Saying that Yeadon Police failed to uphold a couple policies and procedures on this day would be an understatement – numerous standard policies and procedures were violated and no, this is not an exaggeration. Shawn’s Miranda rights were not read. When the officers arrived at the police department with Shawn, the booking and processing took a total of 73 seconds before he was left abandoned in a cell. Yeadon Police does not have any previous lockup records for Shawn, meaning that no paper trail for Shawn exists whatsoever. The question remains if this incident is not only a systemic failure across the department, but also a more targeted act of malicious negligence.

Shawn was visibly distressed and afraid on multiple occasions throughout the video. The video shows Shawn asking for help on multiple occasions by waving directly at the camera at least ten times and trying to get someone’s attention by waving his hands outside of the cell bars. Lieutenant Burns was in charge of the monitoring cameras and unfortunately no one visibly responded to Shawn's cry for help.

Additionally, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer and the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) conducted a 3-day investigation based only on the officers’ testimonies and footage. No review of Yeadon Borough Police Department Policies was conducted. The officers were immediately cleared of any wrongdoing.

There is a very clear division between Yeadon’s Council members. Council meetings are rarely ever completed in their entirety due to premature adjournments. Yeadon Council has moved forward with decisions that the majority of council did not vote in favor of, such as the hiring of third-party Valori Group, based in New Jersey, to conduct a private investigation. Nonetheless, both Mayor Hepkins and Yeadon Council have publicly expressed support for an independent U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into this tragedy. The Mayor has made a formal request and the case is currently under review by the DOJ Civil Rights Division.

Officer Matt Barr intentionally drove through a crowd of protestors who were rallying outside of Yeadon Borough Hall for Shawn. An officer showing no remorse for his actions and putting the safety of the community that he is supposed to be protecting in harm’s way is unacceptable. This is an extreme safety hazard for a predominantly Black and Brown community. In addition, Yeadon Police's negligence and ignorance surrounding their department’s policies, as well as Lieutenant Burns’ negligent actions cost a young man his life. Shawn’s death could have been prevented. This could happen again if we do not take action now and we need your help to do it.

On November 8, 2022, a 34-year old BIPOC woman died by suicide while in the custody of Yeadon Police. She was taken into custody due to a domestic abuse dispute and needed immediate mental health services. She communicated with Yeadon Police multiple times that she would take her life if she was left unattended, which indicates that she was in the midst of a mental health crisis.

Unfortunately, her needs were completely dismissed and similar to Shawn Morcho, she was left hanging for a long period of time before Yeadon Police was able to resuscitate her. She was in a coma for 9 days and eventually passed away from severe brain damage on November 17, 2022.

Out of respect and based on the wishes of the victim’s family, we will not be publicly stating her name.

Yeadon Borough has now hired a new Police Chief, Henry Giammarco Jr., who was sworn in on January 31, 2023. Chief Giammarco has stated that he will work effortlessly to update policies to ensure that this does not happen again.

In addition, third-party Valori Group has completed their Efficiency Study on the Yeadon Police Department. The study is over 600 pages long and goes in-depth in regards to recommendations to improve their department. We are hoping that the full Efficiency Study will be released to the public soon.