Report: Philly Paid Out $40
Million for Police Misconduct
Number “dwarfs” four other
mid-sized cities combined.
MuckRock, an investigative
website that specializes in open-records requests, says Philadelphia has paid
more than $40 million to settle nearly 600 police misconduct suits since 2009.
Sound like a lot? The folks at
MuckRock think so.
“The numbers dwarf comparable statistics in
other major cities for which MuckRock obtained the same data,” MuckRock
reported. “For example, the cities of Indianapolis, San Francisco, San Jose,
and Austin settled or lost a combined 122 police misconduct cases — compared to
586 cases in Philadelphia.”
We’re not sure if that’s a
valid comparison; Philadelphia is roughly 600,000 residents bigger than San
Jose, the biggest city on that list. On the other hand, thank God we’re not New
York, either, which paid $428 million — 10 times as much as Philly — during the
same time period.
In its records request for
Philly, MuckRock reports: “We determined that 1,223 … cases represented police misconduct lawsuits.
Of those, the city settled 584 and lost two, roughly 48 percent, at an average
of $69,401 per lawsuit.” The two biggest settlements, for $2.5 million apiece,
involved police-involved shootings. There were also two racial profiling
settlements, for $14,500 apiece.
What’s cool? MuckRock invites
you to download the spreadsheet of lawsuits and see if you can turn up any patterns
the public should know about.
