Are you going to believe what I told you happened, or rely on your lying eyes? That appears to be what former Philadelphia Police Lt. Jonathan Josey has to say about a video in which he sucker punches a woman half his size. Even Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey characterized the action as reprehensible and referred to Josey as a 6’ 1” muscle on a radio show in Philadelphia. Josey was found Not Guilty in a bench trial by Judge Patrick Dugan who, it turns out, is married to Philadelphia Police Officer Nancy Farrell-Dugan. According toThe Philadelphia Inquirer, when Josey was found not guilty the courtroom which was “packed with police officers, erupted in applause,” and among these officers whose Motto is Honor * Service* Integrity was Mrs. Dugan. The question is not why the judge found Josey not guilty. Based just on the information in the previous sentences, I am fairly certain we all have a good idea. The question truly is: Why was the courtroom “packed”with ANY police officers?
The Philadelphia Police Department has had its share of problems in the last few years. Dozens of Philly cops have been arrested in the past three years. The charges range from the misdemeanor assault of the coward Jonathan Josey to theft of services from area utility companies, to drug dealing and manslaughter. In the case of the manslaughter charge, had any of you reading this done what that cop did you would have been charged with premeditated murder, but that is something for another day. What concerns me now is just how Judge Dugan could believe that this ruling would not have ramifications for him? Has the Philadelphia system of justice become such that the judges and police believe they are not accountable to the same laws as the rest of the city’s citizens? Sadly, the answer appears to be yes.
On a local talk radio show earlier today, Enrique Latoison, the attorney for the female sucker punched by Jonathan Josey, stated that Mrs. Dugan was heard to make a “disparaging, perhaps racist statement about the victim,” while in the hallway outside the courtroom before her hubby returned his verdict. Mr. Latoison said he discounted it at the time, but was forced to consider it when he was driving home after the verdict. As of today, Mr. Latoison has not ruled out the possibility that a federal Civil Rights violation might be in the offing for the coward Josey. A similar thing happened in California when the officers who viciously assaulted Rodney King were acquitted in state court. If that happens, the coward Josey might very well wish that Judge Dugan had found him guilty of misdemeanor assault because the penalties involved in a federal Civil Rights complaint are much higher than those for misdemeanor assault.
It is laughable when one hears the excuses that have been offered for why the coward Josey was found not guilty. Apparently, Judge Dugan believed that the atmosphere at the Puerto Rican parade that day was such that the officers feared for their safety and thus, Josey who has said he “didn’t know he struck her, but thought he knocked a beer bottle from her hand,” was to be excused due to the tenseness of the overall situation. First off, the coward Josey is over 200 pounds of muscle and allegedly a work out maniac and the victim was barely 5 feet tall. Second, not one single officer followed Josey as he stalked his victim and finally, in the video it is clear that the majority of the boys in blue have their backs to the crowd. Are we seriously supposed to believe that they feared for their safety so much that they would turn their backs to the threat? If that is the case all those present should be fired for having IQs which are lower than the temperature that day.
I am friends with a few members of the PPD, and acquainted with more. Some of them may even be reading this now. Don’t worry fellas. I have no plans to out you. I believe those men to be good, decent, honorable stewards of the public good. Unfortunately though I must now rethink my position that officers like the coward Josey are in the distinct minority of the Philadelphia Police Department. When the Philly F.O.P. held a fund raiser for the coward after he was dismissed from the force, I chalked it up to a union thing that just had to be done. I found it distasteful, but understandable. After hearing about the cheering in the courtroom and seeing the number of officers flanking the coward as he fist pumped his way down the street after the verdict exonerated him, I must now rethink my position. Those members of the Philadelphia Police Department whom I know to be honorable, law abiding men who would no more do as the coward Josey did than would they steal candy from the mouths of children, MUST be in an ever shrinking minority.
As one who lived through the bad days of the New Orleans Police Department of the 1990s, I can say the signs were there before two officers committed murder with an aplomb that boggles any rational mind. The NOPD had been slipping toward becoming a criminal syndicate for years before Len Davis and Antoinette Franks snuffed out the lives of innocents. It started with substandard applicants becoming the norm, rather than those interested in serving the public filling the ranks. The dismal pay further diluted the pool and then the means of making up that money just went from extra work to illegality for all too many. What we have witnessed here in Philly may one day be looked back on as the first telling sign of how the PPD finally went wrong. When police officers who have been sworn to uphold the law can pack a courtroom in support of one of their fellows who nonchalantly broke the law on video we have all lost. When uniformed police officers can cheer a monster who not only struck a woman literally half his size, but who did so in full view of dozens of his fellow officers and thousands of city residents, we have not only lost but we have become endangered. The final straw will be the coward Josey’s reinstatement with back pay. I have no doubt that arbitration will get him his job back because, hey, he was found not guilty. At that point his brothers in blue will no doubt cheer again and the rest of us who look to them for safety will just have to turn out the lights. No more will we cross the street to avoid just shady customers, but now we’ll do it for the boys in blue too.
