A Philadelphia police commissioner: ‘I felt disgusted’ after a cop nudged a fallen man, then drove off and left him to be hit by a car

Eugene Beauford was making his unsteady way along a bike lane in Philadelphia’s Olney neighborhood around 1:40 a.m. on Aug. 27 when a police officer pulled alongside him. Mid-conversation, Beauford went down. The officer got out to check on him, according to video obtained by NBC10, which shows him standing above Beauford on the ground and nudging him once with his shoe.

He climbed back into his car, pulled away, and left Beauford exactly where he’d fallen. Someone passing by noticed him a while later, stopped to talk, and moved on, with Beauford still stretched out at the border of the street and the bike lane. Less than five minutes after that, a green Kia Sportage cut into the bike lane to get around another vehicle, struck him, and kept going.

It took two passersby to finally pull him onto the curb and dial 911. The officer from earlier showed back up on that call, and according to authorities, he neither helped Beauford this time nor documented any of it in a report. Beauford didn’t survive the hospital trip that followed.

The commissioner didn’t hold back

Kevin Bethel, the city’s police commissioner, told reporters Monday the officer would serve a 30-day suspension before termination proceedings begin. “In those ethics, we specifically describe, ‘My fundamental duty is to serve the community and safeguard the lives and property.’ He did not do that on that day,” Bethel said, adding that the officer failed to show “the compassion and empathy required to serve with the department.” “I felt disgusted,” he said.

He’s a two-year veteran assigned to the 35th District whose name hasn’t been made public. First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford also condemned the officer at an earlier briefing, calling his conduct “against everything we stand for.” Police have since identified the driver of the Kia, but no arrest has been made and no charges have been filed. Beauford’s sister, Victoria Beauford, told NBC10: “No justice, no peace. No one should be left in the streets. Justice for Eugene Beauford.”

Pennsylvania law treats leaving the scene of a fatal crash as a serious felony on its own. Under 75 Pa.C.S. § 3742, a driver involved in an accident that causes death must stop, remain at the scene, and provide aid; if the victim dies, that’s a second-degree felony carrying a mandatory minimum of three years in prison and a $2,500 fine, with a maximum of 10 years and $25,000. Whether the driver of the Kia will be charged under this section, or at all, hasn’t been announced.

The officer’s own conduct raises a separate legal question civil rights lawyers call the state-created danger doctrine. Federal law generally doesn’t require police to protect anyone from harm, but the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, recognized an exception in Kneipp v. Tedder, a case with an unusually similar fact pattern: Philadelphia officers left a severely intoxicated woman to walk home alone, and she was later found with permanent injuries.

The court allowed a civil rights claim to proceed where an officer’s own actions created or worsened a dangerous situation, showed willful disregard for someone’s safety, and made a specific person more vulnerable to harm. A claim like that would target the officer and the city under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, separate from whatever internal discipline or criminal charges, if any, follow from this incident.