There’s a special place in hell for a cop who leaves a human being lying in the street, and they get run over by a car.
It doesn’t matter who the person is, or if they are under the influence of a substance. It doesn’t matter if they resist. They need to be escorted to safety. If needed, rescue workers or a behavioral health expert should be summoned. No one — and I mean no one — should be left lying in the street.
If the police officer who encountered the 48-year-old pedestrian who wound up lying in the bike lane in the 5500 block of Rising Sun Avenue in the wee hours of Aug. 27 had a shred of humanity left in his soul, that man would still be alive today.
Instead of being a hero and saving that man’s life, the officer talked to the victim as he lay on his back in the roadway, then got into his police cruiser and drove away. Minutes later, the man was fatally injured by a hit-and-run driver. Two unidentified people pulled the man out of the street and contacted authorities.
The same officer who had encountered the man earlier was the first to respond. Did he even try to make up for what happened? Not according to First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford, who said at a news conference on Friday that the officer didn’t administer first aid or file a police report. “That goes against everything that we stand for,” Stanford told reporters. “We talk about empathy. We talk about compassion as an organization, and none of those things were on display.”
The officer, whose name hasn’t been released, has since been placed on administrative leave and is still on the Philadelphia police force.
He shouldn’t be.
His job is to serve and protect. But he lacks the human decency and compassion it takes to do that.
What happened last week reminds me of a similar incident that took place four years ago, which I also wrote about. In that case, Elizabeth Negron had wandered into the middle of Germantown Avenue near Coulter Street around midnight one hot summer night in 2022.
It’s unclear what exactly was going on with her, but clearly something was off. She stood in the roadway and blocked the path of a SEPTA bus as vehicles veered around her in different directions. Soon, a police car arrived. Officers got out of their vehicle and interacted with her briefly before driving off, leaving Negron still in the roadway.
They left her in the street like an old discarded shoe. At one point, Negron can be seen lying on her back. A video, recorded by a nearby business, ends shortly thereafter, leaving viewers to imagine what happened next as a passing car ran her over and then fled the scene.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting and interviewing many incredible police officers over the years. Most are good people both on and off the job. But there are some who forget that the people they encounter out on the streets acting oddly are as human as anyone else. They matter, too.
Negron was loved by her two young daughters, a devoted sister, and others who still mourn and miss her. Her sister, Jackie Martinez, told me she had been scrolling on her phone when she learned someone else had suffered a similar fate. “I’m hanging in there and trying my best to not let it bother me,” she said.
Martinez said she would never just walk by someone in harm’s way. “You put them somewhere safe,” Martinez said. “If you walk away and they end up back in the middle of the street, at least you know that was on them.”
David Fisher, a 29-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department and president of the National Black Police Association, agreed, saying, “You don’t leave somebody on the street needing care.”
It’s really that simple. It should be obvious. But apparently it isn’t.
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