.

The incident came months after a man died by suicide under similar circumstances.

In July, Shawn Morcho, 22, hanged himself inside a cell in the borough police department. Morcho, who had an outstanding warrant for simple assault in nearby Darby, had been arrested on a drug-possession charge. Stollsteimer’s office ruled there was no criminal negligence in Morcho’s death.

At a meeting Thursday evening, Council-Harris called for the resignation of Mayor Rohan Hepkins, who oversees the police department, as well as acting Police Chief Shawn Burns. She asserted that the officers on duty Tuesday ignored department policy by leaving the woman unmonitored in a cell, and that seemingly no corrective action had been taken since Morcho’s death this summer.

“We need new leadership both in our police department and in the mayor’s seat,” she said. “There is no excuse for a tragedy like this to be happening again, and we are not going to stand for it.”

In an interview Friday, Hepkins pushed back against her accusations. He said that he had warned Council-Harris and her colleagues that firing former police chief Anthony Paparo earlier this year would have consequences on staff morale and aptitude.

“Sharon Council-Harris is hiding her malfeasance, and her bad decision-making of firing the chief without a replacement to hide her exposure,” Hepkins said. “I‘ve been mayor for nine years. This hasn’t happened on my watch until this year, when they fired my police chief against my advice.”

Paparo was fired in February after the town had to pay $387,000 to settle a grievance filed by the local police union after he hired more part-time police officers than the union contract allowed. He has defended that decision as necessary, and alleged in a federal civil-rights lawsuit that he was pushed out because he was a white police chief in a predominantly Black town.

Regardless, Hepkins said Friday that there should have been better oversight of the woman who attempted suicide this week, and that mistakes had been made by the officers, whom he believes will be disciplined.

He also said that he has asked surrounding municipalities if their police departments would be able to temporarily house prisoners from Yeadon, as the investigation into both incidents continues.

“We cannot guarantee their safety under the current staffing levels,” Hepkins said.