Pa. lawmakers want to ban hired security from doing evictions after shooting of Philly tenant

State lawmakers from Philadelphia are proposing to ban private firms from enforcing evictions after a security contractor shot a 35-year-old woman during an attempted lockout Wednesday.

The move comes after a shooting that has brought Philadelphia’s unusual eviction system into the spotlight.

While most jurisdictions deploy sworn law enforcement personnel, such as sheriff deputies, to enforce evictions, Philadelphia outsources much of that work to a private, for-profit law firm, known as a Landlord-Tenant Officer. This firm in turn contracts out the work of serving court notices and performing tenant lockouts to armed security guards, known as deputy landlord-tenant officers.

That unique arrangement would be banned under legislation State Sens. Nikil Saval and Sharif Street plan to introduce. A bill the Philadelphia Democrats plan to introduce next month would amend state codes to clarify that courts across Pennsylvania “cannot empower private companies or individuals to perform evictions,” according to a statement.

Saval pointed to the lack of oversight for Philadelphia’s privately run Landlord-Tenant Office.

“When things like this happen, there is no accountability,” he said. “We should not have the matter of removing someone from their home — which is a fraught, tense, destabilizing experience — we need public oversight over it.”

Police officials said the deputy landlord-tenant officer arrived at the Girard Court Apartments, in North Philadelphia, around 9 a.m. Wednesday to serve an eviction writ to a couple who had lost a landlord-tenant dispute. Officials indicated the deputy became involved in an altercation with the two tenants, allegedly involving a knife, and discharged his firearm, striking a female tenant in the head.

She was hospitalized in critical condition but has since been upgraded to stable, police said Thursday.

The identity of the firing officer remains shielded while the Philadelphia Police Department investigates the incident as an officer-involved shooting, even though deputies are not sworn law enforcement personnel. And, unlike a typical officer-involved shooting — in which the Police Department identifies the officer within 72 hours — it has no responsibility to release a name in this case. The department said it would release the name if the shooter is criminally charged.

Jason Hendershot, a lieutenant in the Philadelphia Police Department’s officer-involved shooting unit, said this investigation is the first he’s conducted involving a deputy landlord-tenant officer.

His unit responded to the scene Wednesday believing they were investigating a sheriff’s deputy, highlighting ongoing confusion over Philadelphia’s practice of hiring privatized security personnel to enforce lockouts in addition to deputies.

Deputy landlord-tenant officers are equipped with body-worn cameras. Hendershot said investigators would turn over their findings to the District Attorney’s Office. District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office offered no further comment.

What began as an $8,000 dispute over back rent in 2021 dissolved into an agreement last May between the tenants and the landlord in which no money would be owed if the tenants moved out and the landlord made necessary repairs to the unit.

A judge in February denied the couple’s appeal to further delay their move-out date.

The eviction case was one of dozens at Girard Court Apartments in recent years.

The complex is owned by Odin Properties, which is among Philadelphia’s largest landlords. Owned by developer Philip Balderston and based in Philadelphia, its website advertises a full portfolio that encompasses some “10,000 apartments and 200,000 square feet of commercial space in 14 U.S. States.”

But a 2020 report from progressive advocacy group One PA also identified Odin as among “the highest evictors in Philadelphia,” having brought 470 eviction cases to Municipal Court in 2019.

Since the start of 2022, office addresses associated with Odin have appeared in at least another 727 different landlord tenant filings in Municipal Court. A typical month in Philadelphia sees between 1,500 and 2,000 eviction filings, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, a figure that does not include illegal evictions.

A spokesperson from the Department of Licenses and Inspections said building inspectors issued several violations to the Girard Court complex during a January inspection that stemmed from complaints about nonfunctional fire alarms. That case is still listed as unresolved.

An attorney for Odin did not return multiple phone calls.

Marisa Shuter, the attorney appointed to serve as the city’s landlord-tenant officer, has stayed mum since the incident. Saval said her silence around the shooting also made clear that the office does not meet government accountability standards — along with its failure to publicize its training requirements, staff lists, or use-of-force guidelines.

Mathieu Shapiro, an attorney for Shuter, said Thursday she had no plans to publicly discuss the incident.

“Given that this is a matter under investigation, we do not think that it is appropriate to make Ms. Shuter available for an interview,” he said.

Meanwhile, residents of the Girard Court Apartments expressed concern and outrage over their neighbor’s hospitalization.

Basheba Ahmed, who overheard the commotion Wednesday from his window in a nearby unit, said he worried about how future lockouts at the complex could unfold.

“She was shot during an eviction,” Ahmed said. “Where’s the civility in that?”