Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal is under more scrutiny than any elected official in Philly, fending off a wave of damning news stories about her office’s operations.
Sheriff’s deputies transport prisoners, provide courtroom security, and host public auctions of foreclosed properties. But over the last few years, The Philadelphia Inquirer has found that some of these functions have not been properly handled by Bilal, who was first elected in 2019. The Inquirer has reported on a surge in security incidents at understaffed courthouses, alleged misspending despite a request for a huge budgetary increase, and, most recently, a civilian employee accidentally firing a gun inside the office.
Due in part to these stories, calls to abolish the Sheriff’s Office have come from government watchdog groups and elected officials alike. In an April interview with City Cast Philly, State Rep. Jared Solomon, who like Bilal is a Democrat, called the office “a mess.” The Committee of Seventy nonprofit has been similarly critical, saying the department has had scandals going back to the 1980s.
Bilal denies the accusations and said the office is being attacked with mistruths by a newspaper with a vendetta and watchdogs that don’t have their facts straight. In an interview with City Cast Philly, Bilal said she takes pride in accomplishments such as modernizing technology in the office, maintaining core responsibilities amid staff shortages, and guiding a department that was already hobbled when she arrived.
Here’s a preview of City Cast Philly host Trenae Nuri’s conversation with Sheriff Bilal.
How do you respond to the criticism that you’ve been facing?
“All those that are trying to criticize this office never sat down and had a conversation with me here, never came in and said: ‘What are you doing here? What are the things you are facing?’ And as a newly elected official, never offered to assist, to help build this organization to the 21st century.
“ Your source is a media outlet that basically is mad. Because when I came in here, what I ran on was not spending $7.5 million on advertising [sheriff's sales in the newspaper] ... I streamlined all the advertising we was doing and I cut that down. And The Inquirer and Daily News does not get the sheriff's sale advertisements because they didn't want to cut [the advertising cost] down and they wanted to keep it as it was. And we wasn't doing that. So they don't get it. So that five-point-something million dollars they used to get from here, they don't get it anymore. And so then they mad. And so the mad becomes personal. The attacks become every little thing that happens here.
“...People are getting together to come at the Sheriff’s Office. Why? Because they think I’m the weakest link. I’m the first female in here to run this office and now you think you can gang up on attacking, talk about abolishing the office.”
Gabriel Escobar, editor and senior vice president of The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote in an email to City Cast Philly that reporters' recent investigations were unrelated to any decisions to end advertisements for sheriff's sales: “Editorial decisions, including coverage of the sheriff, are not influenced or directed by the business operations of the Inquirer. The sheriff's baseless charge is a convenient way to cover the many failings of her office.”
What responsibilities or functions are not happening?
“... We are handling our core responsibilities. We are deploying our people differently … People are being paid overtime because they're working over on different units, different facilities … To cut that overtime down, we need to hire people so that people can go back to their regular-time schedule and do their job and not be overtimed out.
“ Because that's where we’re at, and we didn't get here because I walked in the door. This has been happening way before I got here … And then, everything that happened from the time that I walked in the door: From a pandemic to civil unrest, all of that played into not just me but law enforcement across the country.
“So I'm trying to see, how come everybody got a pass but us?”
Earlier this month, you asked City Council for a $20 million increase in your current budget. Is that more than 50% of what you’re getting now?
“My budget is $35 million right now. Twenty million includes not only hiring, it includes the continuation of upgraded technology. It includes getting our own academy here so that people that apply here, families can now go to training and go home [instead of training in Central Pennsylvania, as trainees currently do]...
“We need to come out of this building and have our own building where the sheriff headquarters can be, because we are here in Center City – people can't park. We got buses and vans that transport prisoners all the time … I need my vans, buses, and we need a place where all our stuff can be together and our offices can be maintained and people can come here without getting a car ticket and towed just because they're doing business at the Sheriff’s Office."
“When people talk about ‘this needs to be abolished,’ nobody has talked about how do you help the Sheriff’s Office get in compliance? How do you help make sure they are efficient, make sure that they can hire people? … Nobody offered any help.”
🎧 Hear more of this conversation with Sheriff Bilal by tuning into this episode of City Cast Philly.
