DV Journal

Anthony “Chachi” Paparo, who was fired from his job as police chief in Yeadon Borough, contends the town council terminated him because of his race. He is White, and the borough residents are 90 percent, Black.

The council members wanted a “Black chief for a Black town,” Paparo told the Delaware Valley Journal during a podcast recorded the day after he was fired.

Paparo’s lawyer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Monday against the borough and the council members who voted to terminate him: Council President Sharon Council-Harris, Vice President Learin Johnson, Council President Pro Tempore Tomeka Jones-Waters, and Council Member Carlette Brooks

Paparo is seeking monetary damages, lost wages, and his old job back according to his lawyer, Harold Goodman.

“Here, each of the individual defendants agreed and conspired with one another to terminate plaintiff Paparo’s employment as chief of police of Yeadon Borough on account of his race, White, and in order to hire a Black chief to replace him,” the suit said.

Paparo’s race never mattered, the suit said, until the new group of council members was voted into office last year.

“To them, Yeadon was a Black town, and they wanted a Black chief of police to replace plaintiff Paparo. And they plotted and conspired to achieve that result even before they took office on January 3, 2022,” the suit said. The council voted 4-3 to fire Paparo at a Feb. 17 hearing after a “due process” proceeding. The lawsuit claims the due process hearing was not fair.

“It was a sham proceeding, the votes to fire him already cast and known beforehand,” the suit said. “Moreover, it occurred among false and defamatory charges that Chief Paparo was guilty of money mismanagement and wage theft in connection with the borough’s collective bargaining agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police.”

More than 1,000 people signed a petition supporting Paparo, and many came to that meeting with signs expressing their support of “Chief Chachi.”

Paparo was part of the Love is the Answer movement, which seeks to build better relationships between the police and communities of color. Paparo told DVJournal he worked hard to help the community, for example, by providing animal control services with his traps and putting up deer fences for elderly residents himself.

“It’s another way to meet people other than just through a 911 call for an emergency or an accident, or you’re a crime victim, or you’re having a problem with your neighbor,” he said. “I’m coming there. We’re just talking, one on one human to human, and then interacting.”

Meanwhile, “before they were sworn in, the four individual defendants had already decided that because Yeadon was ‘a Black town,’ they would terminate the employment of Chief Paparo and replace him with a Black chief of police,” the suit said.

The council members who had decided to fire Paparo offered him three months’ salary if he would resign. Paparo declined that offer, the suit said. As a “pretext” to get rid of him, council members blamed Paparo for a $387,000 settlement with the FOP over overtime paid to part-time officers during the pandemic, the suit said.

The suit points out town officials agreed to that amount as part of an arbitration settlement, and Paparo had never seen the consent decree until the day he was fired.

Supporters of Paparo’s firing had an oversized copy of the check on display at a Feb. 10 council meeting.

“Not a single witness testified against Chief Paparo. Not a single document was introduced to support the majority’s decision. Indeed, not a single question was put to Chief Paparo in response to his lengthy, detailed account of his accomplishments, his dedication to the town of Yeadon, and the reasons why he, with the mayor’s approval, hired part-time officers to help keep Yeadon safe during periods of significant staff shortages and during the civil unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder and the COVID-19 epidemic that roiled Yeadon and its adjacent communities,” the suit said.

“Paparo has suffered irreparable harm to his unblemished reputation for honesty and integrity, a reputation built over the 37 years he has served as a law enforcement officer. That reputation, so consistently built and reinforced, was taken away in the flash of a 4-3 vote based on the false premise, lacking in any due process, that he was guilty of money mismanagement and wage theft, a scar from which he cannot recover,” the suit said.

Retired Upper Darby Police Chief Mike Chitwood had promoted Paparo to captain when he worked in Upper Darby before coming to Yeadon.

“He was a very, very good cop, excellent,” said Chitwood. “He was in charge of SWAT.”

“If you fire somebody because of the color of their skin, that’s not appropriate,” said Chitwood. “That’s not fair, and it’s absolutely insane.”

But if there was a budgetary reason, that would be a different story, he said.

“Obviously, they’re denying they fired him because of racism,” said Chitwood.

The borough’s public information officer referred the Delaware Valley Journal to a “fact sheet” that was sent to every household, saying that Paparo had violated the FOP agreement, among other issues that led to his dismissal.

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Anthony “Chachi” Paparo, who was ousted by Yeadon council Thursday evening from his job as the borough police chief, told the Delaware Valley Journal podcast Friday he may file for an injunction against the township to prevent the borough from hiring a permanent replacement for his former job, until after litigation is completed.

“The reason I was being terminated, the reason that I was going to be let go is because they wanted a Black chief, this new council wanted a Black chief for the Black town,” he said.

Paparo contends the council violated his civil rights and due process rights, but he wants his job back and does not want to “harm the residents of Yeadon.” Yeadon solicitor Mark Much did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

“I want to come back to…continue to carry out what we were doing,” he said. Paparo was part of the Love is the Answer movement, which seeks to build better relationships between the police and communities of color. Paparo told the DVJounal that he worked hard to help the community, for example, providing animal control services with his own traps and putting up deer fences for elderly residents himself.

“It’s another way to meet people other than just through a 911 call for an emergency or an accident, or you’re a crime victim or you’re having a problem with your neighbor,” he said. “I’m coming there. We’re just talking, one on one human to  human and then interacting.”

“And, when I tell you that the, uh, the narrative of the strains between police and communities of color is not what’s going on in Yeadon,” he said. “We, we are there sign of hope for in the world that that’s how much positive stuff.”

“I don’t do anything based on the color of someone’s skin,” he said. “And I don’t think that because it’s a majority Black town that that needs to be a requirement or even something to look at. I mean, if, if, if I wasn’t doing the job, if I wasn’t uniting the community…”

Paparo contends that when a new group of borough council members were elected, they decided to fire him and hire a Black chief to replace him. Yeadon is a majority Black community.

However, more than a 1,000 residents returned his love, signing a petition and coming to council meetings to tell the council members to keep Paparo as chief. People in the community were “coming out and droves” (to support him), he said.

Instead, the council used a financial premise regarding police overtime as reason to fire him. Council President Sharon Council-Harris cited a $387,000 fine that arose out of an overtime-related grievance with the Fraternal Order of Police as the reason for the chief’s dismissal.

Hpwever. lawyer Harold Goodman said the consent order the borough entered into over the fine had a no-fault clause and it was unfair to saddle Paparo with blame. He called the fine a “pretext” and a “coverup” for the council’s real motivation to get rid of Paparo.

In the podcast Friday with the Delaware Valley Journal, Paparo said that he learned the new council members were talking about replacing him with a Black chief of police last year but did not take it seriously.

His reaction to what happened?

“I’ll be honest with you. It destroyed me,” said Paparo.

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“Vote them out! Vote them out! Vote them out!”

That was the chant from an angry, standing-room-only crowd as Yeadon Borough council members at a special meeting Thursday night as it voted to oust Police Chief Anthony “Chachi” Paparo after four years in the position.

“This night will go down as a day of infamy,” Yeadon Borough Mayor Rohan Hepkins said.

It was an end Paparo and his supporters saw coming. A newly-elected Black majority led by Council President Sharon Council-Harris made it clear they were poised to remove the popular law-enforcement officer, who is white, at a meeting a week ago.

The vote was delayed to give Paparo a chance to defend himself against allegations that his financial bungling of the department cost the borough $387,000.

Council members sat through a two-hour due-process hearing for the former 32-year veteran Upper Darby police officer before voting to terminate him and replace him.

The chief’s camp promised to sue the borough over the decision, and his backers believe the decision to remove him was racially motivated.

Paparo’s attorney, Harold Goodman, cited internal conversations among councilmembers regarding replacing Paparo with a Black colleague who fits the demographics of the majority Black municipality of 11,500 in Delaware County.

A legislator phoned one of Paparo’s detectives and offered him the job, telling him to draw up contract details of what he expected, Goodman said. The mayor picked Lt. Shawn Burns as interim police chief.

Giving a detailed timeline of events that included a meeting to offer the chief a three-month buyout, Goodman asked the four council members who ultimately voted to remove Paparo to recuse themselves. He said their impartiality was in question as they basically accused the chief of “wage theft” and were acting as both “judge and executioner.”

He called the due-process hearing a sham, claiming borough solicitor Mark Much was in touch with police union officials the day before the hearing about finding a replacement. Much claimed it “never happened.”

Dressed in dark slacks, a collared shirt and tie with his badge and gun clipped to his hip, Paparo pleaded his case as his wife stood by his side. For about 30 minutes, he recounted how the department changed for the better under his leadership.

Council President Sharon Council-Harris cited a $387,000 fine that arose out of a grievance with the Fraternal Order of Police as the reason for the chief’s dismissal.

Goodman said the consent order the borough entered into over the fine had a no-fault clause and it was unfair to saddle Paparo with blame. He called the fine a “pretext” and a “coverup” for the council’s real motivation to get rid of Paparo.

Paparo explained that staff shortages in 2019 and 2020, during the height of the pandemic and civil unrest, caused him to apparently go over the number of hours designated for part-time officers. Some of those part-time officers became full-time hires, Paparo said, adding the contract language was unclear and he would have been vindicated if the grievance went to arbitration.

“It doesn’t work today in this environment,” he said, holding up the collective bargaining agreement.

Paparo said any staffing decisions he made were first run by Mayor Rohan Hepkins.

“He said, ‘Do what you gotta do,'” Paparo said.

Paparo admitted being stung when he walked into the last meeting and saw the oversized check with the amount of the fine prominently displayed at the front of the room.

“That destroyed me,” Paparo said. “There was no reason to humiliate me that night by putting that check up. That was beyond wrong. It was despicable.”

Paparo concluded with a simple “Do what you will,” before walking away from the podium and embracing his attorney.

Councilwoman Liana Roadcloud, who is Black, said it was disingenuous for colleagues to claim the chief’s removal was financially motivated. She accused colleagues of frivolously spending taxpayer money on reimbursements for hotel stays and lunches.

“It is about race. It’s not about money,” she said. “It’s a damn shame.”

Supporters felt so strongly about the chief’s leadership that more than 1,000 people signed a petition to keep him on the job, saying he made the community stronger and safer. They packed two meetings, recounting stories about the chief’s commitment to the borough.

One woman told legislators her 11-year-old son wanted to “grow up to be like the chief.”

“This man is not sitting behind a desk. This man is out on the streets keeping us safe,” she said.

Hepkins said it was unfair to hold the chief solely accountable since he is the chief executive of the borough.

“I’m embarrassed for Yeadon,” he said.

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