PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The families of three long-time Philadelphia police officers who died from brain cancer are suing the owner of the building where they worked. They claim the officers got sick from highly toxic chemicals at the Frankford Arsenal.
Just last month, former narcotics officer Joe Cooney died of a glioblastoma. He and two others — Michael Deal and Andrew Schafer — were stationed for years at the Frankford Arsenal, which was used to make weapons and other military items.
“Not enough was done at the site to make it safe for people who are working there, like these narcotics officers,” said attorney Bill Davis, who is representing the families.
The Frankford Arsenal made ammunition and military equipment since before the Civil War, but it began to house the Philadelphia Police Department’s Narcotics Unit in the 1980s.
“Radium was used, which, decades ago, was not known to be dangerous. [They] painted watch faces and other things so that they would glow for military personnel so they could be seen in the dark,” Davis said. “As is normal, the Army Corps of Engineers did studies periodically from the time that the site was decommissioned, and every time they did, they found an assortment of different chemicals that science has taught us are known carcinogens.”
He said radium, lead and other highly toxic chemicals were never properly remediated.
Schafer worked in narcotics for 13 years. His widow, Diana Schafer, a nurse, said she noticed small symptoms build over time.
“He’d have, like, two focal seizures, just straight out stare while he was cooking,” she recalled. “He was just a stubborn cop and just went on. I said, ‘You need to go to the ER.’”
He finally did — and he found out he had brain cancer. He died last year.
“He actually was at the arsenal from 2002 to 2015. He worked for over 20 years as a cop,” Diana Schafer said.
Deal joined the police department in 1980 and worked in narcotics starting in 1994. He was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2018 and died the following year. Cooney, a police officer since 1995, started in narcotics in 1998 and was diagnosed in 2024.
“The number of cases that we have of this very rare cancer is much, much higher than you would expect in the general population,” said Davis. “Not enough was done to protect them, and nothing was done to warn them that this danger was there.”
KYW Newsradio reached out to both the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development Corporation and the developer, the Hankin Group, for comment but has not heard back.
The Frankford Arsenal housed the Philadelphia Police Department’s Narcotics Unit starting in the 1980s
The Frankford Arsenal housed the Philadelphia Police Department’s Narcotics Unit starting in the 1980s
