LETTER: An Eyewitness Account: An Alleged Abuse of Authority

As a student here at Penn, I value the services rendered to the campus and off-campus communities by the Penn Police. However, on December 8, I witnessed an event which angered me, and the repercussions of which could greatly harm the community's image of the Penn establishment. At roughly 5:20 p.m. that evening, officers from two Penn Police cars arrested a man on 40th Street between Locust and Spruce. I, along with three of my friends, watched the arrest (and the noisy altercation which preceded it) from the end room on the third floor of Modern Languages College House. This room has windows looking out on both 40th Street and the driveway in front of MLCH, so we were able to see all aspects of the incident. The first arrest was relatively quiet and the man offered little protest. After he was handcuffed and in the car (on 40th Street), the officers moved to question his companions concerning the incident. After about five minutes of the man's companions arguing with the officers, one of the officers from the car on 40th asked a fellow officer why he was going to let one of the men get away with the jacket of the arrested man, and the officers moved in on the man to question him further. One officer pointed out to the questioning officer, who was from the car on the driveway bewtween MLCH and Van Pelt, that they couldn't take him in, for he hadn't done anything. The man started to walk away, but the questioning officer called him back, saying "Did I say you could leave yet?" The man called the officer a "fucking asshole" at one point in the conversation, and the officer clearly took offense. The man informed the officer that, having studied law for two years, he knew his rights and could call the officer anything he wanted, so long as he didn't touch him. A crowd of youths was standing by, and jeered at the officer after this retort. The officer then slammed the man against the rear of the police car, a sound which was audible to us on the third floor of the dormitory, and yelled angrily, "All right, you know so much about law, I'll take you in." It was unclear with what the officer would charge the man, but he continued, "A little old lady across the street heard you call me a 'fucking asshole' . . . " The officer maintained that this had probably scared the elderly woman and that he would take the man in regardless, stating that he would fabricate a story if need be: "I'll make something up if I have to." Notably, there was no elderly woman anywhere in sight during the said incident. The bystanders yelled at the police, "Where's the little old lady? I don't see any little old lady!" The squad car then left with the man in custody. I did call the police department to make a complaint, and spoke with an officer. I was, needless to say, furious, and was largely incoherent as I related the story. He asked me if I wished to speak with a supervisor, and I declined, realizing that my account sounded rather disjointed due to my mood. The officer assured me that he would communicate my concern to the appropriate authority. Perhaps the incident was a relatively minor one in the mind of the Police Department. However, I believe that the matter, handled as it was, only served to alienate the West Philadelphia community from the campus establishment. Also, as a University student, I found that my level of respect for the University of Pennsylvania Police Department declined sharply as I viewed this incident. I hope that this treatment of suspects and the community is not the norm. JENNIFER LOFTUS College '92 Also signed by: MICHAEL LECKE College '92 ALFONSO DANIELS College '94 MATTHEW PEARCE Engineering '95