YEADON, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Yeadon Borough Council voted to fire police chief Anthony Paparo Thursday night. Paparo’s detractors blame him for a financial mishap that cost the borough hundreds of thousands of dollars. The now former chief says certain council members wanted to get rid of him because he is white and they wanted to hire a Black top cop.
The vote was 4-3 at a heated council meeting at Yeadon’s Borough Hall.
“This is not how my career ends. Thirty-eight years of my life as a cop, that’s not how my career ends, because they don’t like the color of my skin,” Paparo said afterward.
He is referring to claims, shared by Councilmember Liana Roadcloud and others, that other council members preferred to hire a Black police chief to serve the community, which is 88% Black according to U.S. Census data.
“Knowing what racism is like, experiencing it, living it, and we turn around, not me, but others, other Black people, turn around and do that to someone else? Of another race? That's despicable,” Roadcloud said to NBC 10.
Council President Sharon Council-Harris has been pushing back on the claims that race had anything to do with their decision. Paparo, she said, violated the terms of the police union contract when part-time cops got 6,000 hours of overtime in 2019 and 2020. That led to a settlement with the union.
“Deliberately violated the contract, costing the borough $387,000 from the general fund, not from his budget,” Council-Harris said to NBC 10. “This is not about race. I hired him in 2017 with four other councilors here.”
Council-Harris said Paparo was selected over three African-American candidates at that time.
Paparo argues that new cops needed training and the department had a lot of shifts to fill because of the coronavirus pandemic and the civil unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd.
Community members, many of whom are Black and supporters of Paparo, were at the meeting.
“I couldn’t get any help from anybody,” one woman said, according to NBC 10. “I have had nothing but help from Chief Paparo since he’s been here.”
Paparo’s attorney says they’ll file a federal lawsuit against the council members who voted to fire him.
“It’s destroying my wife, it’s destroying my kids,” Paparo said. “My career doesn’t end like this. It doesn’t end like this.”