Police clashes with protesters mark reversal in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA — Officials in Philadelphia defended their use of tear gas in dispersing protesters who blocked a major highway at rush hour, calling it necessary to defuse “a dangerous and volatile situation,” but civil rights lawyers called it a reversal of recent city policy.

The Philadelphia Police Department had earned generally good marks over the past decade or so — despite a troubled earlier history — for the restrained way its Civil Affairs Unit engaged with protesters. That dissolved this past week, lawyers and activists said.

“We’ve had 10 years of a stable relationship between protesters, legal observers and the police Civil Affairs Unit, and … within three days it’s all disintegrated,” said Paul Hetznecker, board chairman of the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who arrived from Portland, Oregon, just four months ago, promised to investigate the use of force during three days of unrest that followed the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minnesota after a white police officer used a knee to pin him at the neck until he stopped breathing.

More than 25 Philadelphia officers have been injured during the demonstrations, Outlaw said. She and Mayor Jim Kenney both defended the department’s use of tear gas and other tactics.

Legal observer Nathaniel Miller, 41, who volunteers with a group called Up Against the Law, said he was handcuffed, shot with a rubber bullet and blasted with pepper spray at various times as he traversed the city Saturday monitoring police and assisting protesters. The rubber bullet from police left a severe bruise. The pepper spray knocked him down as he tried to photograph an officer in riot gear.

“I got several blasts with pepper spray. It’s incapacitating. My entire head and shirt were saturated with it,” Miller said Tuesday.

Police arrested more than two dozen people in the highway protest Monday evening, when they fired bean bags and rubber bullets and lobbed tear gas at protesters who had nowhere to run.

Nearly 700 people in all had been arrested in the Philadelphia protests, but most, nearly 500, were given only civil citations that typically resolve without a court hearing, according to data from police, city courts and the Defender Association.

Another 180 criminal charges have been filed since Saturday, mostly for stealing from stores, a second-degree felony charged as “commercial burglary.” A handful of people were charged with gun crimes or assaulting police or other charges.

Mayor Jim Kenney, in a news conference Tuesday, condemned the “armed vigilantes” who gathered with baseball bats Monday night near a police precinct in the Fishtown neighborhood. He said he was “deeply troubled” by officers who took pictures with them and gave them high-fives.

“We do not condone vigilantes,” Kenney said. “We tolerated it for too long last night, and that was a mistake.”

An impassioned rally speech before the march left Juniper and Broad to let the participating protestors know this is not a violent, angry protest. #GeorgeFloydprotest #philly #BlackLivesMatter @FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/a1sBL716xz

— Shane McEachern (@McEachernShane) June 2, 2020

When asked if those officers in the photos would remain on duty for further protests, Outlaw said, “We shall see.”

Activist Deandra Jefferson, 27, of Philadelphia said she was part of a large, peaceful demonstration by the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Saturday when police in riot gear arrived and things turned contentious.

“If you actually want to talk to folks, then you understand that you don’t show up ready for a fight,” said Jefferson, who volunteers with Real Justice, a group focused on criminal justice reform.

Jefferson said that while the recent arrival of Outlaw, a black woman like herself, might be cause for hope, she was not confident about Outlaw’s record managing protests and other policing issues in Oregon.

Source tells FOX29 News South Philly gun store owner Greg Isabella, 67, fired an AR-15 from 15 feet away@armed looter who pointed gun at him after break-in. Back at store from @phillypolice homicide just now, Isabella says “I have no comment”to reporters. ⁦@FOX29philly⁩ pic.twitter.com/aIHwZBH7cf

— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) June 2, 2020

“I think folks often miss that symbolic change and material change are two different things,” Jefferson said.

The city enacted a 6 p.m. curfew the past two days, but stretched it to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday to ensure that voters can go to the polls in the Pennsylvania primary election.