Police: High murder rate, new internal affairs probe did not impact homicide captain reassignment

PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) - Police say their decision to reassign the head of their homicide unit did not have to do with this year's murder rate, nor did the investigation into a troubling video of an officer that recently surfaced on social media.

Captain Sekou Kinebrew tells FOX 29, Captain John Ryan was reassigned to their major crimes unit, effective Friday.

While the change comes at the close of a year with the highest number of homicides in the city since 2007, Kinebrew says that was not a contributing factor.

Instead, he says, it is one of 50 command changes since promotions about two weeks ago.

"This was merely one of them, with promotions of course the chess board changes for Commissioner Ross' review and decision-making to determine who's the best fit," he says.

Kinebrew says despite the timing, it also has nothing to do with a video that started to circulate on Twitter.

He confirms it shows one of their officers making a racial slur towards the person recording.

Afterwards, you can hear the audio of what sounds like a fight, and the video briefly pans to the officer lying on the ground.

The poster claims the officer is not only assigned to the homicide unit, but was engaged in sexual misconduct before the fight on camera.

"We're certainly disturbed about what the video depicts," Kinebrew says.

Kinebrew says they are still investigating who took the video, as well as what happened before and after, but they have placed the officer on administrative duty which is standard protocol. At this time, they are not identifying the officer.

"We've got a lot of work ahead of us, we take it very seriously," he says.