Phila. DA Adding Muscle of His Office to Probe of Teen's Stop-and-Frisk Injury
By Cherri Gregg
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia district attorney announced today that it will step in to get to the bottom of what happened during a controversial January 7th streetcorner incident in center city involving a 16-year-old high school sophomore.
The boy claims he was manhandled while being frisked by police (see related story), and police say the facts are unclear (related story).
Today, DA Seth Williams stood beside police commissioner Charles Ramsey to say his ofice will bypass the usual procedure of waiting for a completed Internal Affairs investigation to step in, hinting that a grand jury investigation on what happened to 16-year-old Darrin Manning could already be underway.
"We can actually get medical records, we can actually look at videotapes, we can do all types of things," Williams said today. "We can actually get people to testify, to get information."
Manning claims the police patdown caused him a ruptured testicle that required emergency surgery and may render him sterile, but his attorney, Lewis Small, has refused to let the boy speak to the police while charges against him are pending.
Now that the DA's office is involved, Small says, that will change:
"All the boys, all of the witnesses are going to cooperate with the district attorneys office, including Darrin."
Last month Commissioner Ramsey put one officer on desk duty following the incident but says facts surrounding it are still unclear.
"There's a lot of information floating around out there, some of which is inaccurate," Ramsey said.
The DA says his office will gather medical records, witness and police interviews, and more over the coming weeks.
