PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The former partner of the fired Philadelphia police officer on trial for fatally shooting an unarmed Black man recounted what happened in the minutes leading up to the killing. Prosecutors peppered the officer for details, in hopes of pointing out inconsistencies.
The officer told jurors Wednesday his partner that December 2017 night was Eric Ruch. While in their black unmarked police car, they briefly stopped the car Dennis Plowden was driving at North 16th Street and West Nedro Avenue, because it was a vehicle wanted for a homicide investigation and they were supposed to consider the occupants “armed and dangerous.”
He said Plowden quickly took off and sped through stop signs, a red light, and a busy intersection. Prosecutors played home surveillance video of the chase, which also involved two unmarked cars and two marked police cars.
He told jurors when he came up the hill, he saw the car come to a stop and spin around at 19th and Nedro, and that’s when both he and Ruch pulled out their guns and commanded Plowden to show his hands.
Prosecutors pressed the officer on differences and what they say are inconsistencies in his original statement to investigators versus his testimony about how much time went by, and why he didn’t remember where Plowden’s left hand was, even as he was looking right at him.
The officer told jurors that from day one police learn in the department that “the hand you don’t see is the hand that is going to kill you,” and said Plowden was fumbling in his pocket and eventually made a gesture while his hand. The officer said that’s when he heard Ruch, who was about 10 feet away from Plowden, fire the fatal shot, but he never saw the shot.
He said he helped scoop Plowden into a police car to get him to the hospital. Plowden died the next day.
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Following that testimony, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s communication director was admonished by the judge for tweeting about the case.
A brief hearing was held after the jurors were dismissed for the day, in which Judge Barbara McDermott said attorneys for both sides agreed not to speak with the press during the trial, so as to not prejudice the case.
The defense brought the spokeswoman’s tweets to the court's attention.
Prosecutors say it came from her personal account, but that the tweets would be deleted immediately.
They also added they had never dealt with anything like this.