Promises of change for city's rape unit

After a meeting with the police commissioner, women's advocates said the talk was productive.

By Mark Fazlollah,
Michael Matza
and Craig R. McCoy

INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Police Commissioner John F. Timoney yesterday promised changes in the department's sex-crimes unit and an extensive review of rape and sexual-assault complaints that may have been buried by investigators, according to women's advocates who met with him.

Timoney, meeting with leaders of four women's organizations at Police Headquarters yesterday, said he would increase the number of detectives assigned to the Special Victims Unit. He also said he had ordered the department's internal auditing arm to scrutinize case files going back several years.

The women's advocates said Timoney also told them he would not oppose City Council hearings into the sex-crimes unit's performance. A majority of Council members have come out in support of such a public examination of the handling of sexual-assault cases.

"It was a really good exchange. We all have as a goal rebuilding trust and trying to create the best services for women and children who are victims of sex crimes," said Carol E. Tracy, executive director of the Women's Law Project.

"We also believe that because of past practices and current publicity, it's important for the public to hear what we heard today," she said.

In articles published Oct. 17 and 18, The Inquirer reported that the rape squad, established in 1981, dumped thousands of sexual-assault complaints - nearly a third of its caseload - into a bureaucratic limbo known as Code 2701, "investigation of person."

By shelving cases in that fashion, investigators kept them out of the city's official crime tally. The practice was never revealed to the public or to sexual-assault victims. Cases given the noncriminal designation typically received little or no investigation, The Inquirer reported.

Current and former investigators said they buried cases to cope with a steep workload, inadequate staffing, and pressure from commanders to generate favorable statistics.

After those articles were published, Timoney invited the women's leaders to a meeting. The commissioner did not respond yesterday to a written request for information about the session.

Representatives of three of the four women's groups were interviewed separately after the meeting. They were in agreement on what Timoney said.

Elena M. DiLapi, director of the Penn Women's Center, said the meeting with Timoney and two top commanders - Capt. Joseph M. Mooney, head of the Special Victims Unit, and Chief Inspector John T. Maxwell, commander of all detectives units - was "not adversarial."

"We share a common goal," she said.

The women's leaders said Timoney told them he would not try to block Council hearings.

"The thing I wanted to hear, and heard, was that he was not opposed to hearings," said Barbara Burgos DiTullio, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Timoney said the department was conducting two separate reviews of sexual-assault cases to determine whether they were improperly dumped in noncriminal categories.

In a review now under way, supervisors in the Special Victims Unit are scrutinizing cases put in "investigation of person" and another bureaucratic way station - Code 2625, "investigation, protection, medical examination" - over the last two years.

In the same review, supervisors are examining rape complaints that investigators dismissed as "unfounded," or groundless, during the same period. In 1998, Philadelphia police rejected 18 percent of all rape complaints as unfounded - the highest rate among the nation's 10 largest cities.

Timoney told the advocates that he had also ordered a more extensive review of older cases by the department's Quality Assurance Bureau, which audits incident reporting and crime statistics.

"Cases are under review, both the immediate past and the distant past," Tracy said.

DiTullio said: "He's going back several years. I'm pleased."

Timoney did not provide a timetable for completing the reviews, the women said. Nor did he say precisely how far back the Quality Assurance Bureau would reach in its examination.

Tracy, DiTullio and DiLapi said Timoney did promise that he would be available for monthly meetings with women's groups to brief them on issues involving the rape squad, including the progress of the reviews.

Carole Johnson, executive director of the Philadelphia chapter of Women Organized Against Rape, a group represented at the meeting, has said that any review should go back five years - the statute of limitations for rape.

The reexamination of old cases could trigger a surge in the city's official crime count - as well as a fresh effort to prosecute suspects in cases that had been considered closed.

The women said Timoney told them that any undercounting of sex crimes discovered by internal auditors would be corrected.

"He was very clear that he doesn't care if the crime rate goes up," Tracy said.

The women's leaders said Timoney said he agreed with them that the Special Victims Unit, now housed in the former Frankford Arsenal, should be moved to more modern, comfortable and centrally located facilities. But he gave no promise that a move would be made in the near future.

The arsenal is a former military compound ringed by walls topped with barbed wire. Some sexual-assault victims have said they found the location forbidding and the unit's offices cramped and dingy.

"It's still a matter of resources, and that is something he wants to see changed," DiTullio said. "Whether it means a new building or not, I'm not sure. I would hope it would. We need to look to making the facilities better."

DiTullio said she hoped that Council hearings would be held soon, and that they would push city officials to provide a centrally located facility for the rape squad.

"The commissioner can ask for certain things," DiTullio said. "But unless there is an outcry, I don't think the city is going to respond."