City Council to Host Police Conduct Hearing Tuesday

Council members from New York City and Cincinnati. Representatives from the ACLU and the NAACP. Members of the clergy and people from town watch groups.

They'll all descend on City Hall Tuesday at 10 a.m. for a public hearing on police conduct.

Roxborough and Manayunk's 4th District Councilman Curtis Jones, Jr. will preside over the hearing along with 8th District Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, who represents Mt. Airy and is the chair of the Committee on Public Safety. It will be in Room 400 in City Hall.

Miller called the hearing after the police department made several internal arrests. It held .

The councilwoman said the hearing is necessary in order to "consider and evaluate the issues surfacing around the Philadelphia Police Department and the conduct of its officers," according to a news release.

"It's not meant as a bashing of the police department, but rather an informational session in terms of what they're doing," Miller's Director of Legislation William Nesheiwat said.

Nesheiwat said he hopes people leave the meeting feeling like they would be comfortable reporting police misconduct to an unlikely group—the police.

He said the District Attorney's office has had problems in the past with people not reporting matters to the police department. As a result, he said, murderers have walked the streets freely in the past.

If there are corrupt police, he said, and people know about what they're doing, those people have a responsibility to let others know.

"If police misconduct is not reported, then the police department is unaware and would be limited in terms of what they can and cannot do—in terms of keeping the department (corruption) free," Nesheiwat said.

Tuesday's proceedings are broken up into a few sections.

Members of the police department and of the city's administration will make a first presentation. They will be followed by public safety officials, like members of various town watches and representatives from the Fraternal Order of Police.

After that, councilmembers from New York and from Cincinnati will speak and the NAACP and ACLU officials will follow soon afterward.

Members of the public will have the opportunity to speak, and Nesheiwat said 20 have already signed up to do so.

Nesheiwat said no ongoing investigations into police corruption will be discussed during the hearing.

"It's really for the public to hear what's going on," he said.

He said he hopes members of Miller's office can go into various police districts after the hearing is over to report what went on there.