I had a very pleasant chance encounter today with retired Philadelphia Police Officer Bob Hurst who long ago served as head of the department’s “Granny Squad”. At great risk to their lives and safety, Bob and his colleagues on the squad spent years disguised as old women, derelicts, drunks and otherwise vulnerable victims trolling the streets of Philadelphia for armed robbers and violent felons. (The picture above is purportedly of Bob in disguise.) When attacked, the decoy officer and his back up team would arrest the assailant. Sometimes they were required to use deadly force.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was – among other assignments – chief of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Police Misconduct Unit. I was responsible for reviewing and, if the evidence warranted, prosecuting use of deadly force by peace officers. At the time, the popular belief was that the Philadelphia police, under the auspices of then Mayor Frank Rizzo, were out of control and wantonly brutalizing the public. But, after five years of investigating each and every use of force – deadly and otherwise – by the Philadelphia police, my unit wound up prosecuting only a handful of cases. The overall pattern emerged that the use of force by the vast majority of Philadelphia police officers had been lawful and appropriate.

As for Bob Hurst and his Granny Squad, my unit investigated all of their uses of deadly force and found them to be, in the vernacular of the day, “good shootings.”

Bob was also at one time president of Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police which represents Philadelphia police officers. Today he told me of a meeting last week by the current Lodge 5 president and the national FOP leadership with President Trump in the Oval Office. The topic of discussion was Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and other progressive ideologues who have taken over local prosecutors’ offices with the massive financial backing of billionaire George Soros.

Before his election, Krasner repeatedly sued the Philadelphia Police Department for alleged civil rights violations. As district attorney, he describes  himself as a “public defender with power” while he builds a record of being soft on crime and disdainful of the rights and concerns of crime victims.

But now Krasner appears to be ratcheting up his social justice agenda with what appears to be an unwarranted prosecution of a Philadelphia police officer for killing a suspect. As I told Bob Hurst, this morning I submitted an opinion piece about this prosecution to my friends at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Whether they will publish it remains to be seen.

The piece as submitted is below. While it deals with Philadelphia’s district attorney, the recent meeting of the FOP leaders with President Trump highlights the progressive prosecutor problem that appears to be spreading nationwide.

So read, heed and don’t let this happen to your community.

SUBMISSION FOR PUBLICATION TO THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Under well-established Pennsylvania law, a police officer need not retreat or desist from efforts to make a lawful arrest because of resistance or threatened resistance to the arrest. An officer is justified in the use of any force which he believes to be necessary to effect the arrest and of any force which he believes to be necessary to defend himself or another from bodily harm while making the arrest.

However, an officer is justified in using deadly force only when he believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to himself or others, or when he believes both that such deadly force  is necessary to prevent the arrest from being defeated by resistance or escape, and the person to be arrested has committed or attempted a forcible felony or is attempting to escape and possesses a deadly weapon, or otherwise indicates that he will endanger human life or inflict serious bodily injury unless arrested without delay.

According to media reports, in 2017 Philadelphia Police Officer Ryan Pownall shot and killed David Jones who attempted to flee after being stopped while riding a dirt bike and carrying a firearm.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner charged Pownall with murder, and the case is scheduled for trial next month. Presumably Pownall’s defense will be that he believed his use of deadly force was necessary to prevent Jones from escaping while possessing a deadly weapon. If supported by the evidence, Pownall’s actions would be authorized by long-standing Pennsylvania law.

But Krasner’s office just filed an extraordinary motion asking the trial judge not to instruct the jury consistent with the law as written. Instead, Krasner’s office wants the trial judge to omit from the jury instructions that part of the law which authorizes the use of deadly force by a police officer to prevent the escape of a person in possession of a deadly weapon. Why? Because Krasner’s office believes that the law as written and interpreted by the courts is unconstitutional since it provides that “an officer may use deadly force even if he does not believe such is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury.”

Pownall’s attorneys filed a response in which they quite properly called the motion “truly unimaginable” and an attempt by Krasner’s office to change the law mere weeks before trial in order to make its case easier to win. As stated in their response, “This may be the first time in Pennsylvania’s history that an elected district attorney intentionally ignored the law in bringing charges against a peace officer, and then sought judicial intervention in changing the law before a trial on those unlawfully brought charges.”

Pownall’s very able lawyers are much too kind. The bizarre and utterly unprecedented relief sought by Krasner’s office would violate fundamental fairness, due process of law and the ex post facto provisions of the United States and Pennsylvania constitutions. The prosecution’s motion is idiotic, unethical, without legal foundation and, if granted, would require any guilty verdict so obtained to be reversed on appeal.

First, it is fundamental that before criminal charges can be brought, the defendant’s alleged conduct must be prohibited by law. So why is Krasner’s office trying on the eve of trial to get the court to effectively re-write the law? Is its desperate maneuver a tacit albeit unintended admission that Pownall’s actions were legal? If so, why was he arrested, and why haven’t the charges been dropped?

Second, it would be blatant, reversible error for the trial judge to strip Pownall of a legal defense to which he is clearly entitled. If he were convicted pursuant to such an erroneous jury charge, Pownall’s conviction would be reversed on appeal.

Third, this effort by Krasner’s office to re-write the law comes not only on the eve of trial but two years after the charged crime was allegedly committed. If the trial judge granted the motion and held Pownall to a new, previously unknown legal standard, the ex post facto provisions of the United States and Pennsylvania constitutions would absolutely prohibit such a retroactive application of law and would constitute yet another obvious and rock-solid basis for reversal on appeal.

This ill-conceived and appalling maneuver by Krasner’s office raises serious questions about its commitment to the rule of law and violates its ethical and legal obligation not to pursue convictions at all cost but, rather, to seek justice.

George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. He is a regular contributor to The American Spectator and blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. kignet1@gmail.com.