Last month, the city’s Police Advisory Commission received records in the Nizah Morris case from the District Attorney’s office, but PAC members still want to know if the D. A. has a 911 transcript.
Last January, the PAC asked D.A. Seth Williams for “any and all 911 tapes, transcripts or other documents or materials that relate in any way to the matter of Nizah Morris.”
Morris was a transgender woman found with a fatal head wound shortly after she received a courtesy ride from police in 2002. She died two days later due to a fractured skull; the homicide remains unsolved.
Williams initially declined to provide the records, prompting the PAC to subpoena them.
Williams declined to honor the subpoena, but both sides reached a compromise — resulting in the delivery of a batch of Morris records to the PAC on Dec. 19.
But Williams hasn’t specifically addressed the transcript — which wasn’t included in the released records — and his spokesperson has declined to comment.
The D.A.’s office referred to a 911 transcript in a 2010 legal brief filed in response to PGN’s request for Morris 911 recordings. PGN’s Right-to-Know Law request is pending in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.
In any investigation, a 911 transcript would be a central piece of evidence.
In the Morris case, a transcript could clarify if confusion about Morris’ gender discouraged the officer who gave the ride from responding to her at the post-injury scene.
Additionally, it could help PAC members identify the agency or individual responsible for redactions to the police report filed about the Morris incident.
And the transcript could clarify why the police report doesn’t document Morris as a crime victim or courtesy-ride recipient, though it documents her transgender status.
911-target confusion at Key West
On the morning of Dec. 22, 2002, Officer Elizabeth Skala responded to a 911 call for a female “hospital case” outside Key West Bar.
A woman identified only as “Anisa” made the 911 call on behalf of Morris, who was severely intoxicated and staggering in front of the bar.
Upon her arrival, Skala encountered Morris, who said she didn’t want to go to a hospital, and Skala agreed to transport her to 15th and Walnut — where Skala thought Morris lived, according to police reports.
Morris actually lived at 50th and Walnut.
Minutes after the ride, Morris was found at 16th and Walnut with blunt-force trauma to her head.
Skala told investigators she heard police-radio reports about a female at that location possibly hit by a car — but didn’t realize it was the same person she had just transported.
According to police directives, an officer who transports a citizen to a hospital is required to write a police report.
However, a report isn’t required if an officer transports a citizen somewhere other than a hospital, as long as the person isn’t a 911 target.
In her 2006 PAC testimony, Skala said it wasn’t necessary for her to write a courtesy-ride report, because courtesy rides don’t require police reports.
But she’s never stated publicly if she thought Morris was a 911 target when she was transporting her.
Several homicide records indicate that Skala thought Morris was a male at Key West.
Since the 911 calls at Key West — and, later, Walnut Street — were for a female, it’s possible that gender confusion contributed to a belief on Skala’s part that Morris wasn’t a 911 target.
The partial 911 recordings released in 2003 don’t clarify the matter, nor do records contained in the police department’s homicide file.
After Morris’ head injury was discovered, medics transported her to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where she was placed in the intensive-care unit, close to death.
Concerned that Morris was a crime victim, hospital personnel called police.
Skala joined Officers Kenneth Novak and Thomas Berry at Jefferson, where it was decided that Morris probably wasn’t a crime victim.
Then Berry wrote a retroactive report about Morris as a hospital case at 16th and Walnut — and the officers’ patrol logs referred to Morris as a hospital case.
This approach has raised concerns that police deliberately avoided documenting the ride and subsequent crime, for whatever reason.
A 911 transcript might shed light on the paperwork, particularly if the transcript contains 911 recordings made at the hospital.
Gender confusion at Walnut Street
Last year, PAC members learned that Berry’s report was redacted in several places prior to its release in 2003.
The original report had been in the police department’s homicide file — which was lost for about eight years.
Berry’s original report has conflicting male and female terms for Morris at 16th and Walnut, and also refers to her as a “transsexual.”
In the redacted version, the male references are removed.
Since Berry presumably was informed at Jefferson that Morris had male sex organs, his report should have referred to Morris as a male, according to police policy.
A lingering question remains: Did Berry place conflicting gender terms in his report to represent the confusion that kept Skala from going to Walnut Street and writing a report?
As it turned out, medics didn’t transport Morris from Walnut Street to Jefferson for about 40 minutes and she arrived at the hospital brain-dead.
Thus, a 911 transcript could be valuable in determining what went wrong at Walnut Street, and whether gender-identity issues contributed to emergency-response delays.
Internal Affairs probe
In 2003, the D.A.’s office announced that no criminal charges would be brought against police in the Morris case — clearing the way for the police Internal Affairs Division to investigate possible administrative violations.
In 2005, IAD determined that Skala violated departmental regulations when she canceled medics at Key West, then transported Morris to a location other than a hospital.
But according to IAD records, Skala was never asked if she thought Morris was a 911 target at Key West.
In her 2006 PAC testimony, Skala expressed bafflement with IAD’s findings.
“I’m not trying to be smart, but I’m not Internal Affairs,” Skala testified. “I didn’t make that determination. I don’t understand, really.”
For Skala’s discipline, a supervisor read her a directive on the proper handling of intoxicated persons in police custody.
IAD investigators didn’t have access to a 911 transcript, but they had a cassette tape of partial Morris 911 recordings — the same recordings that were released in 2003.
In 2007, Lt. Thomas Fournier of IAD played the cassette for PAC staffers who visited IAD as part of the PAC’s Morris probe.
A copy of the IAD cassette wasn’t included in the duplicate Morris homicide file supplied to the PAC last year.
But PAC members are focusing their attention on the possibility of a 911 transcript, not the cassette.
At their Dec. 19 meeting, they said an email would be sent to the D.A.’s office requesting a definitive answer about a transcript’s existence.
PAC members also said they’ll report back to the community at their next public meeting, 6 p.m. Jan. 16, with location to be announced.
Tim Cwiek can be reached at [email protected].