Poplar wins as city’s police union president after a combative campaign

Roosevelt Poplar, who has led the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 since 2023, was elected to a three-year term Tuesday, along with his entire slate.

With a 51% turnout, Poplar garnered 4,159 votes while his opponent, Charles “Knute” Mellon, a former pilot in the Philadelphia Police Department’s aviation unit, and now the executive officer of recruit training, received 2,072.

Poplar’s team of longtime FOP leaders received 3,662 votes, while Mellon’s drew 1,422. A total of 6,255 ballots were returned from the 12,190 eligible active and retired members.

“I am honored and grateful to our members for their faith and trust in me,” Poplar said in a statement. “I promise to fight for every active and retiree member and always do right by them. We have had some historic wins over the past 22 months. But we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Mellon could not be immediately reached for comment.

The campaign was unusually caustic, marked by social media attacks, fake accounts, AI-generated images, contentious union meetings, and even threats of violence.

Poplar, who joined the police force in 1990, became a trustee in Lodge 5 in 2000 then served as a union vice president and chief of staff for former longtime president John McNesby.

McNesby resigned in 2023, soon after one of his top officials was accused of swindling a police widow out of more than $20,000. The FOP’s executive board voted unanimously to have Poplar assume the job of president.

Poplar, 58, and his team have pointed to their years of experience and a record securing lucrative pay raises and benefits for their members.

Mellon, 48, and his team alleged that McNesby and the current union leaders racked up millions in questionable credit card charges and lack transparency about the union’s profits and expenses.

Earlier this year, The Inquirer’s investigation “The Blue Divide,“ found limited oversight and a lack of transparency surrounding the union’s expenditures.

The Inquirer found that questionable expenditures were most notable within the Survivors’ Fund, a charitable foundation created to support families of officers who lost their lives or were gravely wounded in the line of duty.