Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
District Attorney Larry Krasner<\/a> hinted at the possibility of investigating a police officer for his role in the \u201cdeeply flawed\u201d 2019 murder investigation of Eric Lewis, the man charged with killing Officer Shane Seiber<\/a> in West Philadelphia<\/a> last week. <\/p>\n Krasner, asked during a news conference Friday if his office previously sought charges against an officer he recently accused of purposefully misdirecting that investigation \u2014 perhaps contributing to Lewis\u2019 release after being found not guilty of killing a man at a 2023 trial \u2014 the district attorney had this to say: <\/p>\n \u201cI would ask the question differently,\u201d he said, proposing it be framed: \u201cWill your office pursue charges?\u201d<\/p>\n He did not comment further on that idea. <\/p>\n The press appearance, Krasner\u2019s first since making startling claims via YouTube video this week about police\u2019s handling<\/a> of the investigation into the murder of 32-year-old Christopher Williams, saw the district attorney again suggest that the behavior of the officer and a homicide detective assigned to the case had been \u201carguably criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a crime to provide false information to law enforcement, it\u2019s a crime to obstruct justice,\u201d Krasner said Friday. <\/p>\n Several years before the Saturday killing of Seiber, Lewis walked free from a bench trial in which he had been accused of fatally shooting Williams<\/a> during a road-rage incident in West Philadelphia. <\/p>\n Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O\u2019Keefe acquitted Lewis after finding serious problems with the police investigation, according to a rare letter from the judge. The concerns were grave enough for O\u2019Keefe to report the officers to the department\u2019s Internal Affairs Bureau. <\/p>\n Krasner\u2019s video remarks Tuesday echoed many of those doubts, spreading quickly across social media as law enforcement continued to mourn Seiber, a married father of two<\/a>, and members of City Council sought to lower the temperature on discourse surrounding the allegations<\/a>. <\/p>\n Police leaders have not directly responded to the district attorney\u2019s remarks. <\/p>\n Naeem Amir Crawley, the officer Krasner accused of attempting to botch the investigation by introducing false evidence about a supposed alternative shooter, was eventually fired from the department. He did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n \u201cThere will be a time to address the full record, but it is not now,\u201d police department spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp said in a statement Tuesday.<\/p>\n In 2023, Judge O\u2019Keefe wrote that the problems in the Lewis investigation were severe. <\/p>\n Among them were differing sets of evidence recorded under the same property receipt number, according to the letter. And the judge said the lead homicide detective did not appear to have investigated problems with an eyewitness\u2019 recollection of the shooting. <\/p>\n That detective also failed to deliver prosecutors subpoenaed copies of Lewis\u2019 social media accounts, the letter said, and later admitted that she never secured a warrant to obtain his cell phone records. <\/p>\n This week, in addition to saying the investigation had been flawed, Krasner insisted his prosecutors were not to blame for the outcome. They had been left to salvage a weak case against Lewis, he said in the video. <\/p>\n And he noted an additional aspect that, in his view, amounted to the most egregious example of investigatory misconduct. <\/p>\n That was the behavior of Crawley. The officer initially brought information to homicide detectives identifying Lewis as the man who killed Williams, according to a source familiar with the case who was not permitted to speak publicly about it.<\/p>\n However, Crawley was dating Lewis\u2019 sister, Krasner said. <\/p>\n And because of that relationship, he said, the officer then tried to \u201ctorpedo his own testimony\u201d by lying about an alternate suspect named \u201cSpice.\u201d <\/p>\n Krasner did not identify Crawley by name Friday, saying any remarks about potential consequences for someone in the officer\u2019s position \u2014 such as an obstruction of justice charge \u2014 remain \u201cabstract.\u201d No such investigation has been confirmed. <\/p>\n \u201cWe will have more to say after we get the opportunity to speak more fully to some of\u201d those involved, he said. <\/p>\n Staff writers Ellie Rushing and Chris Palmer contributed to this article. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min District Attorney Larry Krasner hinted at the possibility of investigating a police officer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,126574],"class_list":["post-308952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-district-attorney-larry-krasner-eric-lewis-shane-seiber-police-murder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}