Mike McGrath [Chief of the Lower Merion Police] has single-handedly destroyed the integrity and reputation of the Lower Merion Police Department. Your officers deserve better. Yesterday morning, the brothers and sisters of the Lower Merion Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 28, voted unanimously, 73-0, to vote no-confidence for Mike McGrath.
Joe Braun, President of the Fraternal of Police.
Surrounded by about three-dozen officers of the Lower Merion Police Department (most in plain clothes but a few in uniform), Joe Braun (FOP President) blasted Chief Michael McGrath during “Public Privilege of Floor” during Wednesday night’s (September 21) Commissioners’ meeting.
Braun laid severa; complaints about McGrath’s leadership. According Braun:
- “Michael McGrath will circle the wagons for members of his command staff when it comes to matters of discipline but has no mercy when it comes to the Patrol Division. There was a Lieutenant who deliberately gave a new-hire candidate the answers to our oral interview … this was blatant and lying, not ‘over-coaching’ as Mike McGrath would have you to believe.”
- “The biggest calculated lie by Mike McGrath was coming to this board and the public, announcing that an officer was being suspended. He is a Lieutenant and a member of his command staff. In our hallways and in his unit, he is addressed as Lieutenant, not officer. He purposely put those actions on the shoulder of Patrol – again, to cover up the actions of his command staff.”
Braun told the commissioners that “this was a secret ballot, so no one felt pressured to disagree.”
Pennsylvania F.O.P. President, former Lower Merion F.O.P. President, Joe Regan
After Braun spoke, Joe Regan came to the podium. Regan is a retired Lower Merion Police officer who served for 28 years. He was a 4-term President of the F.O.P. Currently, Regan is President of the State F.O.P. “This type of action,” he said, “is taken very seriously. Many times it’s viewed as something of a last resort. I would ask you tonight to listen closely to all interested parties and do what’s best, if you would, for this organization of these police officers.”