Ex-Philly police officer convicted of voluntary manslaughter in shooting of unarmed man

A jury on Wednesday convicted former Philadelphia police officer Eric Ruch Jr. of voluntary manslaughter in the 2017 shooting of an unarmed man, marking the first such conviction in at least a half-century or more. The jury cleared him of the more serious charge of third-degree murder.

Ruch bowed his head and cried when the verdict was announced. He cried steadily until his house arrest was ended, bail was denied, and sheriffs escorted him to a court lockup.

Prosecutors said Ruch, 34, acted with reckless disregard for life when he shot and killed Dennis Plowden Jr., 25, within seconds of facing him after Plowden led police on a car chase in Olney. No gun was found on Plowden after he was shot.

» READ MORE: Only 10 Philly police officers have been charged in on-duty killings in the last 50 years. Here is the list.

Ruch, as well as five other officers, testified during the five-day trial that they thought Plowden was reaching with his right hand for a gun in his jacket pocket. “The hand you can’t see is the hand that can hurt you,” Ruch said.

But prosecutors told the jurors to dismiss Ruch and the other police as liars. They said Plowden posed no threat and was seated, dazed, and defenseless after crashing his car. They asked jurors to focus on Plowden’s left hand — the autopsy showed that Ruch’s single shot pierced Plowden’s left hand before hitting his head. This, prosecutors said, showed Plowden had raised that hand in submission.

After the verdict, Assistant District Attorneys Vincent Corrigan and Brian Collins, who prosecuted the case, passed through a crowd of media without stopping or saying a word. Their boss, District Attorney Larry Krasner, issued a brief statement thanking them for the dedication to the “ideal of evenhandedly applied justice and accountability for all without exception.”

To convict Ruch of third-degree murder, the jury would have had to conclude his gunshot was motivated by malice, a wanton heedlessness for the danger to life posed by his action. The bar is lower for a jury to convict someone of voluntary manslaughter.

The jury also convicted Ruch of misdemeanor possession of an instrument used in a crime — his Glock handgun.

Under Pennsylvania law, he faces a maximum prison term of 25 years, but advisory sentencing guidelines call for a much lesser sentence, in the range of five years. Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott, who presided over the eight-day trial, is to sentence Ruch on Nov. 17.

The racially mixed jury of seven men and five women deliberated for about 15 hours over three days after hearing testimony from 14 prosecution witnesses, and Ruch and three other defense witnesses.

His conviction seemed to be without precedent, certainly among cases in the last 50 years. In the last conviction of a Philadelphia police officer for an on-duty fatal shooting, Marcus Giardino Jr. was found guilty in 1978 of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a 19-year-old man. Giardino was sentenced to five years’ probation.

Giardino pleaded guilty ahead of trial. Ruch’s trial was the first murder case against a police officer in the city to go to trial in nearly 40 years. In the previous case that went to trial, a jury in 1984 acquitted former Officer John Ziegler of murder in the shooting death of a teenager.

The Ruch case was one of three murder cases brought against police since Krasner became district attorney in 2018. The two others are pending. The accused police are Ryan Pownall, arrested in the death of David Jones, 30, and Edsaul Mendoza, arrested in the death of Thomas Siderio, 12. Ruch, Pownall, and Mendoza were all dismissed by the Police Department after the fatal shootings.

Before Krasner, prosecutors brought murder or manslaughter charges against only seven officers going back to the early 1970s, according to a review of newspaper archives. Aside from Giardino, the others were either acquitted or had charges thrown out ahead of trial.

Defense lawyer David Mischak and Ruch family members left the city’s courthouse in Center City by a side door after the verdict. Plowden’s family declined to comment.

» READ MORE: Fired, then rehired: How the police arbitration system overturned the firings or discipline of more than 100 questionable Philly cops

Mischak had told the jury that Ruch shot Plowden on Dec, 27, 2017, after Plowden created “havoc and danger” by leading police on a dangerous car chase after they spotted him driving a Hyundai highlighted in a “patrol alert” in a new murder investigation. The alert cautioned police that the unnamed occupants of the car might be armed and dangerous. (After Plowden’s death, police said he had not been a suspect in the homicide.)

Plowden smacked his car into the open door of a police cruiser at the start of the chase, injuring an officer who was exiting the car. He then raced three blocks, at speeds exceeding 75 miles per hour and running a red light and stop sign, before smashing into three parked vehicles at Nedro Avenue and Opal Street. Plowden emerged from the car, walked a few steps and fell into a seated position, leaning back, witnesses agreed.

None of the police that night were equipped with a camera. To convey what happened next, the prosecutors relied heavily upon testimony from other police at the scene, including Ruch’s partner, Anthony Comitalo. They all testified that Plowden alarmed them by making a motion toward the right-hand pocket before Ruch fired.

“From your days in the Police Academy to the streets of the 35th District, “ Comitalo said, “you are told that a concealed hand that you cannot see can kill you. It’s your biggest threat.”

The prosecution’s single civilian witness also agreed that Plowden’s right hand was concealed from view.

The police witnesses also disputed a sketch by the department’s crime-scene unit that suggested Ruch had cover behind police cars at the time of the shooting. His colleague insisted that the sketch was wrong and that Ruch was vulnerable and out in the open when he fired.

Mischak decried the prosecution to the jurors, calling it “an attempt to criminalize a split-second decision a police officer made under very dangerous circumstances.”

In the end, prosecutor Corrigan challenged his own witnesses.

Ruch “shot a surrendering unarmed man in the head,” he said Monday in his closing statement. His fellow officers, Corrigan added, “told lies to try to help a friend beat a murder charge.”

Staff writers Chris Palmer and Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.