Philly police leader attends meeting with families of murder victims: 'We've got to be better as a department'

PHILADELPHIA - "My family is destroyed. Destroyed," cried one woman about the murder of her son.

"I left my son because we were not directed to go to Temple. We were told to go home," said a woman whose 20-year-old son was shot to death.

They spoke during an emotional meeting tonight with survivors. Families who have lost loved ones to gun violence. They’re pleading for a better relationship with police handling cases.

Marcella Windle is with the survivor’s advocacy group called Warriors which led the discussion tonight in Lawncrest. Someone shot her son Martez to death on November 28, 2018.

"One of my concerns was how they handle the deceased bodies. How they just let it lay in the street for hours on end," said Windle.  Theodora Tomlin says she also had a bad experience with police after someone shot her only son, 33-year-old Khalil Thomas Smith, to death in August of 2021.

"We’re coming into something blindsided. But how they talk to us, how they don’t get back and how they don’t respond," said Tomlin.

EMIR, which stands for Every Murder is Real, organized the conversation between families and police.

"Even though we can prevent violence, we still got to heal the heart that as harmed. Heal the person," said Chantay Love of EMIR.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and some of his staff were there to hear from families on the changes they want to see with homicide detectives and victim advocates.

"We’re in our budget. We’re going to add victim advocates for the first time who are non-sworn, professional staff who will be in homicide working with our families to be able to build a better bridge of communication," said Commissioner Bethel. The common concern among survivors they say is a lack of empathy from police dealing with victims’ families.

"I’m here to listen, and we’ve got to do better and be better as a department and we will," said Commissioner Bethel.

Some other topics include procedures involving when and how families are notified of a murder and when they can get back property belonging to their murdered loved one.

EMIR plans to come up with a list of recommendations from the meeting that it will ask the police department to adopt in order to better help families of murdered loved ones.