Seven Philadelphia cops resign after Facebook scandal
PHILADELPHIA — Seven Philadelphia police officers whose racist or otherwise offensive Facebook posts were catalogued in an online database have resigned in the last two weeks, the Police Department said Wednesday.
Capt. Sekou Kinebrew, a police spokesperson, said labor law restrictions prevented him from confirming whether those seven officers were among the 13 whom Police Commissioner Richard Ross said on July 18 would be fired following 30-day suspensions.
The officers and their resignation dates are: Officer Jesus Cruz, July 18; Officer Anthony Acquaviva, Officer Robert Bannan and Cpl. Thomas Young, July 19; Officer Joseph Fox and Sgt. Michael Melvin, July 22; and Officer Edward McCammitt, July 23.
Attempts to reach the seven former officers Wednesday were not successful. John McNesby, president of Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, declined to comment on the resignations, FOP spokesperson Mike Neilon said Wednesday.
The union previously said that it believed any firings over the Facebook postings would be “completely out of bounds.”
The scandal has attracted national attention. In announcing the intended firings — the largest number of officers dismissed at one time in recent city history — Ross stood alongside Mayor Jim Kenney and said an additional 56 officers would face disciplinary actions ranging from a reprimand to a 30-day unpaid suspension.
It was the most significant response yet to the publication on June 1 of the Plain View Project, a database compiled by advocates that catalogs Facebook posts allegedly made by officers in Philadelphia and seven other jurisdictions: York, Pa.; Phoenix; Dallas; St. Louis; Twin Falls, Idaho; Denison, Texas; and Lake County, Fla.
The database included posts from about 330 active Philadelphia cops, far more than the other departments analyzed by the advocates. In June, about 150 people protested outside Police Headquarters, saying they wanted all city officers included in the database to be benched, if not fired.
In his announcement July 18, Ross appeared to refer to a May 2016 post by Cruz, who shared on his Facebook page a TV news story about officers breaking up a fight in Philadelphia and wrote atop his post: “F — ing animals, he should of split his wig ... . ”
Cruz was flagged by the Plain View Project as having made 36 questionable posts, including 29 that showed bias and eight that allegedly supported, advocated, or referenced violence. His 2018 salary was $78,337, according to city payroll records.