The victims suffer again by rewrites of crime logs

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William Johnson was beaten in March by a group of young men before an officer arrived and took him to a hospital. (John Costello / Inquirer Staff Photographer)

Philadelphia police deemed the assault "unfounded" -- even though the victim's eye socket was fractured so badly that steel plates and plastic surgery were needed to repair it. The robbery was classified as a "disturbance."

For the Police Department and the public, such downgradings mean that the statistical picture of crime in Philadelphia is distorted.

For the victims in these two cases, the consequences were more personal. Rob Lehmann, the assault victim, made a stunning discovery when he inquired about getting aid through the state program that compensates crime victims for hospital bills and other costs.

Rob Lehmann

He was told he was out of luck. Police had no record of the crime. No crime, no victim, no compensation. To get help paying his $18,000 in medical bills, Lehmann had to prove he had been attacked. He had to research police records on his own case and convince police that the initial designation -- "unfounded" -- was wrong.

The robbery victim, Ceasal Bostwick, didn't even know he was eligible for financial assistance. The officials who run the state program reach out to victims using Police Department lists of major offenses. Bostwick's case never made the list.

No one knows how many people have missed out on victim aid because police downgraded their incidents. But officials who administer the state program say recent disclosures about statistical fudging in Philadelphia have them concerned.

Departmental auditors who have been combing through 1998 incident reports at the direction of Police Commissioner John F. Timoney estimate that thousands of major crimes -- as many as one in 10 -- have been reduced to minor offenses or wiped off the books altogether.

Officials of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Victims' Services, the umbrella agency for state compensation programs, say they will meet this week in Harrisburg to discuss ways of reaching out to victims of serious offenses in Philadelphia that are only now coming to light.

"In victimology, it's classic second injury," said Carol Lavery, director of the bureau. "The victim having to deal with injuries caused by the system."

You can't apply for victims' compensation unless you know about it. And Ceasal Bostwick did not -- through no fault of his own.

Bostwick, 45, a onetime prison clerk, said he had not worked since he suffered a mental breakdown in 1979. He lives in a sparsely furnished two-room apartment in the city's Powelton section and receives several hundred dollars a month in federal disability.

He said he was robbed Jan. 31 after he opened his door to a man he thought he recognized.

Bostwick said the man announced that he had a gun. Seeing the outline of a weapon in the man's pocket, Bostwick turned over $300 cash and a $28 money order he was going to use to pay an electric bill.

"I seen the print of the gun. It wasn't a finger," Bostwick said in an interview. "That could have been my death."

Bostwick said the man threatened to harm him if he went to police, so for three days he did nothing.

On Feb. 2, he decided to report the crime. Because he has no telephone, he walked three blocks to the 16th District station house. There, he spoke with a corporal in charge of the operations room, where incident reports are evaluated and crimes are classified according to severity.

The corporal listened to Bostwick's account of the robbery and wrote a report of the incident, including a detailed description of the robber. Then police gave Bostwick a ride to Southwest Detective headquarters, where he told his story again.

Sometime later, someone wrote a second report on a separate form, using the same incident number, but deleting any reference to a gun. The description of the robber also vanished.

There were other changes in the rewrite. The incident was described as a drug-related "altercation," not a robbery, and was downgraded from a major offense to a "disturbance" -- not a crime.

Bostwick said in the interview that although he has used drugs, that had nothing to do with the robbery.

After The Inquirer presented copies of the conflicting reports, Timoney said through a spokeswoman that the incident would be investigated by the Internal Affairs Bureau. Timoney had previously ordered investigations into two other cases uncovered by the newspaper in which incident reports were rewritten. In those cases, too, important information was omitted in the rewrite and crimes were shifted into noncrime categories. A robbery was converted into a "disturbance" and a theft into "lost property."

As for why he was targeted, Bostwick said he suspects somebody let out the word that he had cashed his disability check the day before the robbery.

"This here's the truth," Bostwick said, pointing to a copy of the original police report. "This here has been tampered with," he said, holding the rewritten version. "I don't feel this was right."

Victims of violent crime in Pennsylvania are eligible to have their uninsured hospital bills, lost earnings and other costs reimbursed by a state fund. The program won't replace stolen property or money -- except cash from Social Security, disability and pension checks.

The fund pays only for losses not covered by insurance, welfare or other sources. The money comes from court-imposed fines paid by convicted criminals.

The state Bureau of Victims' Services approves applications for aid. To qualify, applicants must show that they were the victims of crimes. Typically, people satisfy that requirement by submitting copies of police incident reports. Victims must report the crime to police within three days and apply for aid within a year.

The program helped 844 Philadelphia claimaints last year. Lavery, director of the Bureau of Victims' Services, said the program was underused, compared with similar ones in other states -- in part because of police downgrading of crimes.

"It's a problem," she said, "a big problem."

In Philadelphia, fudging of incident reports goes back decades. In recent months, police auditors have unearthed hundreds of such cases in 1998 alone.

An Inquirer series published this month described how robberies, assaults, thefts and other offenses have been routinely downgraded for years. After reading the stories, Rob Lehmann came forward to say his was one of those cases.

Lehmann said he was walking on the 1600 block of Pine Street about midnight on Aug. 4, 1990, when two men approached and one punched him in the face without provocation. Without a word, the two walked off.

"Just out of absolutely nowhere came blam," he said in an interview. "It almost knocked me off my feet. I immediately put my hand up and I could tell that blood was coming down."

Lehmann, 46, an assistant to the director of the Atwater Kent Museum, a showcase of Philadelphia historical exhibits, said he later learned from friends about "an urban sport calling 'wilding,' " the aim of which is "to knock somebody out with one punch."

Staggered and bloody but also angry, Lehmann followed his assailants, keeping a half-block behind them and hoping a police car would come along. At a pay phone near 17th and Lombard Streets, he dialed 911 and a squad car responded.

The officer handed Lehmann a cloth to press against his head. The pair then drove Center City streets looking for the attackers, but didn't find them.

The officer then took Lehmann to Lehmann's apartment near Fitler Square. Lehmann said he told the officer he wanted a report written about the assault, if only to get it on the record.

When he got a look at himself in his bathroom mirror, Lehmann said, he realized he needed to go to a hospital. His swollen face was caved in around the left eye and beginning to blacken. The white of his left eye was clouded with blood.

At the Graduate Hospital emergency room, doctors stitched his cuts and referred him to a plastic surgeon. Eventually, his medical bills totaled $18,655 for X-rays, CAT scans, reconstructive surgery, dental work and other injury-related expenses.

Lehmann expected to have to pay up on his own. He was a cook at a gourmet takeout restaurant, but had not been on the job long enough to have health insurance.

Lehmann, who is gay, called the Lesbian and Gay Hotline to report the attack. "I figured they need statistics to prove that this sort of thing goes on," he said.

The hotline told him about the victim compensation fund, which pays up to $35,000 per incident. Lehmann contacted the fund's Center City office at 12th and Arch Streets. There, he hooked up with victim advocate Sherry Winchester-Hunter, who helped him start the paperwork.

They soon hit a brick wall: Police had no record of the crime.

"I know you told me that you reported it to the police," Winchester-Hunter told Lehmann after checking with the Ninth Police District, "but they don't have any record of it." The pair went to the district station house and met Police Officer Ana Rodriguez, who was assigned to work with crime victims.

The three pored over records of 911 dispatches and determined that an officer had been sent to assist Lehmann that night.

They also pulled a copy of the original incident report -- and instantly understood why police records showed no assault.

The incident report listed the complaint as "unfounded" -- meaning the responding officer had found no evidence of a crime.

Rodriguez concluded that Lehmann had indeed been attacked and wrote a new incident report saying so.

Finally, Lehmann could press his claim with the victim compensation fund. The $18,655 payment was approved just before Christmas that year. Checks were sent directly to the doctors and hospitals.

Lehmann could not recall the name of the officer who initially responded. The Police Department refused The Inquirer's request for a copy of the officer's original report.

Though he got compensation, Lehmann remains embittered by the experience.

"Quite honestly, I have never felt any particular ire towards my muggers," he said. "What really chaps me is that this policeman just dismissed the entire event. That's the anger I have left from the experience. I would not have been able to have this medical service, just because he was being a jerk."
William Johnson figures it was a steel-toed boot that broke his arm.

After a night out drinking on March 21, Johnson was walking to a SEPTA stop near Second and Market Streets about 2:30 a.m., on his way home to South Philadelphia.

A group of young men, hanging out in a darkened parking lot, called from across the street that they recognized him and offered him a ride home. When he approached, he says, the entire group began beating him, driving him to the ground with blows and kicks.

A police officer rolled up in a cruiser and went to the aid of Johnson, who was on his knees, his bomber jacket soaked in blood. The other men scattered, with one yelling to the officer, "he beat up our friend," Johnson said.

Johnson, 25, said he yelled at the officer to arrest them.

"We've got to get you to a hospital," Johnson said the officer responded.

Johnson's arm was broken in two places and his face was cut. At Pennsylvania Hospital, doctors set the arm the next morning and used eight stitches to close the cuts in his face.

The police officer's incident report makes no mention of a brawl. It says simply that Johnson was "transported to Pennsy Hospital 8th Spruce."

The classification: H/C -- "Hospital Case" -- a service call, not a crime.

A police supervisor who reviewed the report and its one-sentence narrative of the incident checked "no" in a portion of the form indicating whether detectives should investigate.

The responding officer's name is illegible on the copy of the incident report obtained by The Inquirer. The commander of the Sixth Police District, Capt. Brian Korn, did not respond to a request for an interview.

Johnson, then a warehouseman for a fabric company, was out of work six weeks, costing him $1,500 in wages. He also owed $4,683 in medical bills. His mother told him about the victim compensation program, and he called Center City Crime Victims Services for help.

Sherry Winchester-Hunter, the same woman who helped Lehmann, became his advocate. As with the earlier case, she quickly hit an obstacle.

Winchester-Hunter told him: "Bill, you've got a problem here. The police are saying this is just a hospital run and not a crime." Johnson said he protested: "Oh no, no, no. It was a crime. It was definitely a crime. It was an assault."

Winchester-Hunter and Johnson sent the Bureau of Victims' Services a thick packet of medical bills, wage stubs and other records -- and a recommendation from Winchester-Hunter that the money be granted, because "he was assaulted."

Why does she believe Johnson's story?

"Because he was very cooperative," she said. "We never found anything to dispute his version. When I think of a hospital case, I think of an elderly person who needs a ride to the hospital."

The bureau decided that without a police report affirming that a crime occurred, Johnson was not entitled to the money. He got the news last week. He and Winchester-Hunter say they'll keep fighting.