Philly cops target immigrant shopowners

Immigrant small shop owners are coming forward with disturbingly similar accounts of police drug raids that began with the destruction of private surveillance cameras and ended with the looting of cash and merchandise from their shops by members of the department’s undercover Narcotics Field Unit.

These police smash-and-grab operations, which often resulted in shop owners and their family members being hauled off to jail on trumped-up charges, reportedly began as early as March 2007. Korean, Jordanian, Dominican and Latina/o bodega and “mom-and-pop” store owners were all subject to these attacks. A video of one raid obtained by the Philadelphia Daily News can be seen on philly.com.

At least 14 victims of this crime spree came forward after news surfaced about an investigation of Jeffrey Cujdik, one of the officers involved. Cujdik had also used a paid informant to lie about drug buys in order to obtain search warrants that led to hundreds of criminal cases targeting Philadelphia’s Black community. Philadelphia’s public defender has moved to throw out criminal charges against over two dozen people falsely accused in those raids.

One of the first to report this abuse of storeowners was a Korean couple, David and Eunice Nam. In July 2007, Cujdik and his narcotics squad members raided their Olney tobacco shop. The five plainclothes officers, with guns drawn, smashed two surveillance cameras and yanked wires from the ceiling.

The Nams say they were handcuffed and forced to the floor as the officers rifled through drawers, dumped cigarette cartons on the floor, and took cash from the registers. The Nams were jailed and arrested for selling tiny zip-lock bags that police consider drug paraphernalia, but which the couple described as tobacco pouches. Police seized over $2,500 in the raid.

An association of Dominican shop owners told similar stories involving the same officers. Cops would take food and drinks from stores. Merchandise was destroyed or vandalized. Cash was confiscated from registers and personal items were also taken, the owners say.

Cujdik applied for search warrants and played a key role in the raids. Cops charged shop owners with possessing and delivering drug paraphernalia. Storeowners have been sentenced to probation or less in cases that have been settled.

Complaints against cops surface daily

Jordanian shop owner Moe Maghtha, who now runs his father’s South Philly tobacco shop, which was raided in December 2007, told the cops: “You’re not allowed to sell those bags, OK. Just take them out. You don’t have to rob my store and steal cigarettes.” (Philadelphia Daily News, March 20) Maghtha witnessed a raid on his father’s store. He said over $14,000 in cash was taken by Cujdik and six other officers.

After his store was raided and he was arrested and sentenced to nine months probation for possessing and selling drug paraphernalia, Maghtha’s father appealed the case. In November 2008, 11 months after the first raid, the narcotics officers returned, claiming they had seen three people buying drugs from the shop.

Maghtha had saved images on a shop computer that showed a police officer clipping the surveillance wires during the 2007 raid. He believed the officers had returned for that video evidence. He said that during their return visit, police put a gun to his father’s head and demanded the video. “They took everything from the computer—the hard drive, the DVR card, the DVD and CD-ROM player,” Maghtha said.

New allegations are surfacing by the day. Juan M. Collado-Gómez, owner of López Grocery in the Tioga section of Philadelphia, came forward to complain that Richard Cujdik, Jeffrey Cujdik’s brother, targeted his store in September 2007. After police raided his store and cut surveillance wires, Collado-Gómez and a cousin were arrested. When he was released he found that his store and two apartments above had been ransacked and that $8,560 was missing.

Another Dominican, Luciano Estévez, co-owner of a West Philadelphia shop, reported a similar raid in August 2008, where $9,000 was missing. The police property receipt documented about $800. Storeowners typically have thousands of dollars in cash on hand from lottery, cigarette and phone-card sales, as well as cash to pay wholesale grocery vendors.

The immigrants targeted by the police narcotics unit came to the U.S. with documents and have no prior arrest records. Many believed that coming to the U.S. would fulfill a dream of “getting ahead.” Emilio Vargas, who came from the Dominican Republic in 1996 and whose building in the Kensington area was raided in 2007, said, “I used to believe in justice in America. I don’t know now. It makes me question the justice system.”

‘Police get away with everything’

Witold “Vic” Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, described the shop owners as an “easy target” of police abuse because they struggle with English and are less likely to report police abuse. Danilo Burgos, president of Philadelphia’s 300-member Dominican Grocery Store Association, concurred. “Back home police get away with everything, including murder. They fear something similar could happen to them here,” stated Burgos. (Philadelphia Daily News, March 20)

The storeowners’ allegations could implicate at least 17 other officers in addition to Cujdik and three police supervisors. An April 2 editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer described these bodega [neighborhood store] burglaries as a “cancer” undermining the integrity of the police department, yet actions by higher-ups threaten to spread the disease. Jeffrey Cujdik has been put on desk duty, but his cohorts remain on active duty and have been reassigned to other units. “Reshuffling the deck” is how Deputy Police Commissioner William Blackburn described these moves.

The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the accused officers, claims that the storeowners are lying to take advantage of the other allegations against Cujdik. John J. McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the FOP, claimed that the narcotics squads were “permitted to disable cameras to protect their own security.” McNesby said the FOP would defend Cujdik “to the wall.”

There is little independent oversight of Philadelphia police. The civilian-based Police Advisory Commission can review cases, but has little authority to take action and seven board positions have remained unfilled for years. Internal police investigations of separate incidents don’t address the larger problem of systemic police abuse.

Dropping charges against victims of police abuse or releasing them from prison after they have served unwarranted sentences is no justice. Real independent oversight of police misconduct will only come when there is community control over the police that gives neighborhoods hiring and firing power over the officers who are assigned to “protect and serve” them.