COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, December 9, 2025 10:18 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR., CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. ALSO PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS
Good morning, everyone. We will now call this hearing to order. Ms. Stack, can you read the title of the resolution please.
Resolution 8 250927, authorizing the Committee on Public Safety to hold a hearing to examine the City of Philadelphia's strategies, laws and policies for protecting victims of abuse and domestic violence within the justice system, including the courts, the Sheriff's Office, the District Attorney's Office and the Philadelphia Police Department.
Thank you. Ms. Stack, can you now call the roll so that we can establish a quorum.
In addition, we have established a quorum. In addition, we have President Kenyatta Johnson with us, who is the author of the resolution. And we have Cindy Bass and Nina Ahmad also in the chambers. We will recognize them. At this point, I want to recognize the author of the resolution, President Kenyatta Johnson.
I want to first and foremost thank Member Jones for convening this public safety hearing and all of our members for joining us as we examine how the City of Philadelphia responds to domestic violence, but most importantly, violence against women here in our city. This hearing follows the heartbreaking murder of Kada Scott, a beautiful young woman whose life ended far too soon. The criminal justice system is falling short of protecting the people it is meant to serve. Far too often, individuals who courageously call the police in moments of crisis do not or cannot come to court when it's time to testify. As a result, cases are dismissed or withdrawn. And while we uphold the principle of everyone's presumed innocence or proven guilty, we also recognize domestic violence, and violence against women in particular is a very real issue. When cases are withdrawn due to the victims failing to appear, the accuser's released, creating the risk of continued harm. The purpose of today's hearing is to understand the barriers that prevent the victims of violence as well as appearing in court to explore what supports policies or interventions might help ensure that they can safely do so. Not only are we here to explore issues of violence against women and domestic violence as a whole, but also to confront the broader pattern of violence against women in our city. While the tragedy involved in Ms. Scott will undoubtedly be discussed today, I want to emphasize this here is not an investigation into an open case. I want to extend my deeper condolences to Kim Matthews and Keith Scott, the parents of Kada Scott, who are here today. Could you stand and let's give him a round of applause of support? (Applause.)
Mr. Kevin Scott. I also want to thank District Attorney Larry Krasner, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, our Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer, Office of Victim Advocate Adara Combs and several domestic violence and women against abuse organizations such as Women in Transition, Women Against Abuse, Congreso de Latinos, Lutheran Settlement House, Women Against Rape, She is Us, Inc., She is U, Inc., the National College of 100 Black Women, Philly Self Defense and all other advocates joining us. Your dedication to this work does not go unnoticed. We also want to take a moment to thank all of the city agencies who are working day-in and day-out to address this issue. But most importantly, want to make sure that this discussion around how we can all work together comprehensively, the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing. And when I got up this morning, I was looking at my remarks. I clearly understand that for the Scott family, this holiday season is a tough time, but she's also representative of other young girls who have lost their lives either to domestic violence or some level of violence here in our city. So this is about us talking about strategies and ways for us to come together and figure out how we do a better job of protecting women as we move forward here in the city of Philadelphia. I have an extremely, extremely busy schedule, but this is important to show up and make sure that we're putting our best foot forward and addressing this issue. And I do know that today in this single hearing we're not going to solve everything, so there will be additional follow-up, personal conversations with the various agencies that are here to make sure we continue to make this a priority here in the City of Philadelphia. So to Kevin and Kim, as a member of this body we will always be here to be supportive of your efforts as we go through this process. And I relinquish my time back to the Chairman of Public Safety.
Thank you so much, Mr. President, for putting this resolution forward, and more importantly, stating the intention to figure out how we can get this right as opposed to just pointing fingers. That is an important approach and shows true leadership. As Chair of Public Safety, I thought about what we would talk about as we open this important hearing. And the cases of domestic violence, particularly against women, are so numerous that you can't pull out one to say this one was above the other. Right down the hallway, there's a plaque to Linda Rios, who was one of our employees who was murdered due to domestic violence. But one that comes to mind over the decades is a lady that many of you won't even know who I'm talking about. Her name was Mame Shamsadine(ph). She worked for the City of Philadelphia too, the Mayor's Office of Community Service at the time. And she was at work taking a break right outside of the office where her assailant came up and tragically took her life. And for years, we could not apprehend that individual Justice delayed is justice denied. And one of the things that we need to consider in the continuum of violence is how do we get it better, how do we get it right, how do we prevent it versus just being there after the fact. So with that in that spirit, I look forward to the testimony that we're going to hear today. Are any other members of the committee interested in giving a statement? And I know Kendra Brooks has joined us. (No response.)
Seeing none -- Nina or Member Bass -- no? Member Bass. Chair recognizes Member Bass.
Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't have a microphone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My condolences on the loss of your beautiful daughter. I just wanted to say a couple things. And the first is that I think that this is a case that really resonated with all of us because Kada Scott could have been any of one of our daughters, our nieces, our cousins, you know, our little cousins, you know, the girl down the block. She was someone who just really connected in some way, shape or form with each and every one of us. And I thank the Council President that we're here today to have this conversation. I really wish we weren't having to have this conversation, but we want to make sure that Kada Scott, that her name lives on, her legacy lives on and that she's not remembered as being anyone's victim, but that she is remembered as the young, vibrant woman that you raised her to be and that who contributed mightily to the city of Philadelphia. And so, I just really wanted to say thank you so much to the sponsor of the legislation. And as we ask some difficult questions, bring up some uncomfortable topics, that we keep at the forefront of our mind, that Kada Scott and many other victims of violence, women who are victims of violence in the city, that we do something to get in front of it, that we're not just having a conversation today, that that conversation is actually going to lead to some action. Most of the women I know have at one point or another felt uncomfortable, felt threatened and we need to really look into that. Black women and Brown women in particularly, in my opinion, go without protection on a level that is just unprecedented. People don't hear our cry. And when we say something is wrong, someone is bothering me, the reaction too often is get over it. I've been told this by someone who threatened me, get over it, move on, just don't worry about it, you're making something out of nothing. And so, these are the kind of things that are said to us when someone has been threatening, and we need to put it into it and put it into it now. So I just want to say thank you so much for the resolution today and looking forward to the hearing. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Member Bass, for those comments. And it's always good when we change pain into purpose, and that's one of the reasons we're here today. Ms. Stack -- Dr. Ahmad. Chair recognizes Dr. Ahmad.
Thank you, Chair. And thank you very much to Council President for this resolution and for everybody to show up today. We need a culture change in our city, our state, our country and the globe. But I first want to begin by saying the name Kada Scott, the name Kada Scott. She will not be forgotten. I want to extend my deepest condolences to her parents, Kevin and Kim. This is devastating. This has shaken us all to the core, but we know there's a lot of this happening across the board in our city. Her death forces us to confront some very uncomfortable truths, like my colleague here said, about how fragile safety can be for survivors of domestic violence. Those who survive it are still at risk continuously. And the reality is that there's more than in women who will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime. Here in Pennsylvania the number is even higher, over 37%. And last year alone, 106 people were killed in domestic violence-related homicides across the state, most of them women. As chair of the Public Health and Human Services Committee, I have seen how violence, trauma, housing instability, economic dependence and fear of retaliation all overlap. That is why it is incumbent on all of us to take this extremely seriously and go beyond the hearing to make sure we have actual change. And it needs everybody in our city to work together to make sure that this happens. I'm very grateful to the advocates, service providers, law enforcement leaders and prosecutors who are here today. You see these realities every day. Your testimony is critical as we look honestly at what is breaking down, what we must fix if we are truly, truly serious about preventing the next tragedy. As a mother of two girls, my heart goes out to you. My children when they were growing up, when they took the bus, they would get off on a stop before their stop, so no one -- if they were followed or heckled on the bus, they didn't see where they were getting off. The other one used to wear an engagement ring on her finger when she was not engaged so people would not bother her. This is what leads into all of this when we don't stop it at the root. And this is our society, this is our culture that as my colleague said, get over it. There's no getting over it. This is accountability, consequences so we can stop this. So thank you very much for giving me a moment to really share how deeply impacted we all are. And we're not going to be done until we're done, until we have some change in our city. So thank you, Chair, for giving me this time.
Thank you so much, Member. It's important to put these things on the record. Ms. Stack, can you please read the first panel's names to testify on Resolution No. 3 250927.
District Attorney Larry Krasner. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Good morning, District Attorney. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Good morning.
Please take a seat and state your name for the record and please begin your testimony. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, members of Council. My name is Larry Krasner. I am the elected District Attorney in Philly and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to come here and to speak with you and answer your questions on this incredibly important topic. I share your deep, genuine concern for the lives and safety of women and girls in the city of Philadelphia and for addressing domestic violence with best practices and with the best possible results with a very, very difficult and challenging issue. I do want to start out by thanking Council President and also thanking Public Safety Chairman Curtis Jones for convening this session. I want to thank all members of Council who are here. Councilmember Harrity, Brooks, Lozada, the two I've already mentioned, Gauthier, Young and then of course we also have with us present Councilmembers Bass and Ahmad. It has been my privilege to serve this city for a couple terms on the cusp of a third, and I'm deeply grateful to the residents of Philadelphia for the chance to lead and work with some great and talented attorneys and nonlawyer staff at the City's prosecution office where we focus on trying to make everyone in Philadelphia safer and freer. At the same time, I am joined by several colleagues on my executive team and a number of subject matter experts from my office, but let me just state that the two who are seated with me right now are to my right, your left, Katrina Wadas, who is the Chief of our Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit. And then of course to my left, your right, we also have Robert Listenbee, whose long and distinguished career included being Barack Obama's Chief Officer for Juvenile Justice in his second term and whose career has embraced caring for and taking care of children and families from the very beginning. We did a press conference yesterday in relation to a recent conviction and sentencing that I think relates slightly. I'll just touch on it, if I may. A man named Horace Battle was convicted, and rightly so, of the rape of an 11-year-old child and of abducting two 11-year-old sisters off the street, taking them through a variety of deceptive forms of trickery and coercion, taking them to his home, where one of these girls was lured into entering the house. The other one remained in the car. After she disappeared into the house for an extended period of time, the other one, sensing danger, got out of her vehicle and in difficult circumstances made her way through the streets to try to find help, found someone on the street who was kind enough to pick up a cell phone and call police who then responded. And what started then was a process of about hours of 8 work on the part of Special Victims 9 Unit of Philadelphia Police as well 10 as other police in relation to the story she was able to convey, and that, of course, is a crucial issue with all of these cases when people are traumatized, when they are terrified, when they are coerced, when they are abused. Conveying the entire story sometimes is not easy. And so, it took a little while, but through the excellent work of the Special Victims Unit, enough of the story came out to permit police to track a car with no license plate, but by color, make and model and one distinguishing characteristic to track a car to a house. And the house of course was where the second little girl was still imprisoned. By the time police arrived there and rescued her, she had been raped, but she was alive and she was saved and she was brought back to safety and to a place where everyone was concerned, but everyone concerned to try to do what they could to help her with everything that comes after that kind of a horrific experience. Protecting girls and protecting women is essential in any society, but especially in Philadelphia where we truly care about our residents here.
We are honored to join our colleagues in government and law enforcement and criminal justice system to discuss our collective commitment to seek justice for families and individuals impacted by domestic violence, including intimate partner violence at the DAO. Our fight to protect victims and survivors of domestic violence includes the work of our Charging Unit, which also handles bail matters, our Municipal Court Unit, which is the court where misdemeanors and preliminary hearings are done on more serious domestic violence cases and where less serious domestic violence cases are actually tried or otherwise handled, our Juvenile Unit, our Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit and our Homicide and Nonfatal Shooting Unit. Because, yes, sometimes these cases, as you are well aware, involve rape. Sometimes these cases, as you are well aware, involve homicide or shooting or other horrifically violent things. The work of the Philadelphia DA's Office starts through our collaboration in the investigation process in support of our partners at the PPD. Investigators at PPD's Homicide Unit and Special Victims Unit frequently communicate with our prosecutors for support with obtaining warrants, with forensic evidence, social media and other technology in preparation for the criminal justice process and also in order to make sure that the evidence that is gathered is usable in court, because technical mistakes can have very big consequences, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to play that role and to assist our partners in PPD at charging prosecutors review affidavits and investigative evidence to make integral charging decisions based upon probable cause, including appropriate bail requests at Arraignment Court. At the Municipal Court Unit, prosecutors trained by senior prosecutors within the DAO's Training Unit prosecute some cases at the preliminary hearing level, and prosecutors within the DAO's Family Violence Sexual Assault Unit prosecute domestic violence, intimate partner violence and sexual violence cases often from the preliminary hearing through the trial and the sentencing. And our most experienced prosecutors within the Homicide and Nonfatal Shootings Unit handle extremely complex cases that include stabbings, fatal and nonfatal shootings and other violent crime cases. These units mentioned above work with determination and vigor to ensure defendants in domestic violence and sexual violence cases are held accountable and face serious, just and appropriate consequences for their actions. One of the most important elements of our work at the Philadelphia DA's Office is the critical and necessary, direct and referral services that we provide to victims, survivors and co-survivors of domestic violence through the work of the DAO's External Engagement and Government Affairs Division, which includes our Community Engagement Unit, Relocations Unit, Victim Services Unit and CARES Unit, which many of you know, provides intensive services during the first 45 days to the family of a homicide victim, to the survivors. Our office provides compassionate support services to witnesses and victims navigating the criminal justice process. This advocacy is supported by the DAO's nine contracted victim services providers, and those providers include Victim Services of South Philadelphia, WOAR, Women Against Abuse, Northwest Victim Services, just to name a few. These victim advocates provide court accompaniment, VCAP support, trauma care, therapy, relocation support and additional support as is needed. We work very closely with faith-based partners and community-based organizations to ensure communities impacted by domestic violence have full access to the support of the Philadelphia DA's Office as well as our partners. As we reflect upon our administration's two terms, we're looking to build upon success and continue to evaluate areas of opportunity. Make no mistake, we can do better. Every day we can do better.
The question is not just to do different. The question is how do you do better. So once again, I want to thank you not only for convening this group in a way that is reminiscent of what you all did at the height of the shooting crisis, the gun violence crisis, when you convened hearings that led people to do data, to do research, to think things through and to change, and we have seen the power of that kind of an effort collectively to make things better. We will note it once again when we cross the threshold into 2026, having set the 50-plus year record for the lowest number of homicides that Philadelphia has experienced basically since I was old enough to watch the news. Well, that kind of success is possible here. And we want to be a part of that, and we want to work with all of you. Today is not necessarily the day for every nut and every bolt, but we are happy to talk through every nut and every bolt in our office and outside of our office that presents an opportunity for us all to do better. There are several new initiatives that we will be launching in January 2026 to improve our, meaning the DAO's protection and support of victim services and survivors of domestic violence, in order to get at these best practices, in order to do better and do the best we can. And by the way, I do want to stop to thank you once again for the support that all of you provided to these victim services organizations I referenced, all nine of them. These organizations had not seen, as you know, any kind of financial increase in about years, and you 10 answered the call. 11 We were able through 12 your efforts to give $90,000 13 increases to nine organizations. 14 Is it all they need? I'll be 15 honest, no, but it's a great start. It makes a huge difference and it confirms the value of what they do with too little resources all the time. There are three particular initiatives I just want to reference, and of course we're happy to give more detail as needed. The first is, once again, building off of the experience that we all had in trying to deal with gun violence in Philadelphia. In collaboration with the Philadelphia Police Department and also with Women Against Abuse, we have already started a weekly domestic violence law enforcement review. Now, what does that mean? What that means is that sitting at the same table, we are going to look at the most serious categories of intimate partner domestic violence, specifically new cases. We will be looking at the cases where there was an arrest this last week or perhaps where there was a report and there's an ongoing investigation. But at any rate, we will be looking at those cases for the purpose of saying, is there more that could be done, is there something systemic here that needs to change, is there a lesson we can learn. We went through this process and continue to go through this process with a weekly shooting review. And we think that it has definitely guided our office into doing things differently that have been constructive. I say respectfully to my colleagues at the Philadelphia Police Department, and especially to Commissioner Bethel and also Deputy Commissioner Stanford who's here, we have made tremendous progress together. And I have seen the Philadelphia Police Department also be open-minded and innovative in how they approach gun violence. We are seeing the consequences. It's not just homicides. It is numbers of shootings going down, down, down, number of victims going down, down, down. And that's how it has been now for four consecutive years. We can do that here. So Part 1 is the weekly domestic violence law enforcement review that is already underway. And I do want to take a moment to personally thank Women Against Abuse, whose leader, Joanna Otero-Cruz may or may not be here today, but I can tell you they were very serious when we all met to talk about a variety of technical issues with the Philadelphia Police Department and with our array of subject matter experts on this.
That first meeting was last week and they will be going on regularly. Point of is we are going to advocate for increased funding for WOAR, Women Against Abuse, and other service providers. I won't dwell on that because I've already spoken about it. By the way, I do want to say a good morning to Laquisha Anthony, Senior Manager for Advocacy at WOAR, and also Gabriella Fontan, who is the new Executive Director there. And then Point 3, in our FY27 budget we will be requesting funding for a prolific or serious domestic violence offender unit. That's a lot of words. It kind of boils down to this specialization, one of the things that we have seen, both in PPD and in the Philadelphia DA's Office, is that where it becomes possible, if you can take the really serious stuff and you can assign senior prosecutors from beginning to end to take the case from the very beginning, to handle it at every phase, through the preliminary hearing, to have all of that direct contact with the families, to understand the dynamics in the family or the dynamics of a victim, when you can do that and the same attorney is able to guide that case all the way through trial and all the way through sentencing, the chances of better results increase. That is something that we saw when we combined our Homicide Unit with our Nonfatal shootings, and we did this during the pandemic, on the theory that you'd have better sharing of information, you would have better specialized handling, better mentorship, better apprentice learning. And the data supports that that works. We saw something similar, and I hope PPD won't mind my favorable comments on something they did. But the Philadelphia Police Department at a similar moment, a little bit after we did what we did, set up the Shooting Investigation Group, which had not existed recently. Like us, they realized the only difference between a homicide by gun and a shooting is aim, or its medical care, or it's how quickly the police car gets there to scoop and go. And so, they followed a similar pattern, setting up a unit of detectives who could share information, who could certainly support each other, train each other in different ways to deal specifically with shooting investigations and you see the results we have, in terms of positive developments with the clearance rate, a reduction in shootings, fewer shooting victims. PPD deserves a lot of credit for that, but I raise it here just to say specialization in some context can be crucial. And so, in our FY27 budget request for funding for a prolific Domestic Violence Offender Unit, it is our hope to be able to do more of that, to have more attorneys who can take it from beginning to end, and I'm speaking now the more serious domestic violence cases, and to engage in what we call vertical prosecution. Vertical prosecution, of course, is what happens with defense attorneys. They get the case at the beginning and they take it to the end. It is not what often happens with big city prosecutor's offices because it's expensive. It requires more people. You have to go to a lot of courtrooms. It's easier to put one lawyer in a courtroom and have them stay there all day than it is to have a bunch of lawyers running from room to room, right. Well, we can do better and we will be asking City Council to consider, and you have always carefully considered our request, to consider supporting that. I will say we did also request that in 2026, did not receive it. But I am excited to have the opportunity to try to persuade those who do have control over the purse strings to consider that as one of our initiatives. Fighting for justice and protecting the rights of victims of domestic violence is a top priority of this administration. We look forward to continuing to work with Philadelphia City Council, with Mayor Cherelle Parker and her team as well as our partners in law enforcement to continue to prioritize public safety in 2026. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
My team and I are available to answer any questions you may have as we work collaboratively to address the important issue of protecting women and protecting girls and addressing the scourge of domestic violence in our community. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony. I want to for the record recognize Member Isaiah Thomas who has joined us. And I want to take this opportunity to recognize the author of the resolution, President Kenyatta Johnson.
Thank you very much. And there's a couple questions and then I'll let my members ask questions as we go through this process. Thank you, Larry, for being here today. Could you just give us an overview of at least for 2025 the number of domestic violence/violence against women cases that have come before the District Attorney's Office. And then also give me an idea in terms of statistics and numbers, also how many have been withdrawn. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, the good news, Council President, is that I have a nine-page report here that talks about many of these issues. The bad news is it would actually take 10 hours to go through. But let me see if I can summarize a few points. And we are available, as I said before, to provide all the nuts and bolts and get into these specifics. So what I'm reviewing now on and of the report is a review of the time period between January of 2024 and December 5 of 2025, so this is actually not a one-year window. This is a 23-month window. Also, the same time period on the following page, Graph 1 is about cases that are disposed at the Municipal Court level. So again, that's where misdemeanor trials happen, but it's also where preliminary hearings happen. And as anyone familiar with domestic violence cases knows, there is often a high rate of dismissal or discharge of cases at the preliminary hearing level. The second one refers to --
Explain that to us who don't know why there possibly could be a high level of dismissals at the preliminary -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'm happy to do that. And I want you to know that I say that with no joy because that's really not how it should be. Obviously, this is the type of crime that is often underreported. We don't even hear about cases that are not reported. And then there are the ones that are reported where in some instances the victim does not wish to follow through. Then there are the ones where an arrest occurs and for a variety of reasons, the case does not go forward. Sometimes the reason is a failure on the part of government. Sometimes the reason is we're not getting it right with our relocation or with taking care of people who are suffering from trauma or there's just a general distrust that anything good will come from this process. Sometimes it is coercion and fear. It is the sense that this maniac has already done stuff to me. If I go to court, this is only going to get worse. And sadly, there are occasions across the country and in Philadelphia where that can be. Sometimes it's a very different dynamic. It is someone who reported an event but has on their own independently had second thoughts and they don't want to follow through. Obviously, there's a complexity to having an intimate relationship with someone you are prosecuting in court. And sometimes there are reasons that frankly are not our business, that are known perhaps to victim services, but victim services will often engage with people who, for their own reasons, reasons they may or not share with victim services, but they're certainly not going to share with us, do not wish to proceed. I mean, it could be frankly something as simple as a concern that the breadwinner is going to lose their job, that the children are going to lose their health care. That can happen. And of course, we are speaking of a field in which some of these cases are horrific. Some of these cases are at the other end of the spectrum. They involve a defendant who has had no criminal record whatsoever, has been in a stable relationship, is developing a drinking problem and does something unacceptable, but it's a slap. It's not strangulation, it's not a beating. We're not talking about blood and bruises and shooting. These cases cover that entire spectrum. That is the nature of how they are. So those are some of the reasons. Let me get back to your question though. You asked specifically about rate of dismissal of these cases. I can tell you we've looked at this. And I say this with no joy. We're doing better than the national average, but that ain't good enough. I mean, I'll be straight up. We should be doing the best we possibly can, not just saying we're doing a little bit better than other places. That doesn't do it. If we look at cases at the Common Pleas level -- now, these will tend to be the cases that are most serious, cases where there are felony charges, cases where the preliminary hearing has been conducted successfully. When I look at this 23-month period, and we're happy to share this graph with you, what I see at the number of guilty -- well, the number of dismissals for felony cases at the CP level and that 23-month period was 272. The number of guilty after trials was 96. The number of guilty pleas or no contest pleas, in other words, people pleading guilty was 561. And then there was a number of people who at trial were also acquitted. That's about 98. So if we look at just the ratio of guilty pleas, let's forget the trials, look at the guilty pleas as compared to dismissals, you're looking at 561 guilty pleas, 272 dismissals. If you add in the number of guilties at trial, that's 96, about another 100. So you're looking at about 550 -- excuse me, 575 guilties. About 272 dismissals, but with another 98 not guilties after a trial. We're winning these cases in the CP court at a rate that is more than 2 to 1, roughly.
But in full candor, and we should be full of candor, that's not the whole story. The story is that a lot of cases do not make it to the Court of Common Pleas. They're dismissed earlier. They're dismissed because witnesses do not show up repeatedly or because as we in some cases, we try to put on the case with nothing but body-worn camera from police or with pole cameras. We try to put it on with technology where we have reluctant witnesses, and those can be extremely potent, important weapons for us to have. But I will also be honest, the law wasn't written for body-worn cameras. The law wasn't written for pole cameras necessarily. The law was written and the rules of evidence were written at a different time. So there are occasions when we believe we have a good case to put forward, but the law is not ready to accept the technology that we have.
Just a follow-up question, and I see those stats. When a victim doesn't want to come to court, right, what's the role of the DA's Office in terms of reaching out? And we've dealt with this in the past when it comes to specifically gun violence, right, to make that victim feel supported, protected so they do come to court. And then also, it begs the question, particularly with this particular case I have to ask, when a person doesn't come and you have a certain level of evidence, how do you determine if you should move forward or not? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Understood. So you do raise once again a very important point, which is that these cases run the gamut. They run from multiple homicides to a much lesser type of a situation. This is a situation where there needs to be very individualized and careful consideration of the case. But in general, the obligation is to do everything you can to subpoena in the witness so that the witness has notification. A subpoena is effectively a court order. It is a legal order to come to court. It is to be in contact with them both through victim services and the prosecutor does this themselves.
So the victim services team works with the prosecutor to reach out to the victim to get them comfortable to follow through with the initial, I guess I'll say, complaint that the actual victim started this whole process off; is that correct? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I would say that's correct. Obviously, these cases are prioritized. You know, there's going to be more time and effort put in on where the defendant has a record, where there's serious violence, where there are other reasons for concern. That will get a higher priority. But it is always the case that our lawyers should be reaching out to victims, even on the less serious cases. And they should be doing so in advance. They should do so by telephone where they can or cannot do that by email. There are occasions when we get DA detectives, and we do need more of them by the way, but we get DA detectives to take a letter to the door, to bang on the door, so we tried to reach them in multiple ways at our best. That's what we do. And the office some time ago instituted a process of carefully recording all of the efforts that are made, so there's no question later about whether we called four times, left voicemails, didn't leave voicemails, sent emails, sent a detective with a letter. There's no question about that. And --
And if they -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'm sorry, sir. Go ahead.
And if they don't come, and obviously that's a key component to the case, how often do you refile, right, cases against individuals when you have additional evidence as you decide to move forward? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: A refile determination --
Who makes that determination? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Refiles are very common. The way that determination has been made historically is that the attorney who is handling the preliminary hearing will go to their supervisor. This is often the supervisor of Municipal Court. And the supervisor will look at the reasons, evaluate the case and decide whether it is worth doing a refile. And when things are running properly, hopefully, those are good decisions. Similar process when you have a case in the Court of Common Pleas and there's any hope of reviving later, that there will be supervisory review of the case to figure out what are the chances of success if we do this again, what are the underlying reasons why this case could not be put on, is it fixable or is it not. And then a determination is made.
Thank you, Mr. President. I'm going to recognize Member Lozada, Member Harrity and Member Gauthier. But I just want one point of information. It's not a question. Kick me, stop me if it is wrong. For purposes of everyone's common understanding, a complaint can originate at a household by a police officer, it can originate at CJC for protection against abuse that has a 24-hour office intake or it can be a protection order that is long-term, 9:00 to 5:00 during the weekday; is that correct? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I think that's a fair statement. Let me make sure I have my subject matter expert weigh in, in case I forgot something.
And good morning, Council, again. My name is Katrina Wadas. I'm the Supervisor of Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit. That is correct, so there are various avenues in which a complaint can come through, one of which would be a 911 call or call out to law enforcement, which they would respond to a home. Another avenue is if a victim or witness were to walk into a police district, so perhaps their efforts for a 911 call did not provide relief. They could always walk into their local district, and those are the ways in which PPD would get involved. However, you did raise a point as to protection from abuse orders which are actually not through the DA's office. Those are civil remedies. But, yes, the victim could in fact go obtain emergency protection from an abuse order and then follow through with additional hearings in family court in which they would obtain a temporary and then ultimately, hopefully a final.
So I want to quickly go through the continuum so I can turn over the mic. Correct me if I'm wrong, at that point of CJC they may issue a temporary restraining order, which has to be heard in a status hearing within three to seven days; is that correct?
As far as I'm aware, that is correct. Again, those are civil remedies. And so, those are not things that come through the District Attorney's Office for purposes of -- we handle the violations of the protection from abuse orders. But as far as issuing of them, that comes as a civil remedy.
So if there is no physical evidence of violence, it doesn't rise necessarily to the occasion where the DA and the defense attorneys are put into the mix. It is just held before a judge to determine whether and what the level of protection needs to be, correct?
Well, both could be true. It could be the fact that a victim or witness wants to pursue going to law enforcement making a report and criminal charges could in fact be referred to the DA's office while simultaneously they are also seeking a protection from abuse order. And that's not uncommon for us to also recommend a protection from abuse order to victim witnesses who come through. Because while we do implement typically as a condition of bail as a stay-away order in a criminal case, we also advise the additional level of protection from abuse order. I mean, that's something that we do so that law enforcement out on the street if there should be an incident or an occasion where there is an offender who wants to go back to that person's location, the PFAs are something that PPD can actually pull up from the streets, whereas a stay-away order they're often not seeing from the streets.
So at the point that the status hearing happens, the judge then determines if there's enough there, there to say we want to continue this protection order for up to three years; is that correct? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I have rudely interrupted my subject matter expert here just because I want to make one thing clear. The process that Chief Wadas is describing and the process that I believe you're asking about is the PFA process. That's the protection from abuse process in which an intimate partner is going to seek an order to keep somebody away from them for their safety. That begins as a civil --
Civil matter. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: -- remedy. However, there are stay-away orders that are issued -- when someone is arrested, there are stay-away orders that are issued by a bail commissioner at the time of setting bail on that case. And what Chief Wadas is referencing is a huge flaw in the system that has existed for a very long time, which is when a bail commissioner says you got to stay away, at that first hearing it's effectively unenforceable because it's not placed in any sort of a database where police are able to see it. So if they have someone who just got, heaven forbid, beaten up by the boyfriend or the husband who follows through, there's an arrest of the boyfriend or the husband. And then as soon as his bail is set, he's coming around. And she is saying, but there's a stay-away order. Police officer shows up, has no way to see that. And those "stay-away orders" are issued by bail commissioners, some of whom are not lawyers, and for the ones who are, none of them are elected. I say that because it's a problem. It's the kind of nutsy- boltsy problem that is big and it's something that I think collectively the city can find a way to address, and the courts working with us, PPD working with us, we can find a way to address so that there is protection from the moment of arrest as well. And now, I apologize for stealing the mic.
No, that's okay. That's informative. My last issue is at what point is there an intervention by law enforcement or the Sheriff's Office to remove firearms, red Flag, kind of laws to remove firearms from a house where there is a domestic abuse issue and/or protection order or PFA?
So if the PFA specifically does come with an attachment or an addendum specifying that a firearm should be relinquished, those PFAs are immediately being sent to the Sheriff's department, and there is a brand new committee within the Sheriff's department to specifically address domestic violence PFAs, and they're actually going out and seeking relinquishment of those firearms. So it can be facilitated by PPD, but they're most often times now being facilitated first by the Sheriff's department who are going out to the homes and actually trying to obtain the firearms. One of the things I'll say about that process is when they do go out to the home, they're showing the PFA orders, they're either obtaining the firearms or alternatively, what's happening is there may be an individual who says, I don't have a firearm despite what that court order says, in which case they're required by the Sheriff's department to sign a no-firearms verification in which they are verifying, they're swearing within the affidavit that they do not have a firearm. And that's our way of saying that if we find out later that that's incorrect, we then can follow up with additional charges for failing to relinquish a firearm in violation of that order.
Thank you and thank you for being with us. This is obviously a complicated issue. Are there any plans to reevaluate the DA's bail recommendation practices for defendants in domestic violence cases, especially those with histories of excessive control, repeated violations or threats to better protect victims during the critical stages of their cases? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you for the question, Councilmember. We evaluate our bail process all the time. Very important, and I know you're familiar with this and of course all the Councilmembers are, but very important to understand we do not set bail. Bail is set at the time of arrest by bail commissioners and then later by Municipal Court judges and judges of the Court of Common Pleas. In general, when we have someone with a seriously violent domestic violence act or we have someone with a significant history of domestic violence in a new case, we're going to seek very high bail. We're going to be seeking a bail that is $1 million, sometimes more in those cases. And the truth is, and I don't say this to blame anybody, but the truth is we don't always get it. This has obviously also been an issue with shooting cases. I won't go deep into the woods. But we don't always get it. And in one way, that's good. We should have independent determination of bail. But in another way, it's bad when you see a pervasive pattern of giving bails that are inadequate. And you see things like this, once again another nut or bolt that matters. It used to be that when bail commissioners were giving out bails, they would either say you can just pay 10% of the amount I said or they'd say you got to pay it all. Well, there was a rule passed by the Municipal Court in 2019 that says every single bail is 10%. That took away from bail commissioners who are looking at a little chart to suggest how much they should charge. That took down their ability to detain someone 90%. Okay. These are changes that can happen and they can happen collectively, and they can make a really significant difference. However, it is clear that our practice is to seek appropriately high bails when we are dealing with a situation where we think that there is significant endangerment. And while that policy has been good at driving up bails in the most serious cases and driving down bails for the mentally-ill person who blocked the sidewalk, while it has succeeded in pushing bails that direction, because Pennsylvania by law requires cash bail for all these offenses rather than a no cash bail system, there are occasions when we disagree profoundly with what we believe to be an inadequately low bail for a situation involving domestic violence.
You don't set bail, but do you make bail recommendations? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Correct.
Okay. And we have heard time and time again where some of these very dangerous individuals have been let go as a result of a bail not being set or not set appropriately. Are we looking at that? And are we learning from our past mistakes to ensure that these individuals who have a pattern of domestic violence, that we are doing everything we can to ensure the safety of the victim? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: We are looking at that. Obviously, the control over the bail commissioners is in the hands of the Municipal Court because they are not elected. They are selected by the leadership of the Municipal Court. That leadership has changed recently, and in my opinion, in a very positive direction. I believe that leadership of the Municipal Court, which includes Judge Joffie Pittman and also includes Judge Karen Simmons, both of whom I speak to and meet with regularly, I believe they want this to go the right direction, not just in terms of picking the right people to be bail commissioners which is very important, but also I believe there's an openness to modifying rules, to changing things. For example, the two issues I raised, one of them being there's no capacity for a judge or a bail commissioner to say you got to pay all the bail. Well, that's very fixable. That's just a local rule. The other one being the fact that these stay-away orders are ineffective, the ones that are issued right at the beginning when there's an arrest. I believe there's ways that we can work with the Municipal Court and I believe both of those judges really would like to do the right thing in this regard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a point of information, because I do remember this was a key component of the very public discussion around this particular case. And so, we know -- well, you're on record as saying you don't want to call a judge in the middle of the night because more than likely if you appeal a bail, they won't be supportive because that goes contrary to them getting a phone call in the middle of the night when you're trying to actually do your job. How do you address that moving forward, because in us doing our research around this particular issue, in this hearing? And on the topic in general, I was told that there are emergency judges that's on standby, separate from the initial judge, that they can call -- they're on call. I was told their responsibility is to be on call to answer that call if the initial judge don't pick up the phone. So just clarify that for the overall public. And then I just ask, did you make the call? Did you even attempt to make a call? I have to ask that question. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you for the question. I think it's an important one. So let me be clear. I just sang the praises of two judges and judicial leadership. There's a lot of great judges. My wife was a judge for 19 years. Judges are like the rest of us. They're wonderful and they're also not perfect. I mean, that's just how it is. So it really depends on who the judge is. But because we set bails, meaning the system sets bails hours a day, 7 days a 5 week, there is a track record for 6 which emergency judges, and those 7 are the ones we appeal to in the 8 middle of the night, there's a 9 track record for which emergency 10 judges are just going to keep 11 saying no. 12 There's a track record 13 for which ones are going to lower 14 the bail when we're calling to ask 15 for a higher bail. And, yes, that 16 happens. When we have a judge who 17 we think is going to listen to an 18 appeal and things will at least not 19 get worse, might get better, we're 20 going to make that call. And when 21 we're dealing with an emergency 22 judge who has a long record of 23 frankly not appreciating that phone 24 call and is going to make the bail even lower, then we would be completely negligent if we tried to appeal it at that moment.
Did we call on this -- did we make the call as it relates to this particular case? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: When you say this particular case, you're speaking of?
Mr. Keon -- well, the Kada Scott case. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: You're speaking of the prior case involving Keon King?
Yes. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, I'm joined by a subject matter expert, Amanda Hedrick, who is our Chief of Charging and who, among other things, handles the initial bails and supervises what bails we are requesting for the --
We work with you. I'm just asking, either I called, I didn't call, here's the reason why I didn't call or who I called -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: And I'm not trying to deflect at all --
And you're giving us the theory. And it's just yeah, I called or I didn't call. I didn't call and here's why I didn't call or, well, I called and this is what happened. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: And the only reason I'm referencing Amanda Hedrick who's sitting next to me is so I can answer your question to make sure I have my information right, because we're not speaking about the new case. We're speaking about the prior case and I just want to make sure we have that. Do you know the answer to that?
Sure. Good morning. My name is Amanda Hedrick. I am Chief of the Charging Unit at the District Attorney's Office. To my knowledge, the bail for Mr. King in the matter that predated the incident with Ms. Scott, his bail was set at $200,000. That is not a bail that we often see from Arraignment Court on non-shooting cases. The charges, the lead charge in that matter, I believe was a kidnapping charge. That is not the kind of bail that we would appeal given his prior history and the information that we had in that case. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: And just so I'm clear, it's relatively high. I mean, relatively high. It might not be what we were after. But even at 10%, it means that he or his family had to come up with $20,000 in that case. So that is the reason, I just want to be clear. That's relatively high. I can't --
The reason y'all called or didn't call? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: We didn't. I think what is being said is we did not call because --
You did not call because it was at $200,000? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Because relatively speaking, it was a pretty high bail.
So 200,000 is a high bail for a kidnapping? And I don't know. I'm not an expert in the criminal justice field. That's why I'm asking. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Look, the truth is --
If there's a strangulation on top of kidnapping, does it make it even more serious than a slap? And I'm just asking. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Look, these are cases where I would love to see the judge follow our recommendation, which was a lot higher than that. But what I'm saying is it was better than we usually get. And calling when you have better than you usually get, running the risk that it will get lowered is ordinarily not what we're going to do. Obviously, one of the huge problems with cash bail is you never know who's got the money. You never know whether there's $20,000 in some back pocket somewhere. As it happens, there was the ability on the part of this defendant and his family to pay that at that time. But the short answer is, no, we didn't answer -- we did not appeal because the bail was relatively high compared to what we often get.
I will relinquish my time back to Member Lozada.
Thank you. I appreciate that. At the beginning of your testimony, you mentioned some things that need to change. Those changes are obvious, right, I think based on what has occurred in our city as it relates to many of the domestic violence cases that we've heard of. Can you share with us what some of the formal mechanisms are that currently exist for real- time information sharing between the DAO, the PPD and the courts when new threats, violations of protection orders or escalation indicators are reported? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: We can, but I think, Councilmember, you've hit on a very important issue. I won't get real deep into it, because once again it could go on quite a bit. But we are dealing with a city where there are these Legacy computer systems that have a lot of information on them, but they don't talk to each other and it's a real concern because some of these systems are years old. 4 We, for example, would 5 love to be in a position to back up 6 our partners in PPD when there's an 7 outstanding arrest warrant 8 somewhere and a defendant is coming 9 to court. No, we can't arrest 10 them, but at least we could be in a 11 position to be supportive there. 12 And yet, we don't have easy access 13 to whether or not there is an 14 arrest warrant out there somewhere. 15 It's not in a public database for 16 good reason, because you don't want 17 someone you're trying to arrest to 18 know you're coming and it's just 19 not readily available. 20 The information sharing here is crucial. It is significantly behind the times. This is something that we actually tried to address a few years ago, without success. We ended up going to get grants in order to try to help us with a case management system that would bring all this information together. But it is really important that as we move forward with this, we take a close look at the Legacy computer systems to see if we can get them all to put the data, the information in one place where we can do as well as possible. And I also think it would be a tremendous plus for PPD to have these systems improved. COUNCILWOMAN LOZADA So I guess there are no real formal mechanisms, right? That's what you're saying. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'm not saying that. I'm sorry, maybe I misunderstood the question. The question is are there?
What formal processes are in place for you all to communicate with each other? Aside from we know that we have antiquated systems, we know that our departments don't talk to each other, what processes are in place for PPD and the DAO to have conversations about what is happening in our city? Are there meetings? Do you all meet on a regular basis? Do you all sit down to review cases that we know are challenging? Everybody, you know, we always talk about all of the things that we need to improve in the city, right, in order to be a better government or to be a safer city. We all know that. What are we doing currently to be -- what systems are in place currently to discuss those, aside from depending on the technology that we know needs to be better?
So part of what we're doing currently and what has been in place includes various collaborative efforts between various organizations, one of which would be the Domestic Violence Law Enforcement Committee. That is a committee that meets once a month currently. And that is hosted typically at the District Attorney's Office once a month, and it brings together collaboration between the District Attorney's Office with Women Against Abuse, Women's Law Project, the Sheriff's Department, Probation. There's representatives from all of the key organizations in which we do discuss monthly the trends that we're seeing, we do host various training opportunities where we talk about the issues that are most pertinent and we talk about how we can fix those issues. And that's why bringing together the minds of the various organizations, beyond just with the goal of law enforcement, but beyond just law enforcement organizations, by including those organizations. We're bringing together voices from all of the relevant players to be able to address those issues. And that's just one example of one monthly meeting that I do on behalf of the DA's office attend. There's also Act 33 reviews which happen on all child fatality and near fatality cases, where similarly representatives from the DA's office, Office of Domestic Violence Strategies -- or, excuse me, the ME's office, there's various key players on those kinds of calls as well. And so, in terms of meetings, there's numerous different meetings that bring together the right people, and it's really just a matter of what we can address at a given time based off of what we're seeing going on in the relevant month that we meet.
And at these meetings, they're more of an information or resource sharing or is it a session where you are talking about these very serious offenders who consistently break the rules, right, and who should be on everyone's radar?
So the different meetings have different agenda items. So for case conference, for example, is one meeting I attend in conjunction with the Philadelphia Children's Alliance. That is an actual individual case review. So we're looking at actual real cases that have either come in or potentially where we're looking at why hasn't a case come in for referral for charges. Act 33 is another example of a case where we're doing actual case reviews as opposed to just having theoretical and trend- related conversations. So we do have a combination of both. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, let me also add that you're entirely correct. Concern about looking at individual cases and looking at people who are committing more than one offense, that's the kind of work that is being done by the table we have convened with PPD and Women Against Abuse, where we're taking cases every week that were filed that week and we're looking at them to see what it is can be done, very similar to the shooting review in terms of having multiple people there who can help to wrap their arms around it from different perspectives to try to deal with it, but that is something that we're trying to address by having convened this table. And I have to tell you, Commissioner Bethel and my conversations with him, I hope you don't mind that I say this, but he was doing this same thing before we spoke. He was headed down the same direction. I think both PPD and DAO recognized the power and importance of looking at these cases, these cases over a period of years, every week or every couple weeks, as it gets more comfortable to try to make sure that we really understand not only the cases and systemically what we can do, but the offenders and which ones of them have to be addressed in different ways.
And my final question, you mentioned the creation of the Dangerous Offenders Unit and asking for an allocation. I've talked to some people. And I mean, I think it sounds like a great unit, right, but some folks say that this unit already exists. Does the unit already exist? Have we been using it to its fullest potential? If it exists, why do we stop using it and what are we trying to do different in that unit? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: So the short answer is, no, this unit does not exist. There certainly are very talented people in the office who, on an individual basis, handle the most serious cases that have existed, but not as a separate unit as a component of the Family Violence Sexual Assault Unit or as a subgroup within homicide, non-fatal shootings, people who specialize in these kinds of cases. But the point of trying to have a unit would be to expand the number of troubling cases that are handled beginning to end by very experienced and very specialized attorneys. That --
Can I have another point of information, Mr. Chair?
And it's just along the same line of questioning that Member Lozada asked with the new unit. So how do you identify what would be the most serious cases if in the prior case that most of us believe, and we can't say it definitively, but preceded the Kada Scott case, right, with the accused Keon King? If strangling and kidnapping is a $200,000 bill type situation, and the reason we do a gun violence you do a million 99.99, that's what we worked with you in the past, how do you go about identifying what's serious to be classified as a case around domestic violence, violence against a woman, and it goes to like a senior most-experienced attorney high priority, and that case is strangling and kidnapping? So what determines what's a red flag, hey, this will go in this category as we move forward? We're talking about preventative measures, right. And so, I'm approaching it from that way because we want to get the system right. And I said publicly before, and I'm not shy about it, that's why we have everyone here, so it's not just DA Krasner, we have everyone here, because I do believe that we failed, right. And as a public servant, I take ownership in that as well because all of us are here together to work on this issue and we want to do a better job. But if strangling and kidnapping is a $200,000 bail and then you have this new system that you're putting together, and it's along Councilmember Lozada's line of questioning, because you still have a new unit that I'm put together and I want y'all to fund it next year under budget, how are you and your team going to identify what's the priority of red flag? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you for that question. That's something that we are doing now and we have revisited recently. The criminological science around this has to do with what is called a lethality analysis. In other words, what factors do you see in a case that indicates in the future this defendant might kill somebody. It's a lethality --
But when did you have the video, and it spooked me out, when he jumped over a fence and peeking inside somebody's window? And I know I talked to my own lawyers. They said, well, that's just looking in a window. Okay. Something's wrong with that picture. But does that seem disturbing? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes, it does seem disturbing. I would point out that in many of these cases the information comes in over time. It doesn't necessarily come in at the moment when you're seeking a bail. There may be a phone call later that's threatening. There may be video that shows up later. There may be new factors. But, yes, I consider that video -- and I know the video, I've watched it repeatedly -- extremely troubling --
It spooked me out. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: It spooked me out too. It's extremely troubling, extremely disturbing. The way this is ordinarily done though is with what's called a lethality analysis. Traditionally, there have been about questions that have been 17 used I would say more than others 18 in this country. And depending on 19 the answers to the questions, a 20 level of risk is assessed. That has been updated more recently and reduced to the 11 that seemed to make a difference. What we are doing at this time is we are using those questions to analyze a new case. And if we see, you know, enough of them, if we see two of the serious ones or three of the less serious ones, then that case will go directly to someone in the office who is expert. One of those people is Chief Katrina Wadas, who's sitting right here, who will then review the case in light of the fact that we flagged it because of the lethality analysis and will decide whether this should get some kind of special assignment or it can be handled in a different way. That's what we are doing now. We have already spoken to the Commissioner's representatives in that last meeting because they follow a lethality analysis as well. And often -- I'm not saying in Philadelphia necessarily, I'll leave that to them -- but often police, who are the first responders, are well placed to ask those questions of a victim while the victim is there, present, responsive to ask those questions to try to assess what else is going on. Just one of those questions, for example, that is ordinarily used is, was a gun present. There's a different version of that: Was a threat made with a gun. There's a different question having to do with whether or not there was strangulation, things of that sort. So that definitely is an important part of the process, because we do as much as possible. We want to steer the heavy cases to the lawyers who are going to have all the background, all the ability and make no mistakes with handling those heavy cases.
And if I may 6 just say, just to the point that 7 was just raised about whether there 8 is a unit that already exists, I 9 believe what you would be referring 10 to is the Family Violence and 11 Sexual Assault Unit. But I do want 12 to say that typically, the cases 13 that are originating in municipal 14 court right now for preliminary 15 hearings, there is a vast number of 16 those cases that aren't 17 particularly serious. 18 The Keon King case is an 19 example of that where they're not 20 being specially assigned at the 21 moment, and that is because there 22 is such a volume of these cases. 23 When you talk about the fact that 24 family violence and sexual assault is specifically specially handling certain amount of cases, I can tell you right now about a week ago when I ran our numbers, we are a unit of ADAs. That might sound like a 6 lot or a little depending on your 7 opinions on this, but that's 8 actually a very low number of ADAs 9 to handle the volume of cases. 10 We are handling 11 typically cases only after they get 12 held for a preliminary hearing, 13 because we're the ones that are 14 taking those to the trial. And my 15 unit currently stands with 20 ADAs 16 handling over 1000 open cases right 17 now. And so, you can imagine the 18 caseload of those attorneys. So to 19 also be doing all of the 20 preliminary hearings, our unit would implode. It just wouldn't be possible. We have DV courtrooms specifically open seven days a week with very full lists of doing these cases Monday through Friday in two different courtrooms. We can't possibly staff at our current staffing without specializing additional people, which is what the repeat DV offender unit, or the highly validity DV offender unit would be specifically targeting.
Thank you, Chairman Jones. To the Scott family, I apologize because, as my colleague said, the city let you down. I have a daughter and a granddaughter now. I can't even imagine the pain you're going through right now. So first, I'd just like to say that you're in my prayers and my office is here for you. Mr. DA, Keon King had a history of violent behavior towards women. How did he remain free long enough to harm Kada? And what can your office change about its approach to repeat domestic violence offenders? Clearly, this young man was an abuser of chronic, and not considering his other records. How do we not -- passing any blame to anybody, just trying to figure this out as a body on how do we stop this from happening again because this is not acceptable, especially not with a guy like this that we had? I know my friends in the law enforcement community, nothing drives them crazier than having somebody in custody and then not being able to hold them. How do we fix the process first? That's my question. I had some questions about the bail, but you pretty much were answering that. So just want to know how do we deal with guys like this so that we don't have a repeat of this happening? And then also, I always love how you always manage to throw a little play in there for the budget money thing. But as you said, Women Against Abuse is very underfunded. And we have a limited resources here in the city. So for me, can you explain to me why we would put more money into your department in order to work this instead of putting that money to the people boots on the ground, Women Against Abuse who actually needs the money? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you for the question. I appreciate it and I appreciate the spirit in which it was intended, which is that we all care deeply about doing better. Women Against Abuse and the other eight organizations that we work with do need more money, which is part of the reason that we advocated for them to get even more than you all gave, and thank you again for what you gave. I agree with that. But I don't really see this as an either-or. Our Family Violent Sexual Assault Unit handles more cases than our Homicide Non-Fatal Shooting Unit. And when I come here and I say we'd like to have a little crew of additional lawyers who could just specialize in this, I'm not saying give me 100, I'm not saying give me 1000. 5 lawyers, 5 to 10 lawyers specializing in this could have a tremendous impact. It could make a huge difference without necessarily costing the city a ton of money. As we all know from our constituents, they're well aware that there's a difference between saying you care -- and I know you all care, I know it -- and showing the money. There is a difference. When we make decisions in our office about where are we going to put our attorneys, how far can we stretch this, how much can we do with what we have, when we make those decisions, we're making a statement about what matters to us too. So that's the spirit in which I asked for it. Women Against Abuse does vital work. As I already mentioned, we have included them at the table to look at new cases and to give all the recommendations because we value their work. We value what they and the other victim services units do. But they're not going to be the ones in the courtroom in terms of -- well, let me rephrase that. They will be in a courtroom but not standing up to speak to the judge to say, judge, I didn't ask you for 200,000 bail, I asked you for a million bail and we need the million bail. There's a difference when that comes from a talented second-year attorney, and when that comes from someone who has specialized in this work for 12 years has attended all the special 13 trainings, has a whole slew of 14 victories, has a level of 15 credibility with judges who know that they're not going to seek high bail unless it's appropriate. There's a difference there.
So I hope, because I know that we are all deeply concerned by this, this will not be an either-they-or-you situation. I hope -- even if the lease resources are limited, and I know they are, I hope that it will be a holistic approach in which we're looking to invest in the places and things where a real difference can be made. Let me be clear. A lot of what we've done here doesn't cost anything. Setting up this table with PPD, dedicating the personnel to that, I'm not coming looking for money for that. But when it comes to having people who could take an important case from beginning to end to make sure that there is an extra 10% of effort, that there is an extra 10% of knowledge and expertise, I respectfully assure all of you that that is money well- invested. That is money that comes back. We'll talk about it at a later time. And I'm happy to speak to you any time, Councilmember. But we do so in that spirit, because we, like you, want things to get better.
Okay. But didn't answer my question about the Keon King and how we stop a habitual offender, somebody who we had in custody for kidnapping and strangulation and this guy was able to be back released on the street. That's my concern. How do we change that -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: And I'm happy to --
I'm not trying to be confrontational -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I know you're not.
I'm just asking for your honest opinion on how do we make sure this doesn't happen again? I'll rephrase. Can you give us any recommendations of what could be done in order to not have this situation done again?
Point of information. Along Member Harrity's line of questioning, Mr. Krasner, you said at the press conference we could have did some things differently. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes.
That's what you said publicly -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I did.
-- for the record. So that follows up the exact line of questioning that he's talking about, what could we have done differently that we will work on in the future to the best of our ability to prevent such a thing happening? That would be in direct line of questioning of exactly what Member Harrity is saying. Thank you, Chairman Jones.
It's a difference between somebody who has a record of this and somebody who this is their first time going in front and you don't really know who the guy is, you know what I'm saying. This is a guy we know who he was already. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, first of all, can we do better? Yes, we can do better in many different ways. But just so we're clear on this, my recollection, and I'm not staring at it right now, is that at the time that Keon King had his bail set on the prior case, he did not have adult convictions. He had serious charges against him, but he did not have adult convictions. Bail commissioners look at whether or not you have a record, whether or not you have a record of convictions. They look at those factors. So in fairness to the bail commissioner, whose bail to my mind was low but still was higher than we usually see in these cases, in fairness to that person, the backward-looking knowledge we have with a video and all kinds of other evidence, our knowledge of his heinous, horrific activity afterwards, not everybody that was known at the point where the judge is doing that. What could we do better? Well, number one I've already been clear that even though we did not have the complainant in that prior case showing up for court, and we have that situation on more than one occasion, even though we did not have that, we do have the opportunity sometimes to be able to put on a case with body-worn camera with other video. Yes, there are technical requirements. I'm not going to bore you all with them. There are technical requirements and it might not have worked. But I believe that that is something that could have been tried and I believe it's something that we should always try in a situation like that. This however is how I get to the point of saying specialization matters. Having people who are more expert doing these things means you're not just getting an A-minus job or an A job. You're getting an A-plus job. You're going to have people who are going in there with a wealth of experience and a certain amount of gravitas that the judges hear and see because of the years when they have appeared before these judges. That's why I'm talking about can we get specialists, can we get specialists, because I think that that would work better. Now very quickly, because I understand time is essential, there are other things there that would have made a big difference, and we're happy to talk about the nuts and bolts moving forward. I referenced the Legacy computer systems that need to talk to each other. I've also referenced the fact that a stay- away order issued by a bail commissioner is not enforceable. That's something that we can change. The situation with bail, understand things like this, those bail commissioners are working off of a little matrix, a little guideline. Well, those numbers haven't changed since about the 1990s. There is this thing called inflation, folks. It has happened. I can tell you. I go to the grocery store, there is a thing called inflation. How is it that we have not changed them? Who has looked at them criminologically and said these make sense or these don't? That's something that needs to go on. And we could talk about how. Obviously, we talked about victims group funding, which would really help. And another thing we haven't talked about is that there are efforts under way, very important ones, to improve the bandwidth of our forensic capacity in this city. Well, they're going to make a big difference.
If we had, collectively we, had social media analysts who are not just going after shooting groups, and they've done great work doing that, but they are forensic social media analysts and they are going to go after social media in domestic violence cases to see what exactly is going on with this defendant, that could be one of many powerful tools that could enable us to do a better job at winning these cases, a better job of being able to get them past a preliminary hearing. It might be reassuring to certain victims who are reluctant to go to court, to feel like they know they can win if they go to court, because losing is not something they really want to contemplate when they have to walk out the same door the defendant has to walk out. So those are some of those things. But I want to assure you personally and professionally that we are in conversation and I am happy to talk to all experts in this field, and I'm happy to talk to members of City Council about how we can do better. That should be what we try to do every day.
Thank you. I just want to -- I thank you for explaining that because that's the part that I was disconnected from. So I get it, innocence until proven guilty. How do we walk that tight rope of we can see -- maybe not the bail commissioner, but as law enforcement we can see that a person has eight pending, say -- I'm making up numbers -- eight pending charges violent that are all not in trial yet, but you can see it that this guy has a pattern of -- what can we do to kind of bring that in? Because I know it's a tight rope. I know you got to walk that line without trying to violate somebody's rights that hasn't been found guilty of a crime yet. But again, it goes back to where there's cases pending that may also be violent, to show that history of why this person should be held maybe. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, that kind of research is part of the bail process. The Philadelphia Police Department is working with us better and better in terms of getting us all the intelligence information that should be used to argue for a high bail where high bail is appropriate. The existence of any open cases is something that we know, the defense knows and the bail commissioner knows. I cannot imagine a world where someone who has multiple open violent cases, I cannot imagine a world where we would recommend less than basically a million bucks on that case, and it might be or it might be 10. 4 That's what we do. 5 But as stated previously, we don't set those bails. I think some of these bail commissioners do a fabulous job. I think some of them, you know, are staring at a little matrix that somebody came up with 35 years ago and never adjusted for inflation. They're looking at a rule that shouldn't be that says every single defendant gets to pay 10% of bail. And, you know, making the donuts ain't good enough. What we need here is to make justice.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to you and Council President Johnson for convening us for this very important conversation. Thank you for your testimony, DA Krasner. I am in agreement with a number of the ideas that you put out. I hope that we can support them as a Council. But the part that hurts when I think about our success as a city on this issue, and when I think about Kada Scott and others who lost their lives or who were victims of domestic violence, is that this has long been an issue in the city and it's long been time for us to step up and do more and better. I can even remember back in 2020 during the height of the gun violence epidemic when we would come together and we would look at the main causes of shootings, domestic violence was up there. I don't remember what the full chart said from back at that time, but I do remember that some of the top categories for why we saw so many shootings, it was domestic violence and I think arguments was another category. But it's long been an issue as it relates to shootings and just public safety in general in the City of Philadelphia. And I believe in what you said earlier, that any issue that we bring the full resources of the city to focus on and do that in a sustained way, we will see a positive impact. I've never thought that we had to be helpless on gun violence. C. is doing, if we as a city come together to tackle our challenges, we can make a difference. We saw that with gun violence. I wanted to talk about prevention. Obviously, your main job is enforcement. Enforcement mostly happens after the fact, but I also know that you're a believer in prevention. We've worked hand- in-hand together to develop a better system in this city under the leadership of the Council President for prevention as it relates to gun violence. We've set up whole initiatives like GVI, Group Violence Intervention, to stop shootings before they occur. I believe that if we take any public health issue and any public safety issue and we study it, why it's happening and the people involved, we can take a similar prevention approach and see success. So I want to hear what you think, and I'm interested in hearing this from the other testifiers if there's time, as this discussion moves along, what do you think from a prevention perspective are the top three things that we should be doing as a city? And I'm not talking about bail once we have someone. I'm talking about before these cases come. What can we do as a city from a prevention perspective to better protect women and other would-be victims of domestic violence? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, thank you for that question. And I truly do want to applaud you and all of Council for having understood the preeminent importance of prevention, the significance of preventing the victimization in the first place. Obviously, we have to react and hold people accountable when these things occur. But there's no 2 question in my mind, no question at all, that this city's efforts toward prevention have saved a lot of lives. And if we can do the same thing with domestic violence and prevent a lot of victimizations, well, that is a really good thing. I'll get specific in a second, but I will say that there's plenty of criminology to suggest that when people's basic needs are met, you have less crime. This is true all over the world. It's true in the United States. When you are dealing with situations where the husband, the boyfriend, which is usually what it is, is dealing with addiction and you don't have adequate treatment for addiction, then you see more of this. When you are dealing with situations where there's deep deprivation, frustration, you have more of this.
When you're dealing with a moment in our cultural history when we actually have people in elected office saying they should take away the vote from women, when we have a president being investigated in the Epstein files, there is a culture out there of treating women and girls as if they are second class and unimportant, and that is repulsive and that is utterly unacceptable. So I think that there's a lot that can be done in terms of prevention to try to deal with some of the underlying issues that are going to drive this. And I think the real victory is when the crime never occurs. Now, having said that, I would like to introduce another one of my subject matter experts, someone you may have known a little bit. His name is G. Lamar Stewart, our Head of Community Engagement.
Good morning, everybody. As the DA mentioned, and it's good to see our colleagues here in the city as well as those who are with us in law enforcement, my name is G. Lamar Stewart. I'm the Chief of External Engagement Government Affairs at the DA's office. And prevention is one of the things, Councilmember, that falls under my leadership. And to really get to the issue of prevention, I think it's important to touch on three things in how we address that, particularly around the issue of violence and domestic violence, helping families heal. One of the things that we've seen is that when we're addressing trauma, either before or after an incident, and addressing it quickly, particularly with the impacted party in their family, there are times we've sat in the room with families and we've had therapists and trauma-informed professionals there helping families navigate and process that harm, that hurt, preventing retaliation, preventing that cousin or that son or that brother who's hurting from their loss from going out and committing another crime, part of that is prevention for us. One of the things that we're doing as an office right now, we have a team of advocates both in community engagement and CARES and victim services and relocations who are going to families houses. This project is called Hope for the Holidays, going to help families who right now are grieving because there's somebody missing from a chair, there's an empty chair for this holiday season. And what we see in those conversations are moms and dads, there have been young people who are part of that family, who have thanked us for coming just because of where their head space was at the particular time, so helping families heal for us is a part of the process. But in that who we have at the table doing the work, I know the DA has done much of the responding to the questions here, and we're addressing the issue of women who have been harmed in our city. If you have noticed, many of the people who have sat around the DA as supervisors of these units are people who are mothers, who are aunties, who are grandmothers, who understand the pain of loss and the pain of trauma, but who also have a vested interest because they are residents here in the city of Philadelphia. To the left of the DA is a young lady named ADA Christian Wynne who you know, Curtis Jones, who is a West Philadelphia resident, grew up in West Philadelphia. She's the Assistant Chief of our Homicide and Non-fatal Shootings Unit. You met Katrina Wadas, who again is vested in women being protected here in the City of Philadelphia. Our Victim Services team, head of -- I'm going to ask you all to stand, but Head of our Relocation Unit, Director Donna Wood, who has been working with the family of Kada Scott from the very beginning, Mariel Delacruz, who's the Director of our Victim Services Unit, who's there as well, as well as Tracy Washington who is one of our Assistant Directors of our Victim Services Unit. These are women who care deeply about protecting women who find themselves as victims of crime. And finally I'll say this, the DA mentioned our grant program, the DAO's Violence Prevention Grant Initiative. We have been able to give out $7.7 million over the last few years to community-based organizations who are boots on the ground through a micro grant program, through our Forfeiture Fund, providing grants to organizations who are helping to prevent, who are getting to young people before they pick up a gun, before they cause harm, before they do something that can create harm within our community. And so, prevention is our work. We deeply believe in it. Thank you for raising that question and we're here to answer any more questions you may have.
I'll close with this, Mr. Chair. I am so proud of what we've been able to do as a city on the issue of gun violence, particularly around prevention. I was a part of this Council when we stood up and we said we weren't going to pass Mayor Kenney's budget unless the City invested millions more in on-the- ground gun violence prevention programs. And we won that fight, and I firmly believe that's a part of why we're seeing such low numbers today. Data is powerful. I remember Councilmember Jones doing the 100 Shooting Review, where he looked at all of the factors that go into shootings in this city, and that's been a part of what's informed our prevention programs. We can do the same thing with domestic violence. We know who the victims are. We know who the perpetrators are. We know what the circumstances are. There's no 5 reason why we cannot use that to drill down further on what would have happened from a prevention standpoint. And the same way that we took a stand on gun violence and said that this is not going to be what our city is, we can do the same thing with domestic violence. And I encourage us to do that if we -- I know we care about women and girls. But investing in prevention that's based on the underlying factors of these cases I think would go a long way. And I hope to be a part of us doing that as a city. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you so much, Member. I remember you sitting ten toes down to say this is a crisis, this is a health crisis and brought that level of attention to gun violence. And I agree with you, agree with the President and all members here, that if we focus on any one thing, there's not much we cannot do. And irrespective of what was said, if you care about something, you pay for it too. Budgets do matter. So it's duly noted. Member Young, Chair recognizes.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And good afternoon, DA Krasner. Good afternoon. I guess throughout your testimony this morning it seems like you've been alluding to -- I mean, this is just my interpretation of it, an issue for our cash bail system that we have here, you said stay-away orders aren't enforceable. Can you tell us a little bit about why they aren't enforceable? And if you believe that, if there was some type of monitoring in these types of intimate violence situations, would that prevent some of the things that have been happening in our city? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you for the question, Councilmember, and good afternoon. I guess, good noon, at any rate. So the really short version, and our Chief of Charging, who also supervises initial bail, can give you the details on it, but the real short version of it is because you have a bail commissioner system where they tell defendants there's a stay-away order, but there is nowhere for that order to go in terms of a database for the police to see. And also, because they are not elected judges, they are appointed bail commissioners with very limited powers, that's where the problems exist. I will give it now to Chief Hedrick to give you a little more detail on that.
Hi. Good afternoon. As DA Krasner said, when a stay-away order is issued in preliminary arraignment court, it is simply a verbal order to a defendant that says you must stay away from this person. There is no 16 docket that reflects from whom that person is to stay away, from where that person is to stay away. And there is no mechanism by which a magistrate in preliminary arraignment court can hold a contempt hearing if someone violates that order, unlike a protection from abuse order which is entered into NCIC, right. If police officers stop a person, if someone says this person is supposed to stay away from me, I have a protection from abuse order, this is a civil order that is issued by a judge, police can see that. They can look at that order and they can see that a person is in violation of that order. They can simply see that the order exists. That does not exist for a stay-away order that is issued in preliminary arraignment court. We need some mechanism by which these orders can actually be enforced. There needs to be a way in which these orders are recorded, that they are presented to a defendant in a meaningful way, from whom do I have to stay away, from where do I have to stay away. And we need a way in which victims can communicate to the police, to the district attorney's office when these orders have been violated, and then a way in which to hold people responsible, either through a contempt mechanism or something like that where we can actually enforce those orders and give meaning to them, give teeth to them.
So what agency or entity or department can give you that authority to do that?
Frankly, I think that there's different ways we could go about it. Some of this is legislative, right. This is the way that the state has created the courts. It's the way that the system has been created. That isn't something that we can just change instantaneously in Philadelphia. Some of the same things that DA Krasner has said about the bail system, right. I mean, at the end of the day we exist in a cash bail system because that is statutory, right. That is what's been legislated. So I don't want to suggest to you that this is a simple problem that we can change overnight. I think that it would take, and I will defer to DA Krasner, but I think that there is going to have to be collaboration between the DA's office, between the courts, between the Sheriff's office, between the Police Department in order to create a way in which we can record these orders and have a system in which they are enforceable and can keep people safe.
So if I'm involved in a domestic abuse situation and I don't file a civil order, then the same person who knows my routes, my habits and all that stuff, they still are able to come in contact with me, legally essentially, if they are granted cash bail and are essentially out free in the world?
I don't want to suggest to you that that is the case throughout the pendency of a criminal matter. The problem that I am speaking to specifically has to do with the stay-away orders that are issued in preliminary arraignment court. Once a case has an initial hearing, a municipal court judge can issue a stay-away order and thereafter, if that stay- away order is violated, we can ask a judge to hold a contempt hearing. However, the same thing applies with regard to those orders. Unlike a protection from abuse order, that is not going to be in the police system. So that is not like something that somebody could be arrested for. That would be something where they would report that to victim services, to the police, to the DA's office and we would have to bring the matter in front of a municipal court judge. So I don't want to suggest to you that there's simply no way that those orders are enforced. I'm specifically talking about the preliminary arraignment orders.
But I mean, I think that's important, because in a preliminary stage when you are still conducting your investigation and gathering data and information on I guess the suspect I'll call them, right, so what is it that I guess we can do as a body, as a City Council, to help bring or shed some more light on this particular issue? Because again as I mentioned, if I'm a victim of someone who has kidnapped me and strangled me in their preliminary stages, right, like that person can then once they bail out come knock on my door and say fix me some breakfast, which is what my dad did to my mom back in the day, right, so that's essentially what happened, right? How do you protect those people? How do we protect that during those stages before they get to court, right? After the preliminary stage, what protections are in place for the victims? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I just want to make sure that we're clear. We're lawyers, so sometimes we speak in legalese. When we talk about preliminary arraignment, as you well know, because you are an attorney, that means when you first get arrested. So bail commissioners don't set you bail through the whole process. They just set you bail at the very beginning. The first time you go to court, you're going to go to municipal court. Then there will be a judge who has a docket, who has a record, who has the ability to issue an order that will be in a database, and there is the ability of police to show up, find out what is going on and act upon it. However, let's remember those first several days before you go to your first court hearing are often crucial. That's a very dangerous period of time. If you have an enraged defendant who has been arrested as a result of a complainant saying what was done to her, that's an extremely important point. I think there are several ways that we can deal with that. I don't actually think it's that hard. I don't think it ever was. But the most important approach, I believe, would be to collaboratively, with Philadelphia Police in the mix, with Women Against Abuse in the mix, with our office in the mix, and with the judiciary, the Municipal Court judiciary in particular in the mix, it's to talk about how we change that system so that there are enforceable orders that can be seen by police from the very beginning.
So I just want to put on record that I am a supporter of at least changing our cash bail system, understanding that if we are able to monitor people, then they can prevent them from committing other crimes while they are awaiting trial. I'll leave it there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Member Young. Truth be told, cash doesn't make you safe. Either a person is a danger to themselves or others or not, and we have to figure out a way that in Washington, D.C., which we went down and took a look at, they said everything has to have a consequence. So if we release you, then you have to take anger management. You have to stay away. You have to do these things so that when we come back for the status hearing, if you've complied with them, that means one thing. If you have not complied with them, then that means quite another level of threat that you present. And we have to modify our thinking to either a person's a danger to themselves and others or they're not. And that's a difficult equation. I get it. It's not easy to quantify, but we better start evolving to that. Because right now, quite frankly, my granddaughter ain't safe. Member Landau is here, I'm recognizing, and we're going to recognize Member Bass at this point. Member Bass.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to just pick up where you just left off. We have to modify our thinking around this. Because, Mr. District Attorney, I heard you say that if you had just five more folks that you think that that would have made a difference. It would have made a difference if the ideology of violence against women was, in my opinion, changed, not just in the District Attorney's Office and the court system. It's not taken seriously. There is no way that anyone who strangled and kidnapped a woman, anyone should have just been out. And then not only was he out, but we didn't appeal when we had the opportunity to get him back. We have to think about this whole thing very, very differently than it has been thought of. Because right now as a citizen of the city of Philadelphia, if I was looking at this, I would say, I don't feel safe. It doesn't sound as if there are tools in place to protect me. That could be me. That could be any one of us. And I'm not hearing anything different. My colleague Councilman Harrity was asking, you know, what would you do differently. Because we all heard it when you said that some mistakes were made or during the case that there were some mistakes made. But I really don't have a clear understanding as to what you would do differently based on the tools in your toolbox, not what the state, not what the Commonwealth is doing, not what the court system is doing, not what we're doing here in City Council. But based on the tools in your toolbox, what will be done differently? And I apologize in advance, but I have to leave. I really wanted to get my questions out before I left, but I have to leave for other Council business. But I don't think that people are hearing what will be done differently from your shop, not from everybody else's shop. Because it's easy to say, you know, listen, if you had an unlimited budget, if you had this many staff, if you had this, that, the other thing, you could operate differently. Based on what you have today, how do you make the citizens of Philadelphia feel safe? Because the idea that this guy strangled, kidnapped and God knows what else that we don't know about that he didn't get caught for, how do we address that? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: And as always, I appreciate your questions, Councilmember. So obviously, everything has to be collaborative. But just focusing on our office, we have convened a table, no extra money, but we have convened a table of people, most of them from our office, but others, including Women Against Abuse, including PPD and other subject matter experts, including criminologists and data people, even data people as I understand it from PPD moving forward, to try to look at what we have with the resources we have and to see what it is that we can all do better. The way to do that is by looking at cases as they exist right now, perfect, imperfect or whatever they are, and figure out who, including my office, can do better with anything about the case, whether it's better forensics or it's charging in a different way or it's seeking a bail adjustment where we have information to indicate that we can and it's going to do something other than go the wrong direction. That is one of the things that we are doing. Within our office, we have advocated strongly for more funding for outside organizations, not because it's all about the money, but because they do really important work that we consider crucial and we don't want to see that wither away. I can tell you that on our list of things that I intend to be engaging in, in the next year, and we haven't done it yet, once again I'm just going to be transparent with you, but there is a process that is followed when there are problems in the airline industry.
There is a process that is followed in hospitals when there are outcomes that are troubling, when there has been a mistake or maybe there was a mistake, where you bring together people with a lot of knowledge to look at the case and say, what can we do better here, how could we all have done this better. That is something that we will be instituting with our current resources in the office at my direction, not just for domestic violence cases, but for any cases where we feel like the outcome isn't what it should have been for whatever reason. And I do believe that that will bring a lot of expertise to the table and a lot of introspection. I think that there is more that we can do with training. We face a unique challenge in these times. And in many ways, it's very positive that we have so much technology to try to prove cases. We have body-worn camera. Thank goodness. We have pole cameras. We have a lot of other resources there. But as I referenced a little bit earlier, we have to be able to use them in court. And there are occasions when you're dealing with law that has been written for a time before the technology and judges are reluctant to let you use body-worn camera in certain circumstances, we have to work on that. And that's something we can do internally, either by trying to change the law, through our appellate attorneys trying to change it by advocating with legislative or legal bodies to try to do that or just by trying to put together the memos that can be persuasive with a judge. So even if you have, as we had here in a prior case involving Keon King, a situation where witnesses are not showing up, and more than once not showing up, you can take all the resources that are available and you can try to put on the case with the resources that you have successfully. I'm sure that there is more that we can do. And I do want you to understand, and all of Council to understand, we consider this a conversation. There may be some things we have no idea about that PPD is going to illuminate us, a way that we could do a lot better with something that we don't even know has gone sideways. But we intend to use the resources we have. And if there is an opportunity for additional resources, we would use them as well.
I do but, you know. Okay. I'm going to let it ride. I'm not going to get the, you know, sort of like the closure that I think that I'm looking for, I hear what you're saying, but we're speaking specifically to this case. I don't see the relevance of body-worn cameras in this particular instance. And I have had very spirited conversations in the past about when someone is charged with a crime and when someone is not, and I feel very strongly that some reforms from you as the District Attorney, as the head of the office, would serve us well here in the City of Philadelphia, and I'm just going to leave it at that. Because again, we've had numerous conversations about this particular topic and other topics related to when someone is charged and whatnot. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Please I hope you understand I think some reforms in our office would do us well. In fact, I'm --
Well, you're in charge and you're the guy to make them happen so I'm glad to hear that. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: -- and I appreciate our spirited conversation. That is how I feel. We're about eight years in on reforms, but I know there's a lot more to do. And I truly appreciate that. I mean this. I truly appreciate those spirited conversations. I think they've been helpful. About the body-worn camera, the point there is when witnesses do not show up, sometimes there is a record of what they said at the time. And even though there are reasons why you can't always get that into evidence, sometimes you can. So body-worn cameras are a real asset and real resource in a case, you know, even a case like this where you had more than one witness not showing up for the hearings.
It's important that we look in the mirror and are able to look at ourselves and say I can be better, I can do better, we can do better. And this hearing is not intended to point the finger at anyone. It's to point the finger towards solutions, and that's the spirit in which it's intended. Chair recognizes Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Not to beat a dead horse, but the issue, as I said in my opening remarks, culture change. And when I hear $200,000 bail was sufficient for someone who strangled and kidnapped someone, tells me that we're not viewing these crimes, particularly against women and girls, in the same light as we're viewing some other crimes. This is just a point to make, just like my colleague Cindy Bass was saying, that we need to actually take these things seriously. We need to actually prosecute these people. If the judge is not setting the bail appropriately or the bail bondsman, we need to challenge that. There was no challenge of that. And the reason we're using a specific case is because that's how you make structural change. Use real examples to say this is what didn't work here. This is what we're going to change. I have a quick question about the man who was arrested for violating the 11-year-old, the two 11-year-olds he kidnapped and then violated one of them. He previously served time. So if you take that example of someone who had done the same crime before, served time, was let go and did it again, when you look at that, what would your office recommend we do with a perpetrator like that? What can we do now looking back? That's why I want to use specific cases, not generalities. What would we have done to avoid that, if we could at all? Maybe we couldn't. We have a justice system the way it is because we devalue women and girls. I just want to make that point abundantly clear, that this country's justice system does not take our crimes against us seriously. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you very much for your comments, Councilmember. So the case that I referenced and that you are referring to is the case against Horace Battle. Mr. Battle in 2013 was convicted of sexual assault of a similarly-aged young girl and he was sentenced by a judge to three and a half to seven years for that crime. He did, as I understand it all, seven of those years in jail. He came out after that. And I think everybody knows when I started in office, it was well after 2013, but he came out having maxed out his sentence, in other words, completed the maximum possible sentence or close to it, and then he commits these crimes later. These crimes are heinous. What should we do with him? Well, I think we should do with him what we did with him, which is prosecute him and get a very, very lengthy sentence because he is a menace to society. And he, as far as I'm concerned, is a danger for as long as he's around. The sentence that he received, the sentence that he received, I would expect to have him in jail for close to 34 years. He's in his late 40s. It is extremely unlikely that he will be exiting jail at all. So I think that that case, you know, nothing's perfect, but I think that case, the second case, was handled well by our office. Obviously, we can go back and we can say they should have done something else, the prior administration with the prior case. We can say that with our current knowledge. But we also have to be fair. We have to look at it in terms of what the judge knew at that time when the judge set the sentence, what the prosecutors knew at that time. I mean, let me be clear though, I consider the violation of an 11-year-old to be absolutely heinous, and the notion that someone would do it more than once should result in what is happening here, which is an extremely lengthy and appropriately incapacitating sentence.
Thank you for that because that sentence should have happened -- I know you weren't there, but should have happened in 2013 because these two girls would not have had to go through what they went through. But I just want -- this was just to make the point that the culture shift that needs to happen so that $200,000 bail is found to be sufficient for someone strangled and kidnapped we should never hear again. I'm just putting it out there. That is not -- for me to hear that and say, oh, we didn't challenge that because it seemed appropriate. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, that's not quite what I said, Councilmember. I said we didn't challenge it because we didn't want it to go the other direction. We didn't want to appeal it and have it turn into a $50,000 bail or a $10,000 bail, and that does happen with regularity. I agree with you it's not enough bail. We sought $1 million. That's what we sought. But obviously, we don't control the bail. That's a determination made by judges. And even when we really don't like what they do, we still have to try to keep the bail as high as possible for someone like this. Am I telling you our judgment was perfect? No. I mean, who knows. Maybe we would have seen something different than we see. Maybe we would have had an appeal and it would have gone up, but those decisions are made in light of long experience with some of the judges who make their decisions.
Thank you so much, Chairman, and thank you to the whole committee for having me here. Rue Landau. Don't serve on this committee, but certainly wanted to be here for this incredibly important subject. It's very simple. Actually, when you look at it from the outside, we've got an entire system that is not working together to the best benefit of victims, of people who have been harmed by domestic violence, sexual violence, in the case of what was just being discussed. And at the end of the day when there's a will, there's a way. And to hear you genuinely say -- I fully believe you, that we need to get the courts and the DAs and the police together and we need to figure this all out. I look around this room and I see people like Carol Tracy here, who's been working on this since the beginning of time, since the beginning of her career. There's others who've been working on this for decades. Not the beginning of time, Carol, sorry, since the beginning of her career. I really don't understand how we could have literally what is an epidemic of domestic violence here in Philadelphia, around the country. We know what this is about. This is about misogyny. This is about people not respecting and holding up and really treating women as equals and the flip side of actually having hatred of women, and there is an epidemic in society of this. And the fact that we're still talking about we all need to get together to figure out systems to make this effective and work better is heartbreaking. It's 2026. This isn't going away. We've seen this in our careers. We've been doing this for a long time as well. Domestic violence and the horrifying end results of it have been around for so long. And if we don't raise it up from a city level to the absolute emergency that it is, we will never, ever be able to focus on it properly. I'm sorry I didn't get to hear all of the technology glitches in this, but I will certainly listen to -- I know I have a staff member watching this and I heard part of it. I'm the Head of the Tech Committee. I will absolutely work on the issue of body-worn camera footage being utilized in the courts and any other technology issues that we need to make sure that when you have someone who's super dangerous, that the PPD and the DA's office can see that immediately and anybody else. It's 2026. We're going to get this forensics lab. We need to have the technology available for this. You guys have always told me for my whole career on all sides, you know who the bad guys are. You kind of know the real bad guys. Let's go get them. We can do this. Let's make this happen. Let's make the streets safer. Let's make it safer for everyone and we're all in on it. And again, from tech you've got my pledge. I will be here for you, but I don't want to have another hearing next year, 10 years from now, years from now, 20 saying, oh, yeah, we have to all get together and get on the same page to make it the emergency that we all know it is. And thank you for your part. I know you're doing it at all aspects. From inside of the administration and from the police department, I know you're working on it. But let's call it the emergency and just make it happen. You guys are all very smart people and I know we can come up with the solutions. Thank you. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I will briefly say agreed.
I appreciate it. I have to run over. We have some visitors from Germany and the U.S. talking about tech real quick across the way, so I'm going to jump over there.
I want to thank you for your initiation of the Tech Committee. Because one of the issues raised by DA Krasner was integration of systems so that by the time something happens and the coordination comes our way back, the person's gone and we didn't know that they did this, that and the other, because the silos exist. That is something I'm glad you jumped head first into. Chair recognizes President Johnson.
Just last question, Larry Krasner, and thank you for your patience throughout this process. I know it's been a long morning. We still have other panels to go through after the break. But just give me an idea, the procedural history, of the Keon -- what's his last name -- King case during the kidnapping case, and what was done to try to bring the victim to court? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'm happy to do that. As it happens, we have the prosecutor for the murder of Kada Scott, who is prosecuting Keon King, Ashley Toczylowski, one of our senior attorneys in our Homicide Non-fatal Shooting Unit. She also has some familiarity with the docket in the prior case. That prior case has been reinitiated. You may be aware of that as well. So with your permission, I will let her address it for you.
T-o-c-z-y-l-o-w-s-k-i, common spelling. So as DA Krasner said, I'm the prosecutor that's prosecuting the active case. I got involved initially with a kidnapping. Now, it's a homicide. I was not involved in the previous cases. However, in my role as looking into his current case, I also looked into his previous cases. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have about that to the best of my knowledge, with your understanding that it was not me at the time, but I have looked into it. I believe what your question is, is that kind of just the chronology of what happened in that previous case. So what I can tell you from the dockets that I looked at is that the initial case, the arrest happens, the initial case comes up, both our victim witness team and the prosecutor on the case made phone calls to both the witness and the eyewitness. The witness there was not the -- I'm sorry, both the victim and the eyewitness. There was maybe some initial contact with the victim however, but it was ultimately unsuccessful in terms of who I'll call the surviving victim on that case. There was some direct contact with the eyewitness. However, it quickly became clear that she was reluctant to come in, but she did kind of offer to help perhaps get the victim to come in a little bit. Ultimately, all of those contacts were what I'll call negative, in the sense that then the first listing of the case, neither the eyewitness nor the witness came to court. After that, the same thing applied. Attempts were made by both the Victim Services Department as well as the assigned -- not the assigned because there was no assigned prosecutor, but the prosecutor in the room assigned to that day. That prosecutor also made efforts via phone call. Again, those all resulted in both the victim and the eyewitness failing to appear at court. After the first listing, over objection from the Commonwealth, the defense attorney asked to mark the case what's called must be tried. And there's been a lot of talk about that. It's a bit of a court lingo --
I was going to say it reminds me of my life. But, yeah, I know it must be trial.
Yeah, it's a bit of a court-ism, right, definitely a Philly-ism. But it's basically kind of a marking on the docket to the next judge to say, hey, this case needs to be tried at the next listing. I will say I found it to be unusual that that happened after the first listing, not unheard of, but unusual, given that it was a preliminary hearing. Typically, we do get more than one try to get the must be tried marking, but it happened. And it's my understanding that it happened because perhaps there were certain representations made by the defense attorneys basically saying, this is a domestic, she's never coming to court, which unfortunately for a lot of us on our side is something we hear all the time. Sometimes judges take that. Sometimes they don't. In this case --
The first listing, it was Judge Hope. Judge Hope is the judge who marked it must be tried. Again, this is not completely unheard of. Perhaps I'll say it's unusual, but not unheard of. It happens. It did happen in this case. So that essentially is a marker then to the next judge to say, hey, this case must be tried. I made that ruling, meaning the judge, this case must be tried. So then when we get to the second listing, the DAs, on any case and in this case in particular, are dealing with, well, the judge marked it must be tried, I either have to be ready. In this case, they were not. So then they are --
Was the video, right, we've all seen this video. Did that video come up any time during this or did we get the video after the withdrawal and everything was moved on?
So the video certainly was part of the discovery. It's part of the discovery. Meaning, the evidence packet that we have.
So I think that's a really difficult question and one that we've kind of been grappling with this entire hearing, the parts that I've heard at least. Because it -- and I've said this before. It's one thing for me to sit here and say that, yes, maybe I feel like I could have gone forward on the video, having years experience and having done 5 those types of cases before, but 6 perhaps that's not an easy thing to 7 do. 8 And so, while I think 9 sure -- and I think that's 10 ultimately what the DA is saying, 11 that maybe that's something we can 12 do, is training on maybe trying at least. It may not have worked, but perhaps we could try to use body- worn cam or that surveillance video that you're talking about to try to get the case held for court. Again, it may not have worked. Depending on the judge, the video may or may not have even been admitted, but it is something that we can try or that we could have tried and that we can try in the future.
Thank you, Mr. President. Seeing no other questions, we're going to take a brief -- thank you for your testimony and we'll take a 15-minute break for the stenographer's sake and then we will have our second panel to testify. Thank you all. 13 minutes. 14 (Brief recess.) 15
All right, everyone. We are going to get started and thank you for your patience. Ms. Stack, can you read the next panel to testify.
Commissioner Kevin Bethel, Philadelphia Police Department; Sheriff Rochelle Bilal; Adam Geer, Chief Public Safety Director of the Office of Public Safety; Nyisha Chapman, President of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women; Adara Combs, Victim Advocate from the Office of the Victim Advocate; and Azucena Ugarte, Director from the Office of Domestic Violence. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Thank you. Thank you all for your patience and listening to this worthwhile testimony so that we can figure out some of the things that we as a government can do better. So we'll start with Commissioner Bethel. You know you're not new to that table. State your name and please begin your testimony. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: So good afternoon.
Good afternoon. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I started with morning. Had to change it up there, my friend. So good afternoon, Council President Johnson, Councilman Jones, members of the Committee and distinguished guests. My name is Kevin Bethel. I serve as Police Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department. First, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today in response to Resolution 15 250927, which calls for a critical examination of how our city protects victims of abuse and domestic violence within the justice system. As you know, domestic violence is one of the most complex and dangerous public safety issues we face each year. PPD responds to over 100,000 domestic violence-related calls. These are not just numbers. They represent lives impacted by trauma and fear. While we've made progress, we know more must be done. Domestic assaults account for nearly 40% of all of our assaults in Philadelphia. As of November 23rd, we recorded 33 domestic homicides this year, involving homicides. 9, a trauma-informed 13 policy, that addresses all forms of 14 abuse, physical, sexual, 15 psychological, financial and 16 technology. Officers complete a 17 7548D domestic violence report, 18 which was developed by our 19 department for every incident that 20 says the need for protection of 21 abuse order. All cases are 22 referred to our victim assistance officers who follow up within 72 hours, provide safety planning and coordinate with courts and services provided. I do want to make a note. I made a note in my testimony. We talked about technology and body-worn cameras. com, which is accessible to the Defendant Association and the DA's office. So that technology, I believe, is set and in play now. To strengthen the city's response to victims of violent crime and improve coordination across the services, the Philadelphia Police Department is in the process of centralizing our victim assistance officers under a newly-established Office of Community Advocacy and Engagement. That is led by Director Ayanna Green Davis who is back there, stand up, who came on our team. The mission is ensure that every victim and survivor receives equitable access to support, information and justice, while fostering trust between the community and law enforcement. The unit consists of three key roles: a community initiative specialist, who lead engagement and prevention programs; victim advocates who provide emotional and practical support for victims; and our victim advocate officers, sworn personnel who ensure timely compassion response, coordinating with investigators. Together these components work to strengthen public trust, improve our case outcomes and promote healing across impacted communities. And we have started this work last year when I returned back to the department, really leaning into our victim advocacy work. And so, it is bearing fruit. And that also is bearing fruit from the investments the City Council and the Mayor did in giving me the positions. So Savanna has, I think, positions now, where nine 7 police positions personnel come 8 from the community who are 9 supporting us in this work. 10 In June 2025, the Office 11 of Community Advocates brought in 12 9 -- I said 10, so it's 9 -- victim 13 advocates assigned to investigative 14 units such as homicides, shooting 15 investigation, crash investigation 16 and special victims unit. Victim 17 advocates deliver trauma-informed, 18 culturally-responsive support by 19 guiding victims through crisis 20 interventions, safety planning and essential services, while helping them understand their rights and overcome barriers to recovery. I pause there, Councilman President, because we know we've talked about that. The work that that group is doing with our homicide and our shooting victims and our crash investigations, building that bridge between the communication as you know was always a challenge, between conversations between the investigators and the family.
They're filling that void and doing an exceptionally great job in accomplishing that. In October 2025, the Office of Victim Community Advocacy and Engagement expanded by hiring 12 community initiative specialists to support the work of the Office of Community Advocacy Engagement. These liaisons strengthen connections between the Philadelphia Police Department and the community most affected by violence, ensuring that victim voices are heard and their needs are dressed promptly and compassionately. I think part of what we're making a connection here is partly about building trust in the community. If we are constantly hearing victims not wanting to come forward, the more we embed into the community, the more we use these men and women on the ground, we think we will have significant inroads in that. Through Director Green's leadership and in collaboration with the Women Against Abuse and the Women's Law Project, the department will be implementing a standardized tool to assess domestic violence and imminent danger at the scene. This tool, the danger assessment for law enforcement, has an 11 question evidence-based tool that helps identify victims at highest risk of homicide. High risk cases are flagged for immediate intervention and enter into a lethality database for tracking. This initiative will begin in February of 2026 with a full launch by July. It includes officer training, policy development and data analysis. And I know you heard the conversation around that earlier. Ayanna brought this to us earlier when she arrived into the position working with the team to be able to start walking through. And what is unique about the lethality tool is as it goes through 11 questions, but if the top three questions are, is there a gun, has he threatened you with a gun, that immediately scores it and moves it into a contact from our victim advocates.
(Inaudible). POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Go ahead.
I'll let you continue, but Member Jones and I, Chairman Jones and I was just having this conversation regarding the lethality approach, right. And I asked before, but I want to reiterate again, so everybody knows gun is top priority. Even if you call 911 and you want to make sure y'all show up -- I'm not saying y'all don't show any other time but -- POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Come on now. We're on video too. Be nice.
We know a gun is a top priority -- POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Yes, sir.
-- right. So where does strangling and kidnapping come in at in that rubric? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Yeah. I'll allow Ayanna to come up to kind of walk you through what that -- after I complete it, if it's okay with -- or she can do it now.
No, take your time, Commissioner. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Okay. I'll finish and she'll come up and walk you through what that looks like.
Take your time, Commissioner. All the time you need, Commissioner. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Our Detective Bureau also plays a vital role in our responses with domestic violence. Each division has a domestic team, ADOM as we call them, with two or four detectives trained in trauma- informed practices and Act 79. They handle all domestic cases, consisting of victim/witness interviews, evidence collection, conduct repeat call analysis, search warrant and expedite arrest warrants. Domestic warrants are flagged for the District Attorney's office, but approval can take three to five days and sometimes longer, and that's what part of the group when we meet we'll start talking about accelerating that timeline. Detectives notify victims within hours of 23 arraignment and provide information 24 on the Pennsylvania SAVIN, which alerts victims to an offender's release or transfer. Victims also receive a domestic abuse rights card, a PFA resource list and referrals to our partners like Women Against Abuse and Women's Law Project. We're working to expand language access to ensure all victims can navigate the system safely. When it comes to interagency coordination, in 2022 we formalized a memorandum of understanding with the Sheriff's office to clearly define respective roles of our two agencies and enforce Act 79, which mandates firearm relinquishment from individuals under PFA orders. The Sheriff officers PFAs with assistance from the PPD when requests are by the petitioner. The Sheriff always accepts relinquished firearms during business hours. PPDs divisional detective units accept them 24/7 and PPD detectives document and transfer firearms to the Sheriff's office. Our Gun Permits Unit tracks all fire relinquishments, investigation for noncompliance and coordinates with the courts, the Sheriff's office and the District Attorney's office. As of December 2, 2025, over 1080 PFA orders require firearm relinquishment. And PPD follow up on 945 of those cases, recovering or documenting hundreds of weapons. We're also launching a weekly domestic violence partnership case review, which you heard the DA talk about earlier, and to replicate the success of our partnership with the DAO or Nonfatal Shooting Review. The goal is to ensure law enforcement, prosecution and victim advocacy are in lockstep to better serve high- risk domestic violence victims in Philadelphia. We support this resolution because we believe in accountability, not just for offenders, but for ourselves. We believe in prevention, not just prosecution. And we believe every survivor deserves to be heard, protected and supported. On behalf of the Philadelphia Police Department, thank you again for your leadership and commitment to a safer city. This concludes my testimony. I'll have Ayanna come up and walk you through what the lethality model looks like. She's nervous, but she's going to make it work. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Do not be nervous. We're friendly people, most of the time. Can you state your name for the record and please --
Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Ayanna Green Davis. I am the Executive Director of the Office of Community Advocacy Engagement with the police department.
My question was, regarding the lethality -- did I say it correctly?
For red flags, because again based upon the testimony we just heard, we're still trying to wrap our minds around if a person is strangled and kidnapped, and I say particularly a woman, right, no 11 matter how people want to look at it, it's just a little different, women and a guy, right. We don't want no one being kidnapped or strangled. I just want to say that for the record in case folks start calling me, oh, he's separating people. But the reality is, it's a little different if it's my niece versus my nephew, right, how they're going to respond, right. And so, we're trying to wrap our heads around how do you flag a kidnapping and a strangulation in terms of ranking?
So within the lethality assessment, there's questions and the score 5 is based off of 30% of high risk. 6 So it's already -- within the tool 7 is a built-in scoring system. So 8 strangulation, any type of injury 9 is going to flag our officers that 10 is at high risk. If she says, oh, 11 he choked me last year, high risk. If he choked me today, high risk. So that's going to flag our officers right away to say this is a high risk case. This case needs to be looked at today. That's how it's built in. It's built in to only do the high risk, because we know that those are the individuals we need to get to as soon as possible. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I just want to make sure we're clear, Council President. For those jobs, we're locking them up. I mean, so to make sure to be clear this is a tool to give us some kind of alerting. But what you described as what was described earlier this morning, if we come into a home where somebody has been strangled and we see the marks on their neck and we have body-worn cameras, we have conditions that show that there was domestic, we're locking that person up and/or we don't have them on site, then we're now going to go back, they're going to take all that information back to the detective to get a warrant. This is just another tool as it relates to connecting them to services and making sure that we're elevating it from the very beginning from the police officers' perspective, but all other things are still happening in a criminal way.
When that assessment form is done, what happens? Does the assessment of the form, the results of the form then go to -- that's submitted with the charges? How does that work? Does that file 8 travel from Philadelphia Police Department to the DA's office that, okay, now, it's in my hands? And part of it is about our criminal justice system, not one department. So now, I'm going from the police. I just got an assessment, strangled, kidnapping, high on priority, red flag. Now, I'm giving it to this next department. Does it come into the DA's office before they make the charges, they have a form that comes from the Philadelphia Police Department that says this is high risk?
So that's why we're implementing this tool because this tool can be --
This tool can help with the court proceedings. It can go from one entity to the next entity.
Okay. To start tracking, so this is what we're going to do in the future? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Yeah, but you don't need that for what you described. I don't mean to be flip, but someone who's been strangled or the conditions that we see, I don't need a lethality tool to let anyone know that that person should be at a higher level and that the court should be addressing that equally. This will enhance that work. A lot of what we're describing here, Council President, is our efforts -- we get thousands and thousands of domestics that are just going into a queue. So we elevate those out of that number --
Point of information. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Yes, sir.
So take us -- let's take a step back. The lethality issue is one. Tell me the standard operating procedure when an officer is called to a home and at the arrival, they hear about domestic violence or abuse, because there are several ways that this winds up in the system? You can go down and file a PFA, all that stuff, but what happens when you are called on the scene? What are your officers trained to assess and do? Take me through it. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I'll ask Commissioner Frank Vanore to come over who oversees all of the investigations and allow him to walk you through not just the beginning, but all the way through the continuum as the investigation moves through that process. (Witnesses approached witness table.) DEPUTY COMMISSIONER VANORE: Good afternoon, Councilman.
State your name for the record please. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER VANORE: My name is Frank Vanore, V-a-n-o-r-e, Deputy Commissioner of Investigations within the department. So to start off with a domestic incident, it'll come out -- that could be a bunch of different categories. We categorize some domestics as an argument. So the officers will come to the scene, they'll assess what's happening. They'll speak to -- if there's two parties, if there's just a victim, find out what occurred, if a crime occurred, if there's an assault, like some of the things we're hearing about today, there's going to be some evidence of that. There could be an injury. There could be property damage. There could be other witnesses. They're going to gather all that, and especially in today's world they're going to have that on their body camera, so that's going to be recorded. They're going to create a report and they're going to take all that into the detectives, depending on what division, what part of the city they're in. The divisional detectives will pick up on that case. All right. And if it's an assault, they're going to interview that complainant and they're going to photograph their injuries. All right. All that is done the same as it was done -- I was a detective over 30 years ago. All right. I had a Polaroid, no video, there was no body camera. When I got a domestic victim, I interviewed them and took a picture. Many times when we take that case to court, if it was an arrest and the victim somehow doesn't show up, they allowed me to show those pictures and testify to what I knew, also the officer that responded. Same thing happens today, but we got better evidence. We got a lot better technology, so we're able to do that and show those pictures, show those videos.
So take me -- All right. So argument is probably something that would be diffused, right. At what point does it elevate that I need to remove this person from the house? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER VANORE: Well, it's going to be the level of violence that's occurring. If a crime occurred, then we're going to arrest the person. We're going to arrest the person and we're going to take them in if they're present. All right. If that crime occurred and not in our presence, due to 2711, the statute in Pennsylvania, we could take them into custody, gather the evidence and charge them, and that's what we do in every case. That's why over 30 years ago we developed domestic violence detectives. We gave them special training. Every division has them. Depending on the volume --
That's a standard procedure that a police officer understands? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER VANORE: Yes. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: There's a policy. I mean, we have a very lengthy policy, around pages, that outlines 13 specifically what the roles and 14 responsibility of those officers 15 are, and they're held accountable if they don't follow that process.
Thank you for being with us this afternoon. Very quickly, what happens in a situation when the victim does not call immediately for fear that that individual is still in the house, right. And so, there is not -- they call the next day, for instance, or they go to work and they tell their colleague the situation that happened at home and they are encouraged to report. What happens? There's no pictures. She's no longer marked, right. There's no damage that you're able to witness in the home. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER VANORE: So in those cases, it's not quite clear. We're not going to have enough evidence to proceed with an arrest, but we're certainly going to document the case. We're going to interview that victim and we're going to attempt to build a case of probable cause. We're still going to have the allegation. If it's an assault of some kind, we're still going to do everything we can to get that affidavit to the District Attorney's office to look at. If it's approved, we'll have an arrest warrant. Now, some of the issues you heard in the Commissioner's testimony is when we do apply for an arrest warrant, we put a priority on this already. We have special detectives handling these cases. What I'm finding out from my people is anywhere from two days to five days is the average, and there's some that go weeks until we get it back. So that is a problem. It's not a priority. In the early 2000s, we created an electronic warrant system, which we use in our arrest system. All right. In that system, we built flags. So when our detective is typing up the affidavit, they check domestic violence. When the DA is looking at that, it's flagged, but we're still not seeing these back. There was a time -- and I'm going back years -- when those cases rose to the top and came back very fast. I'm told if a phone call is made, it comes right back. So a lot of times, the detectives, the supervisors, they jump on the phone and make those phone calls. If phone call's not made, it takes a while to get that warrant and that's frustrating.
What do we need to do so that a phone call is made? Because I think what we heard earlier today is that there's a lack of communication, right. You just said you guys are using technology to be able to better improve. The DA said earlier that we need better technology to be able to better improve. And so, whatever happened to the old school, hello, let's have a conversation, right? There is a victim whose life can be at risk here, right. And maybe she called the next day, but maybe that's not the first time she's called. And so, at what point does somebody say there's a possibility that this is Kada Scott No. 25, right? Because I've heard many, many stories of women who have said, I've talked to police, I've got to get a PFA, I've talked to the detective, I've talked to the courts. I've done everything and my abuser is still free. So at what point do we prioritize the victim? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I mean, I think what you -- I appreciate you having -- it's about prioritizing all of it, right. I mean, it just can't be we make this a priority. I tell people, you know, it's okay when it's somebody else's child. I got three daughters. You put your hands on my daughter --
You're not going to need the court if you touch my daughter. Keep it real, right. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: You know what I'm saying. I mean, part of that is, you know, and I think I shared with somebody before when we were doing the school diversion work and I do a video of my daughter walking through the process of getting arrested. You're sitting in that robe and you say it was okay for somebody else's daughter, a child be arrested, until you see yours, even though we see what's going through that process. And that's where we are here. This process doesn't work if everybody doesn't make it a priority, right. For it to work perfectly, for it to work to the best, it's never going to be perfect, but everybody has to be in sync. If I'm sitting there putting my men and women into these positions and saying, you will, if you work with our Director that says you will do this. It's not an option for them. You will take this action. Because at the time, back in those days cops would walk into a room, house and walk back out the door. They don't get the choice to do that. The rest of the system also has to align as well that, yes, you will put these cases before -- it's not an option for you to sit there and say, I see some pictures, I may see a video, but I decide I'm not going to move that case. That's not how it should operate, right. It should operate everybody's aligning. So we do hope as we reset and we go have this meeting, this weekly meeting, that we will be able to bring all those things into the conversation. But every time we put our foot on the gas, then we come off halfway. I tell my folks every day you put your foot on the gas, there's no brake pad. If you really want to address this issue, you just got to keep pressing. Because again, it's easy to sit there and just bungle people into this space. We have a lot of cases, 12,000 or more of those cases that come through. I mean, we have a lot of work to do, but we got to make sure that everybody is aligned and see it from the same scope.
But what do you need to do in collaboration with the District Attorney's office and the courts to be able to ensure that what you're doing right now, prioritizing and meeting weekly and doing all these things that it goes beyond -- we don't know if you're going to be here in four years. We don't know if we're going to be here in three, right. We don't know if the district attorney is going to be the district attorney. What do we do to put things in place so that women in Philadelphia who are victims of domestic violence know that the system that was put in place in the City of Philadelphia will infinitely protect them? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Listen, we're going to do, my team and I are going to do everything we can, the things that we have control over. There's no 5 question. We've been doing that, right. And I don't have control over the courts or the DA's office. But I think what also has to happen is if there's going to be accountability, then it has to be a continuous level of accountability, right. Then we should probably be back here in four months asking us what have we done. And we should be back here again, right, and saying, what is the level of accountability. Yes, we want to do this intergovernmental approach. But we -- I mean, Commissioner Vanore does a phenomenal job of really pushing his men and women. Because we know, we work with Carol, we work with Molly, we work with the team to make sure that we're on set training and doing all those things it's supposed to be. But as I shared with you before, some of those things we don't have control over. We get equally as frustrated to see somebody when you describe, Council President, like we sit there and shake our heads like really. I mean, we've always been at times frustrated by the system because they often times don't see what we see as much as we try to present them to them. So, Councilmember Lozada, we're doing our best, I mean, to follow our policy, to work with many of the partners that are in this room today to make sure we're meeting the charge that they give us, and oversight that they're doing each and every day when we're sitting down with Women Against Abuse and walking through what we want and what they see us doing, reviewing our work. But all parts of the system, often times we have to make sure everybody's aligned. And I don't think I answered your question. I apologize for that. But I can push the system and we're going to push them. Our team will be there Thursday saying, hey, here's a guy or lady, whatever it may be, that we think you should be focused on, right. We're going to use our lethality tool, because some we will bring to the top that won't have those top things that you described, Council President. But still, there's something going on here. We're going to work to try to internally create a database so we can start to track some of those individuals and the team is going to start working through that process now, but it's going to require a level of accountability. I hold my team accountable. The Mayor holds us accountable for the work that we do. The key part is -- and that's why I appreciate when you bring us into this room because it makes us because it makes us all accountable for what needs to be done to service this community. And we're going to keep doing that and we're going to get this aligned.
I appreciate that. We heard earlier that the District Attorney's teams have very large caseloads. Based on your current structure, how many cases does one investigator have per domestic violence incident? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER VANORE: I don't have an exact number, but some areas of the city they're higher than others. So that's how we try to structure our domestic teams. Some divisions have four detectives that do it nonstop, and then other detectives will catch a case. They will then be responsible for the follow-up. So they'll ensure that everything's moving along the right way, that right resource lists -- the right- to-know information to the victims go out and that we're following up with the victims when court comes around. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I mean, to what Frank described the numbers are significant. So I'll give you Southwest Detectives: 1877 incidents of simple assault with 247 arrests -- I mean, I'm sorry. 1913 incidents of simple assault for domestic, 257 arrests, 711 aggravated assault domestics with almost 300 arrests. 479 PFAs with 143 arrests. So I mean, that's just Southwest Division. And so, the numbers are significant. And that's why it's important to try to use these tools. They are not perfect, we know that. But working in collaboration with investigators and others to be able to -- we have to work harder now to figure out when we're looking at this sheer number, how do we pull those individuals up that are often times being marginalized or not being seen. You know, I can see the person, I can see the ag assault. But I can't see that young girl or that young lady who's being abused each and every week and not reporting it. And then when we get to the home -- so that's why we hope the lethality tool may -- she may not have been choked that day. She may not have a gun on her. But if we do the tool right, it may flag something and the scoring may flag where now Ayanna's team can now take the victim advocates and engage that person to see if they want to get supports and get them to report and get them the supports that they need.
Are the courts a part of the conversations that you all are planning to have in the future? Because I can't be the only one frustrated when I hear, yeah, we're talking, but the courts are really the ones that make the decisions and they're not at the table. So will the courts be and do you have a firm commitment from court, the court's leadership, that they will be at the table and will be in the process of changing how we respond to domestic violence? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Commissioner Vanore attended the meeting. It was an initial meeting last week, but I expect that that partnership is going to grow. And to your point, the courts have to be at the table to have that conversation. We would expect to be asking that. I'm sure my colleague here, Adam Geer, will be asking for that as well, that there is court representation. They have to be. You can't have a conversation without them being on the same that we are and seeing it from the same lens. So it won't be successful without them.
I appreciate that and I agree, right. But we've seen how challenging some of the things are that we're doing in the city of Philadelphia where we need the courts and they're not there. Regardless of whether we need them or not, they choose not to be there. And so, I want to know what we need to do and how do we ensure victims in our city that the way we're responding to domestic violence today is not how we're going to respond to it tomorrow and, that is, because everyone that needs to be on the table is at the table now? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Yeah. I feel pretty confident our relationship with the courts is going extremely well. As you know with our community court, working with the courts to stand that up and now expand that, I think working with the team there, we will be able to bring them to the table, explain all of what we are dealing with, I'm confident, Councilwoman Lozada. And if we cannot, but I don't believe that to be the case, we would definitely bring that back to the committee to have a larger conversation, particularly in CJAB, where we have the ability to bring these conversations into a much more formal setting. But I'm confident that they see what we see. I think they are also probably asking the same questions, you know, what are you doing, what are you focusing on. And I think there's a lot of synchronizing, it has to happen. We got to get more in sync, right. The better in sync we are, the better we're able to deliver to them exactly what is needed. And I think if we do that an effective way, we can have an impact.
Thank you. Chair recognizes President Johnson and then Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Chairman. And, Member Lozada, there will also be a follow-up behind -- I don't want to say closed door meeting, but there'll be a follow-up meeting with all of the different criminal justice partners to have a fuller conversation as a follow-up to this hearing. Commissioner, can you talk about -- and I want to go to the Keon King case, the one regarding, you had the kidnapping and strangulating and then you got the Kada Scott case. And it was reported that the warrant process, it was a warrant out for the person and they were actually in the court during the same exact date, so it's like the officer is going this way, this person going that way, how do we fix that? Is there any truth to it? And how do we come up with a system in the future when a person could be flagged, they out there with a warrant for something and they do run across law enforcement? I know normally if you're detained, you get a dipsy(ph), you try to go home. How does that work in this context? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: So I'll let Commissioner Vanore, who led the investigation in the Kada Scott case. The only thing I would caution, and we're very respectful of this body, but as you know we still have an open case. I know you know -
Ongoing investigation. Say less. POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: -- that. So there's some things that Frank may be able to share. I think in this case he can. But if you hear him stop and say, I can't do that, it's because of the ongoing case, but I'll let him walk through the timeline as we had it in our space. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER VANORE: So looking back at what you're referencing, there was a warrant signed and put in the system. However, the court date came up. For us to know that someone has court, we got to go -- if we don't get that notification, so that's in the court system, different system, if it's not checked and there's other documents that the courts have access to, the DAs and the detectives do, but if that wasn't checked in the right time, you're not going to see that warrant. So we missed that. I wish we wouldn't have. We would have grabbed him that day. But he was in for eluding police which was a chase he was in, got caught, got arrested, and that was a court case he's in for a few minutes and he walked out. But it wasn't checked by anyone in the court system or the detectives. And I don't believe the detective was in court that day either. So we would have had to find it and go there together.
Is there a way we can come up with a system, like a computer system to bring everybody together? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: So we've been looking at some technology that could potentially do. It's very, very expensive. I mean, we're talking $2 million a subscription a year.
How much you say? POLICE COMMISSIONER BETHEL: 2 million.