Black Detective: D.A. Krasner Running 'Tuskegee-Type' Experiment

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

With his radical version of criminal justice reform, District Attorney Larry Krasner is conducting a Tuskegee-type experiment on the population of Philadelphia, an experiment that's knowingly causing the preventable deaths of hundreds of black males.

That's the explosive charge a former homicide detective who happens to be black has made in an appeals brief filed in the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. The brief is the latest chapter in a whistleblower lawsuit that the detective had previously filed against the D.A.'s office in U.S. District Court alleging prosecutorial misconduct in Krasner's indictment of a white police officer who shot a black dirt biker to death.

"Krasner's District Attorney's Office of corruption has instituted a 'Tuskegee' type experiment on the citizens of Philadelphia," Detective Derrick Jacobs wrote in a 27-page appeal brief filed last month that requests oral arguments in the case.

"While authoring this brief approximately 34 citizens were shot and 7 killed in approximately 24 hours in Philadelphia," Jacobs wrote. "Most, if not all of the victims, were African Americans." 

"There are approximately 348 homicides in the city" composed of "mostly African Americans," Jacobs wrote. "The increase in violence being perpetrated against this community is predominantly the direct result of the systemic corruption and policies at the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, headed by Krasner."

"Jacobs attempted to expose this corruption and was retaliated against, as a result" by the D.A.'s office, Jacobs wrote in his appeal brief. "This link is not casual. This is a direct link between protected activity and a retaliatory act."

The city has not yet responded in court to Jacobs' appeal brief.

In an interview, Jacobs explained his reference to the notorious "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis In the Negro Male." Beginning in 1932, doctors working for the U.S. Public Health Service knowingly gave some 399 black males infected with latent syphilis, mostly sharecroppers, placebos so the doctors could record the progress of the untreated disease.

Even though penicillin became the recommended treatment for syphilis in 1947, doctors working for the federal government continued feeding men in the Tuskegee experiment placebos over the next few decades as the test subjects either died, or went blind or insane. 

This crime against humanity went on until 1972, when an Associated Press reporter broke the story, provoking public outrage that finally ended the Tuskegee Experiment. But by 1972, 28 study participants had died from syphilis, 100 more had died from complications from the disease, and at least 40 spouses had been diagnosed with syphilis, as had 19 children. 

Congress held hearings on the experiment, and in 1975, heirs of the test subjects were awarded $10 million.  

In an interview, Detective Jacobs stated in Krasner's experiment that's allegedly reforming the criminal justice system, the D.A. has pushed a radical "social agenda that's causing death to black males."

"You knew this experiment is going to cause our community harm," Jacobs said. He was talking about Krasner's revolving door style of justice where armed and dangerous criminals are allowed to walk out of prison immediately, or draw lenient sentences well below state guidelines that puts them back on the streets again, so they can wreak more havoc, usually in the black community.

"I guess the penicillin for the syphilis is law enforcement," Jacobs said about the Krasner virus that's infected the local criminal justice system. "But they don't want to give the black community law enforcement," Jacobs said. "So they let the black community continue to walk around with the syphilis."

It's a jarring image, Krasner as the evil doctor in a white coat being allowed by the government to perform his radical social experiment on the population. Meanwhile, more black men die every week, typically at the hands of other black men who are criminals who should be in jail. In addition, more than 100 children have been shot after being caught in the crossfire. 

As the murder rate in Philadelphia climbs to a record pace, the shootings have become more brazen. There's a gang war raging in South Philly. In the past week, a half-dozen black men have been gunned down in execution-style slayings that were carried out in broad daylight.

And still, the mayor, the police commissioner, the state attorney general, and the U.S. Attorney are all continuing to allow Krasner to proceed with his radical social experiment that will only result in more gun violence and more deaths.

"Civil unrest only occurs in the African American community," Jacobs said. Because Krasner is being allowed to "recycle gun-toting criminals" on the streets of Philadelphia, Jacobs said, there will be more murders. And most of those murder victims, Jacobs said, "are going to be African American males."

Was does Krasner have to say about Jacobs' charge? As he has for more than a year, Krasner did not respond to a request for comment; neither did Jane Roh, Krasner's alleged spokesperson.

The Tuskegee charge against Krasner is something Jacobs repeated in an Oct. 6th letter to Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw. 

"You have stated you are saddened and sickened by the gun violence that took place in our city yesterday and over the weekend," Jacobs wrote the police commissioner after a recent press conference. "This is what happens when you allow a corrupt District Attorney’s Office to perform Tuskegee type experiments on OUR communities."

"We are not lab rats," Jacobs wrote. He reminded the police commissioner that when Krasner embarked on his radical experiment, many knew where it would lead.

"There is not one experienced law enforcement Officer who could not have predicted the correlation between the District Attorney’s Office corrupt policies and the increase in violence," Jacobs wrote the police commissioner, who has not responded to Jacobs' letter.

Jacobs, representing himself, filed his whistleblower lawsuit against the D.A.'s office on Oct. 4, 2019 in U.S. District Court.

On April 9, 2020, U.S. Judge Harvey Bartle III granted the city's request to dismiss Jacobs' lawsuit for allegedly not properly following the federal rules for civil procedure.

On Sept. 22, Jacobs filed his appeal brief before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to have his complaint reinstated. He's also seeking a public hearing before the appeals court.

Derrick Jacobs, known to colleagues as "Jake," was one of the detectives assigned to investigate the 2017 fatal police shooting of dirt biker David Jones.

The victim was black; Ryan Pownall, the officer who pulled the trigger, was white. Jacobs, who is black, did an investigation that exonerated Officer Pownall. 

"If it's a bad shooting, there's nothing you can do about it," Jacobs previously told Big Trial. He's a veteran detective of 20 years who formerly worked homicide before he was assigned to the Philly P.D.'s Officer Involved Shooting Investigation Unit.

"The facts are the facts," the detective told Big Trial previously, and "you can't get around them."

And what did the facts tell Detective Jacobs?

"Jones was armed," Jacobs said, and during the fight between the white cop and the black dirt biker. "Pownall believed he was shooting Jones to protect himself and possibly [a male witness] and his children as well."

But Jacobs' findings put him on a collision course with the D.A.'s office, led by Progressive Larry Krasner, who was intent on indicting Officer Pownall for murder. When Detective Jacobs got in the way, the detective claimed in his original complaint filed in federal court, the D.A.'s office threatened to arrest Jacobs, initiated a grand jury investigation against him, and then tried to intimidate the detective into remaining silent until Pownall's trial, scheduled for next April, was over.

In his complaint, Jacobs alleged that he "observed acts of prosecutorial misconduct on behalf of D.A. Lawrence Krasner and Assistant District Attorney Tracy Tripp."

"After reviewing the grand jury presentment against Police Officer Ryan Pownall, Detective Jacobs deduced, based on 20 years experience and the factual knowledge he possessed on the investigation, that only false, misleading or perjured testimony was presented to the grand jury in order to obtain an indictment" against Pownall, the complaint states.

"When Jacobs attempted to expose this corruption, criminal proceedings were initiated against Detective Derrick Jacobs by Assistant District Attorney Tracy Tripp and the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office," the lawsuit states.

"On Nov. 9, 2018, criminal proceedings were brought" against the detective, in the form of a grand jury investigation for allegedly leaking grand jury secrets, which would have amounted to contempt of court, Jacobs wrote. But the charge was patently ridiculous, because Jacobs had never appeared before the grand jury.

Nonetheless, the D.A.'s office "prosecuted Detective Derrick Jacobs . . in an effort to stop, deter and eliminate the detective from exposing exculpatory evidence in the prosecution of Police Officer Ryan Pownall," Jacobs wrote in his complaint.

In his appeals brief, Jacobs blasted Krasner and ADA Tripp.

"ADA Tripp is a cancer on the court," Jacobs wrote. "In less than a year, she violated her oath twice . . . First, she provided perjured testimony to the court to secure an indictment against Officer Pownall. Second, when Jacobs' attempted to expose her illicit acts, she provided perjured testimony to the court against Jacobs."

In a 37-page reply brief on behalf of the city of Philadelphia, dated Sept. 2nd, Assistant City Solictior Jennifer MacNaughton, senior attorney in the city law department's appeals unit, argues that Jacobs' claim of retaliation for his First Amendment right of freedom of speech is faulty because Jacobs and ADA Tripp were working together on the Pownall case. So whatever discussion occurred between Jacobs and Tripp wasn't protected by the First Amendment, because it was "fully within his [Jacobs'] job duties," MacNaughton wrote.

MacNaughton also argued that Jacobs' claim of malicious prosecution fails because he was never arrested, or subjected to an unreasonable seizure. MacNaughton also argues that the city is in the process of trying to fire Jacobs not because he's a whistleblower, but because he spoke out on a podcast about his case "without authorization" from the city.

In his appeal brief, Jacobs talks about his legal crusade, which he said was an attempt to expose corruption in the D.A.'s office. But instead, Jacobs said, his superiors in the police department have turned a blind eye to Krasner's corruption. Then, they conspired together to shoot the messenger. 

"Jacobs is a pro se litigant," the detective writes. "Jacobs does not have access to a West Law library. Jacobs does not have a staff of paralegals. Jacobs is not proficient in civil litigation. Jacobs was forced into this position by an army of corrupted city officials. Jacobs is on an island alone just armed with the facts and the truth."