A Philadelphia cop who
allegedly pushed her own children to fight other kids – and who, on at least
one occasion, jumped in a fight to punch a 14-year-old girl herself ¬ - was
arrested today on numerous assault and endangerment charges, according to the Philadelphia
District Attorney’s Office.
Ofc. Tamika Gross’ propensity
for fighting has twice been detailed by the Daily News, once in 2009 when she
got into a street fight with another woman while she was on duty in West Philly
and once in 2013, when she allegedly brought her 16-year-old suspended daughter
back to Lincoln High School to fight a 14-year-old girl over a boy.
In the latter instance, which
prosecutors said was caught on cell phone video, Gross, 35, is accused of
jumping into the fight when her daughter started losing and punching her
daughter’s rival in her eye.
Tashiana Haggins-Montgomery,
the mother of the 14-year-old victim in the Lincoln High case, was overwhelmed
with the news of Gross’ arrest today. She said she’s called the District Attorney’s
Office every week since the incident happened in October to check up on the
case.
“I honestly thought it was
going to be slipped under the rug,” she said. “She’s been getting away with it
so long it was almost like it was the norm for her."
According to District Attorney
spokeswoman Tasha Jamerson, Gross has been charged with 11 counts in three
separate cases dating back to 2012. In the first instance, on Jan. 25, 2012,
Gross allegedly brought her 18-year-old son to fight a 16-year-old boy, an
encounter which led to an all-out street brawl, according to prosecutors.
In the second case, in March of
2012, Gross is accused of bringing her daughter to fight two sisters, Jamerson
said. During that incident, Gross was allegedly heard screaming that nobody would
get arrested because she was an off-duty police officer.
The final case Gross is being
charged with is the Lincoln High School fight involving Haggins-Montgomery's
daughter.
In total, Gross is facing two
counts of simple assault, four counts of recklessly endangering another person,
four counts of corruption of minors and one count of endangering the welfare of
a child, Jamerson said. Gross turned herself in to police around 11:30 a.m.
today.
"I'm happy that it won't
happen to another child, even if she doesn't do jail time at least they're
watching her," Haggins-Montgomery said. "My child was not the first,
she might not have even been the third, there might have been other kids but
their parents may have not taken it this far."
Internal Affairs documents that
were uncovered by the Daily News during research for the previous stories
showed that Gross has a history of getting into fights that is well documented
by the department.
"Police documentation
reveals P/O Gross was in fact present on more than one occasion when groups of
juveniles gathered for the purpose of provoking fights with each other,"
one investigator wrote in a 2012 report for Internal Affairs.
Gross appears to finally be
facing some action from the police department as well. A spokeswoman for the
department's public affairs unit said Gross has been suspended with the intent
to dismiss.
When Gross first made the pages
of the Daily News in 2009 for brawling with a woman in West Philly while she
was on duty, the woman she fought, Lateefah Savage, was charged with assault on
a police officer. Savage eventually pleaded guilty to simple assault in the
case and received four years probation.
However, the ramifications for
Gross were far less severe. She was placed on desk duty and was disciplined by
the department, but a spokeswoman refused to release the nature of that
discipline.
What is clear is that Gross
continued to wear a badge for the next five years and she continued to
allegedly promote fighting in her own life and fighting amongst children like
she was some kind of Don King pied piper.
