The Nutter Administration is in fact currently appealing that $10-million jury verdict which was awarded to three white policemen who were found to have been driven from Philadelphia's Police Department because they had reported racist mistreatment of black officers as well as multiple incidents of misconduct such as officers fraudulently obtaining overtime-pay by falsely claiming involvement in arrests.
The retaliation against those ex-officers began under Colarulo's command.
A few days before Nutter announced his ethics reforms, the Philadelphia Weekly reported that City Hall had paid private lawyers nearly $1-million to fight the lawsuit filed by that trio of fired officers who are now widely known as the "Courageous Three."
That trio, Ray Carnation and brothers Michael and William McKenna, endured gross mistreatment in the late 1990s during the mayoral tenure of Ed Rendell.
Their mistreatment included disciplinary actions plus the procedurally flawed disorderly conduct arrest of Bill McKenna's wife during an incident involving Colarulo, when she sought relief from police harassment of her husband. Philadelphia prosecutors secured a conviction of the wife on that frivolous charge for an arrest that additionally violated Police Department policies.
Nutter's appeal of that $10-million damage award, in addition to wasting additional taxpayer resources, continues the obscene practice of protecting police whose abusive and corrupt behavior produces costly verdicts or settlements.
Days before Mayor Nutter's ethics reform announcement, the City of Philadelphia also settled a wrongful police shooting lawsuit for $500,000. A policeman had fatally shot the female victim twice in the back and in three other places, claiming he feared the woman was going to stab him.
An attorney for the victim's family, called that shooting "an assassination." The Philadelphia DA's Office and Police Internal Affairs, however, had called the murderous action "justified," and took neither criminal nor disciplinary actions against the officer involved.
Colarulo and two other policemen mainly responsible for the mistreatment of the "Courageous Three" continue to draw combined salaries totaling $276,384 annually.
Costs for compensating the victims of police misconduct strains the budgets of revenue-starved cities nationwide. While cities like Philadelphia cut services from fire stations to libraries and recreation centers trying to compensate for budgetary shortfalls, those cities continue to shell out money by the truckload for lawsuit settlements, without disciplining or discharging errant officers.
Philadelphia spent nearly $25-million settling civil rights complaints against police between 2007 and mid-2010 , alone.
Chicago spent an average of $39.1-million per year settling similar claims against police between 2004 and 2006.
New York City spent an average of $96.4-million between 1999 and 2008.
Police culture, particularly its no-snitching insularity, is "in part responsible for the prevalence of police misconduct and impedes meaningful police reform," stated a 2010 article in The Catholic University Law Review.
The outsized political power of police unions like the FOP compounds barriers to policing the police.
The Nutter Administration in Philadelphia is not commenting on the Wellington Stubbs case citing policy against commenting on pending litigation.
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