Township Looks for Answers in Wake of Accusations Against Lower Merion Police

Editor's note: In an earlier version of this story, Patch incorrectly stated that Officer Kerry Godbold was placed on desk duty. The article has been since updated.

Regular monthly meetings of the Lower Merion Board of Commissioners can be staid affairs. Presentations are made, reports distributed, ordinances amended. There are occasional raised voices from the public, and a developer might draw an unruly crowd

Wednesday night’s meeting was something else entirely, as a township police officer and resident separately accused the Lower Merion Police Department of racism and sexual assault, respectively. The ensuing local media spotlight left Lower Merion officials and the Montgomery County District Attorney to handle the allegations.

An African-American, Officer Kerry Godbold, backed by a group of township residents, said a civil service exam list, which he said put him at or near the top of the promotions list, was intentionally allowed to expire in order to avoid promoting a black officer.

“These are really some very serious allegations that have been made,” said Commissioner Jenny Brown, underscoring the commissioners' concern that black residents felt underrepresented within the police department, and the audience applauded when commissioners said it was an issue that needed to be addressed further.

Later, an unnamed Bryn Mawr woman appeared at the podium and claimed she was sexually assaulted and stalked by a Lower Merion police officer, who she did not name at the time. She also said she was illegally detained by another officer—a friend of the first accused cop—and threatened, after she made a report of the assault.

“I was totally shocked,” said Board of Commissioners President Liz Rogan. “I certainly wasn’t expecting to see anything like that. But we take any allegations of impropriety very seriously, so we want a thorough and objective investigation to take place."

Said Rogan to the woman before she left the podium: “I don’t want you to be embarrassed about this.”

Two days later, the county is investigating the woman’s accusations, and the Board of Commissioners says it wants to address and settle the officer’s accusations in-house, cooperating with members of the community.

What’s Next

What’s next is unclear, even to township veterans and members of the Board of Commissioners. 

However, there is at least a next step for one of the matters. In the case of the alleged sexual assault and harassment by two policemen, it has been directed to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office.

Like most suburban police departments, Lower Merion’s has no internal affairs division, which in larger towns and cities is usually a separate unit with the specific job of accepting and investigating complaints of police misconduct and corruption. If the internal affairs unit determines there is strong evidence of criminal activity, the matter is referred to the DA. And so it follows that this case has gone directly to the DA.

“The officer in question has been placed on administrative reassignment,” said Brenda Viola, public information officer for the township, on Friday afternoon. Beyond that, township lawyers advised Viola late Thursday afternoon “that we maintain our ongoing township policy” of not discussing personnel matters.

Discrimination Claims

“The Board will be talking about [the Godbold case] in an executive session,” Rogan added, acknowledging a growing demand for information about it from residents and the media. 

Police Superintendent Michael McGrath, who was present at the meeting, called the claims “baseless allegations.”

“It seems to me that there’s a difference in opinion on interpretation of the law,” said Rogan the following day, explaining the Board’s role in appointing, inducting and promoting police officers. “Any governing body has the right to not follow a list. The Civil Service executes the tests and manages the process,” but the Board makes final decisions.

The Whiff of Scandal

Speaking of the media, Godbold’s discrimination charges seem to have taken a back seat to the sexual assault case. The main interest in the wake of the meeting has been the distraught woman and her grave accusations of assault and intimidation. Viola said her phone was ringing off the hook all day Thursday with queries for comments about the case. All the calls were directed to the DA.

“It’s a very serious matter and it is under investigation, that’s the beginning and the end of it for right now,” said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, when reached Friday afternoon. “It certainly seems prudent to me that [the officer] wouldn’t be interacting with the public during the course of this investigation.”

It is not yet clear if the second officer—the one accused of detaining the woman and threatening her on behalf of his colleague—was officially under investigation, too. The names of the officers have still not been released, by the township or the county. 

Even if cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, the police officer accused of assault could still lose his job, explained William Johnson, director of the Police Advisory Commission for the City of Philadelphia, a sort of officially sanctioned police watchdog group.

“If he were acquitted, it would fall to the administrative process, and he could still be fired,” Johnson said, speaking in general terms of a typical police department. “Basically the difference would be, whether if during the course of his job, he violated any departmental directives of procedures.”

From there, based on whether or not the allegations were sustained in any fashion, even if not criminal, there would be a recommendation for discipline, Johnson said. “That could be dismissal, and that could also be a suspension, a re-training, any number of different things. That would be the process here in Philadelphia.”

The U.S. Justice Department is also empowered to investigate these kinds of complaints, he said.

Promotions and Sergeants

Godbold’s claims, though personal, extend beyond him as an individual. The LMPD was not free to comment about the issue, but a consistent rap against the department is that it does not hire enough minorities, and that no black officer has ever risen to the rank of sergeant.

One of the residents speaking Wednesday with Godbold was the Rev. Albert Davis, president of the Main Line chapter of the NAACP and an Ardmore resident, the Main Line Times reported. “I have a concern that we have been raising over the years,” Davis is quoted as saying. “We have 140 police officers in Lower Merion Township. Of the 140 there are only three African-Americans.”

The LMPD is currently short eight officers, Superintendent McGrath said at the meeting, and maintained that filling those jobs comes first, before promotions are considered.

McGrath is a key figure in this case, for more than the obvious reasons. As Lower Merion’s top cop, he too was accused, albeit indirectly, of racial bias. Another conflict of interest is that often, the job of disciplinarian falls to the chief of police in jurisdictions with no internal affairs unit. 

“Obviously, there are concerns and problems with that, as you might expect,” Johnson said, again speaking hypothetically (Johnson said he is unfamiliar with the LMPD). “He sees and works with these officers everyday, and has a personal and working relationship with them.”

Johnson said in large departments, there is a separate unit that acts as an in-house arm of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For smaller forces, it’s likely that there is “some sort of grievance mechanism” within the LMPD for Godbold to tap with this kind of complaint, he added. (It is not known if Godbold addressed the matter with his immediate supervisors before speaking publicly about it.)

A former Fraternal Order of Police president and retired cop, Rich Kramer, was also on hand at Wednesday’s meeting. He requested that the Board of Commissioners appoint an external, third-party investigation.

Rogan said she’s hoping to avoid that, and is wary of the FOP’s history in cases like this. “The FOP sues all the time,” she said. Rather, she said there’s strong desire among Board members to address the issue head-on, and settle the matter by working closely with the community members who have lodged complaints, with McGrath and other senior members of the LMPD, with the proper township officials, and with Godbold himself.

***

It was not the first time the LMPD has been accused of racial profiling, insensitivity, and worse. In 1993, for example, a Lower Merion officer was said to have a gun and handcuffed a local pastor, from Mount Calvary Church in Ardmore, after stopping him for a minor traffic violation. 

“The incident has mobilized black leaders along the Main Line,” a report in The Philadelphia Inquirer stated, in May of that year. “Wednesday night Mount Calvary Church was packed with local ministers and residents who called it the latest example of a long history of harassment by Lower Merion and other suburban police departments.”

The current situation may have been simmering, but if so, it appeared to the Commissioners to be a surprise—especially combined with the very serious criminal allegations against two other LMPD officers.

The criminal assault complaint and the accusations of systemic racism are otherwise wholly unrelated matters, but both suddenly came to light in an unexpected burst of public statements, one right after the other, at a mid-week, evening meeting of a municipal body unaccustomed to responding to such emotional appeals.

“It was a pretty rough night,” Rogan said, summing it up.

The Board of Commissioners meets again next Wednesday.

Patch writer Alicia Guide contributed to this report.