Citing an “appalling” investigation by local officials, the city’s Police Advisory Commission is urging state and federal officials to investigate the killing of Nizah Morris.
“The [PAC] believes that justice can only be achieved by a further review of the Nizah Morris matter by an agency other than the police,” the agency stated in a blistering opinion issued this week.
The call for state and federal probes comes more than five years after an earlier PAC opinion assured the LGBT community that the police investigation into Morris’ death was “fair and proper.”
“Police records were ‘lost’ for eight years,” the new opinion states. “Records were redacted or altered. Police procedures, with respect to hospital cases and intoxicated persons, were not followed. Police procedures regarding record-keeping and the logging of information were not followed. Official police business may have been conducted on private cell phones and therefore ‘off the record.’ Discrepancies in records were not followed up. Records are still missing. And the testimony is so inconsistent that we believe perjury might have been committed.”
Morris was a transwoman who was inebriated outside a Center City bar and transported several blocks by police to an area where Morris supposedly said she lived.
Within minutes, she was spotted by passing motorists with a fatal head injury, and her homicide remains unsolved.
Officers Elizabeth Skala and Thomas Berry are the last known individuals to have seen Morris prior to her head injury.
Skala gave the “courtesy ride” and told investigators it ended on Walnut Street, near 15th or 16th streets.
Because the ride morphed into an “off-the-record” police activity, Skala didn’t inform dispatchers when it was completed.
As a result, police cannot give a time interval between the ride’s ending and a passing motorist’s 911 call about Morris’ head injury at 3:25 a.m. Dec. 22, 2002.
Another responding officer, Kenneth Novak, says he didn’t see Morris that morning until she was transported by medics to Jefferson University Hospital, where he took control of the “investigation.”
New opinion a sharp reversal for PAC
The new opinion doesn’t accuse police of killing Morris, but it stops short of ruling out the possibility.
It stands in stark contrast to the PAC’s 2007 Morris opinion, which stated that police were “in no way involved in the death of Ms. Morris or in a cover-up of the circumstances surrounding her death.”
Advocates for Morris have long suspected an attempted cover-up of the ride and her assault, pointing to a police report that doesn’t mention the ride and that describes her fractured skull as a “cut on head.”
But, according to a recently divulged investigative document, Sgt. Michael Dougherty knew about the ride, gave permission for it and was fully informed of its deadly aftermath.
Dougherty was the supervisor of Skala and Novak at the time of the Morris incident.
The District Attorney’s office tried to suppress the document for eight years, but the PAC gained access to it after subpoenaing the office for Morris records.
The document summarizes an interview Dougherty gave to the D.A.’s office in September 2003.
According to the summary, Skala allegedly called Dougherty on her cell phone to get permission for the ride, apparently without explaining that medics were already called.
Skala has repeatedly denied speaking to anyone about the ride prior to embarking on it, other than her dispatcher and Morris.
Dougherty also claimed he went to Jefferson later that morning, where Novak apprised him of Morris’ condition. If that is accurate, Dougherty didn’t notate his presence at Jefferson on Novak’s patrol log, a departure from standard procedure.
The PAC was unable to verify the existence of the purported cell-phone conversation between Skala and Dougherty.
“This is a crucial piece of information, which should have been properly vetted by the D.A., the police or the [prior] Commission,” the opinion states. “Suffice it to say that this investigation is not complete and that the homicide of a citizen of Philadelphia remains unsolved.”
The opinion also blasts local investigators for redacting a police report written by Berry and withholding the unredacted report until 2011.
Berry’s male references to Morris were removed in the redacted report, clearing the way for his sworn testimony in 2006 that he thought Morris was a female when he wrote the report.
“It’s certainly problematic that the police and/or D.A. were not forthcoming about giving official police documents to the Commission,” the opinion states. “It exemplifies the subterfuge concerning the Nizah Morris investigatory material and why we are compelled to forward our opinion to other criminal-investigation agencies.”
The opinion casts doubt on Skala’s credibility, noting that her claims that Morris could stand and walk unassisted were contradicted by civilian witnesses.
“P/O Skala blatantly and methodically provided a false statement in reference to how Ms. Morris entered her vehicle without assistance from any civilians,” the opinion states.
Opinion’s numerous recommendations
The 11-page opinion contains a series of recommendations that includes a diversity-training program for police cadets.
“The treatment of Nizah Morris and the appalling ‘investigation’ into her homicide, as well as police interaction with other members of the LGBT community, clearly demonstrates that the police require more diversity training in their academy training,” the opinion states.
Additionally, it calls for clear police policies on courtesy rides, the use of cell phones and the handling of “hospital cases.”
It also recommends that future PAC opinions determine the credibility of witnesses if conflicting testimony is presented — which the PAC’s earlier Morris opinion didn’t do.
The PAC suggested police may still be withholding evidence, citing dozens of evidentiary items it hasn’t reviewed.
“It would be an understatement to say that the Police Advisory Commission issued Opinion No. 1 relying on incomplete records,” the opinion states. “We believe that the presently constituted Police Advisory Commission has now been given access to a more complete record of the Nizah Morris investigation, but prudence dictates that we not deem it a review of the complete record as the police file was ‘lost’ for eight years.”
Chuck Volz, a PAC member who was instrumental in writing the opinion, said it’s being forwarded to the state Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice.
“A decade has gone by, and it may be impossible to find out who killed Nizah Morris,” Volz told PGN. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The Nizah Morris case is a challenge to our conscience. Even if we don’t find out who killed her, we still have a right to know why the local investigation is such a shambles.”
He said the opinion will be discussed at the PAC’s next meeting, set for 6:30 p.m. April 15 at the William Way LGBT Community Center, 1315 Spruce St.
“We’re extremely grateful that the PAC stayed with this case, because powerful forces are trying to sweep it under the rug,” said Morris’ sister, Andrea Brunson. “For the past 10 years, we’ve been discouraged. At least now we’re getting closer to an acknowledgment of the wrong that was done to Nizah. The police did her wrong. Dead wrong.”