Philly police commissioner says she won't resign after critical report on protests, riots

In the wake of a highly critical report on the city’s response to protests last summer, Philadelphia’s police commissioner has rejected calls for her resignation — and the mayor is bristling at accusations he showed no leadership.

Philadelphia City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart said in her 81-page report Wednesday on the civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., that city leaders were to blame for a police response that included deploying tear gas and firing rubber bullets, ignoring white “vigilantes” in certain areas and not promptly stopping looting and vandalism in the heart of the city.

Rhynhart wrote that the city failed to properly plan for protests, including failing to mobilize enough officers, which led police to overcompensate with force and allow looting in Center City to continue because available officers were busy elsewhere in the city.

“The investigation shows that the root cause of the lack of planning was a lack of leadership at the highest levels,” Rhynhart wrote in a report summary.

“While demonstrations deteriorated across the nation in the days leading up to Philadelphia’s unrest, city leadership did not believe similar events would take place here and, therefore, failed to plan accordingly.”

City responses to criticism

Specifically, Rhynhart called out Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel, who is also the city’s director of the Office of Emergency Management, and Mayor Jim Kenney, who she said was “ultimately responsible” for the city’s response.

Kenney, though, released a statement in which he said Rhynhart report’s mirrored those in an independent report released last month. Describing her report as a “duplicative effort,” Kenney said it “attempts to cast blame for mistakes that have been acknowledged on multiple occasions.”

The mayor said he rejected Rhynhart’s “unsubstantiated claims” that he and administration officials did not show leadership, particularly that Thiel had a “hands-off” approach to his role at emergency management director.

“The fact that the Controller chose to make such an inaccurate claim about dedicated public servants is repugnant and its lack of accuracy certainly calls into question the veracity of her other claims,” Kenney said.

On Thursday, Outlaw held a press conference in which she deflected calls for her resignation, particularly from an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Outlaw said she had not been asked to resign nor would she.

“We will weather this storm together,” she said.

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Revisiting the protests in Philadelphia

The summer protests in Philadelphia were followed by protests in October after police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old Black man who was armed with a knife.

Philadelphia police said 30 officers during one protest where officers and protesters clashed.

Outlaw said the protests in the summer and fall were larger and more violent than previous ones in the city and there was no “blueprint” for a response as Rhynhart insisted.

Outlaw said the report failed to acknowledge injuries to police officers who were attacked with acid, urine, bricks and bottles.

She also said Rhynhart comparing the use of tear gas against protesters to the Philadelphia police bombing of a house during a 1985 stand-off with members of MOVE, a black militant group, was “repugnant.”

The police bombing killed six MOVE members, five children and ignited a fire that burned 65 homes.

Outlaw had previously approved the use of tear gas as police commissioner in Portland and had “indicated that she was amendable to using it in response to civil unrest as long as she and the Mayor approved its use in advance.”

The report says Outlaw did not think that she needed to consult with Kenney about the use of tear gas after an initial conversation concerning its possible use.

“The decision to use tear gas was not predetermined ahead of the initial demonstration,” Outlaw said on Thursday.

Rhynhart was also critical of how police handled large groups of whites who gathered in Fishtown and Marconi Plaza and who clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters.

Police did not disperse the groups even though some were obviously armed, the report says, and officers did not use rubber bullets or tear gas against them.

The “contrasting approaches” by police to white groups and the BLM protesters “reinforces the community’s concern about how the Department chose to deploy force, and the disproportionate manner in which force was exercised against those who expressed their dissatisfaction or objections to the police and their actions.”

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