POCONO MANOR, Pa. — The Philadelphia Police Department will retain its statewide accreditation after a panel ruled Tuesday that a new city law barring officers from stopping motorists for minor violations does not prevent the department from enforcing state law, a key requirement of accreditation.
The professional stamp of approval had been in jeopardy since the spring, when officials with the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission (PLEAC) said they believed the new measure, known as the Driving Equality law, could have prevented the Police Department and its 6,000 officers from enforcing aspects of the state’s vehicle code.
But city officials said they disagreed with that interpretation, insisting that the law modified, but did not ban, enforcement for violations like broken taillights. The measure, known as the Driving Equality act, reclassified eight minor driving infractions as “secondary violations,” which cannot be the sole reason an officer stops a car (officers can still pull drivers over for more serious offenses).
On Tuesday, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and Inspector Francis Healy, the department’s top legal advisor, told a panel at a meeting of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association in the Poconos that they did not believe those changes threatened the department’s ability to uphold state law. And they said the ordinance was designed to address racial disparities in car stops for minor violations — a phenomenon critics had come to call a criminalization of “driving while Black.”
“We are trying to address the disparities without impacting our ability to enforce the law,” Healy said.
The panel affirmed the department’s accreditation in a 10-8 vote.
City data shows that although vehicle stops dropped precipitously in 2020 during the pandemic, and have not returned to pre-2020 heights, officers this June stopped about 8,500 motorists — 3% fewer than in September 2021, just before the law passed.
The threat against accreditation was not the first brush with controversy for the Driving Equality law, which was championed by City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas. Not long after the bill passed, the police officers’ union sued to overturn it, saying it violates state law and adversely affects public safety. And in Harrisburg, Republican lawmakers added an amendment to traffic enforcement legislation that could force cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to choose between safer bike lanes and driving equity laws.
Some within PLEAC — including attorney Frank Lavery Jr. — said the city’s law meant the Police Department was clearly failing to uphold the standards necessary to remain accredited alongside other law enforcement agencies.
“What Philadelphia is trying to do is carve out its own exception,” Lavery told the accreditation panel Tuesday.
The Police Department first earned accreditation in 2015 under then-Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey. The effort took three years and involved revising policies, standardizing training programs, and updating technical capabilities.
The Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association said nearly 150 agencies statewide are currently accredited, including police departments in Harrisburg, Allentown, Bensalem, and State College.
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(Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.)
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