Concerned about unmarked redactions on the official Nizah Morris police-incident report, the city’s Police Advisory Commission has agreed to initiate a comprehensive redaction policy.
In a unanimous voice vote June 20, PAC members said the policy would be developed as soon as possible.
They said it would be modeled after federal guidelines that call for brackets or darkened bars to denote information redacted from documents supplied under the Freedom of Information Act.
Last week, PAC members learned that the official police-incident report supplied to an earlier PAC eight years ago had been redacted.
The PAC became aware of the redactions by comparing a copy of the incident report received eight years ago with another copy of the same report recently released by police.
The recently released report refers to Morris as both “Jane Doe” and “John Doe.” The letters “M” and “F” are written on the report to indicate her sex.
“John Doe” and the letter “M” are missing from the same report supplied to the PAC eight years ago. That version also has no investigation-control number, unlike the recently released report.
The redactions may have impeded an earlier PAC ability to investigate the case.
At the meeting, recently appointed PAC members emphasized their commitment to obtaining the complete Morris file at the District Attorney’s office.
It’s not known what agency made the redactions.
Tasha Jamerson, a spokesperson for D.A. Seth Williams, declined to comment for this story.
Lt. Ray Evers, a spokesperson for the police department, also declined to comment.
Morris was a transwoman found with a fatal head wound in December 2002, shortly after she received a courtesy ride from Philadelphia police.
The homicide remains unsolved.
The redacted report was shown to 9th District Officer Thomas Berry in December 2006, when he testified during a public PAC hearing.
Berry said he wrote it at 16th and Walnut streets shortly after he spotted Morris lying unconscious in the street there.
But several records in the Morris homicide file suggest that Berry wrote the report retroactively, after going to Jefferson University Hospital about three hours later.
At the hospital, 6th District Officer Kenneth Novak was investigating Morris’ injury, with the assistance of 6th District Officer Elizabeth Skala.
Earlier that morning, they were dispatched to investigate Morris at Key West Bar on Chancellor Street, where she had been staggering out front, severely inebriated.
Skala got there first, canceled medics and gave the courtesy ride.
About an hour later, when Morris arrived at Jefferson, she was brain-dead. Hospital staff suspected she was a crime victim and called for police.
At Jefferson, Berry said he thought Morris was a slip-and-fall victim based on information he gathered at 16th and Walnut streets, which is in the 9th District.
Novak didn’t yield the probe to Berry though the injury happened in Berry’s district, and Berry wrote the incident report.
If the investigation moved into Berry’s jurisdiction, Morris would have been a hospital case beginning at 3:25 a.m., when Berry first spotted her in the 9th District.
But that would have conflicted with Novak’s patrol-log designation of Morris as a hospital case from 3:10-3:15 a.m., when the ride began in the 6th District.
During a PAC interview, Novak said his patrol-log entry was “an accurate reflection” of the time he spent on Morris in the 6th District.
Skala filed similar paperwork.
As it stands, concern lingers that officers manipulated the process to avoid documenting not only the ride, but the crime that followed.
In the past, police said it was proper for the investigation to be under Novak’s jurisdiction because Jefferson is in the 6th District and Berry’s report was pre-investigational in nature.
But the investigation-control number on Berrry’s unredacted report appears to contradict that explanation.
Also, it’s unclear why Jefferson’s location would determine jurisdiction, since there was no indication that Morris was injured at Jefferson — or anywhere else in the 6th District.
At the meeting, PAC members expressed an interest in exploring the nuances of the case, and vowed to seek the complete Morris investigative file at the D.A.’s office.
PAC chair Mu’min Islam said discussions are ongoing with representatives of the D.A.’s office for the records. He said PAC members should know within 60 days if litigation is necessary.
Islam also expressed hope that the PAC will issue an opinion in the matter soon, and cautioned that no “smoking gun” has been found in the case.
Tim Cwiek can be reached at [email protected].