Cyrus Mann, a Philadelphia police officer who was fired in 2015 after shooting three men in three years while on duty, has been rehired and is back on the job with the help of his union, reports Philly.com. Mann shot Jeremy May on June 17, 2011. Fourteen months later, he shot and killed Hassan Pratt in a West Philadelphia alley. And on June 25, 2014, he shot Gregory Porterfield eight times, though he survived. The city paid $615,000 to settle claims in the shootings. Mann, 33, was not criminally charged in any of the shootings. In 18 years, no Philadelphia officer has been charged in an on-duty shooting.
The case shows how difficult it is for the department to get rid of cops it doesn’t want. Mann won his job back at least in part because the only witness to the fatal shooting was Pratt, the man he killed. “There was no camera, no other officers, and no civilian witnesses,” said Ralph H. Colflesh Jr., the arbitrator who ruled that he must be rehired. “My hands were pretty much tied.” A police spokesman said Mann “would be an example of a person who the department wanted to terminate, but he got his job back.” Mann and his union would not comment. Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum called it “exceedingly rare” for an officer to shoot three people in three years.