Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey held a town hall in Homewood Thursday night to hear residents’ thoughts on the ongoing search for a new police chief.
Former police chief Scott Schubert left the bureau in July to take a job with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the meantime, former deputy police chief Thomas Stangrecki is serving as the acting chief of police.
Broken into small groups, attendees discussed the need for a new chief who takes diversity seriously, both in recruiting new officers and community policing.
Homewood resident Jackie Hill told members of the search committee that a new chief must understand communities of color, and take into account cultural differences.
“They see kids hanging on the corner, and that’s a cultural norm to some degree,” Hill explained. “But [police] see it as a bunch of chaos, confusion, they getting ready to get in trouble.”
Hill was among several residents Thursday who urged that the new police chief be someone who lives within the city.
According to deputy mayor Jake Pawlak, the new police chief will be required to live within city limits, unlike most officers.
That, however, adds some limitations to the search. Gainey said many officers who would make good candidates for chief own homes outside the city and wouldn’t be willing to relocate for the role.
If he was able to, the mayor said Thursday, he would have hired former Pittsburgh Police commander and chief of staff Eric Holmes, a member of the mayor’s search committee, to serve as the new police chief.
Holmes, however, lives outside the city and left the bureau in April to serve as the police chief and director of safety at Duquesne University.
Finding a chief to fit the Gainey administration’s values
Thursday’s meeting was the fourth in a series of community engagement meetings on the police chief search. Gainey said there hasn’t been a clear consensus in any of the groups on whether residents would prefer an officer already in the department, or one coming from outside of it.
The last time the city selected a police chief from outside the department was in 2014, when then-Mayor Bill Peduto hired Cameron McLay of Madison, Wis. to lead the force.
McLay resigned just two years later after months of controversy and conflict within the police bureau. McLay faced a series of bitter disagreements with the police union, which voted that it had no confidence in him shortly before he left.
“We just want the best candidate. You know, I said that from the beginning. We want the best candidate, whether that's internally, externally,” Gainey said. “The one who fits our values of policing, that's what we want.”
Upon entering office in January, Gainey promised residents he would reform policing throughout the city, with a particular commitment to community policing.
The Gainey administration has taken some steps to change the police recruitment process. Last month at a separate meeting at Homewood’s Community Empowerment Association, Gainey announced the city would relax education requirements for police recruits.
The Pittsburgh police bureau previously required applicants to come into the academy with 60 college credits, the equivalent of an associate degree. Gainey’s administration said the decision to remove that mandate would help the city boost and diversify its force.
In his plan to target gun violence citywide, Gainey also outlined police initiatives that would restructure certain response procedures. The plan includes an expansion of the bureau’s crisis response intervention teams, which pair officers with social workers to respond to certain incident calls. Other measures in the “Plan for Peace” include the creation of 80 city hubs for emergency services and a post-overdose response unit.
Much of the work of a new police chief, Gainey stressed several times on Thursday, is to curb gun violence.
The message came hours after Pittsburgh Police said a request to provide officers at a North Shore funeral service last week where gun violence erupted was not fulfilled.
Two males have since been arrested and charged with attempted homicide for the shooting, in which five people suffered gunshot wounds outside the service at the Destiny of Faith Church and a sixth was injured while trying to escape.
Acting Police Chief Stangrecki said in a statement that the department has initiated an internal investigation into why officers were not provided to the church, and that disciplinary actions would follow as warranted.
Ayodeji Young of Homewood said whoever is selected to lead the police force in the future must commit to hold all police officers accountable.
“When you say you’re a police officer, are you just policing us, or are you policing everybody?” Young asked.
Gainey told residents he would not tolerate any police officers who are found to be associated with white supremacist groups, and that he will fire officers acting wrongly.
Many residents applauded that notion, but also questioned the ability of the city to do so under the current restrictions of police arbitration. State law requires the arbitration panel for police personnel disputes to include three people: one appointed by the public employer, one appointed by the representative body of policemen involved, and a third neutral member.
“A lot of times officers do get fired, but then they go to arbitration and they get their jobs back, and there’s nothing the city can do,” Gainey said. “Now, for me, I’ll fire them anyway.”
Gainey said he hopes to have a new chief picked before the end the of the year, but doesn’t want to be ”under such a rush that we make the wrong decision."
“Of course we want to honor that timeline,” Gainey continued, “but if it comes due to different situations that are unforeseen and we have to improvise, we will.”
The city is working with a search firm to recruit candidates for the position but has not yet begun accepting applications.
Another town hall on the police chief search will be held online on Saturday. Residents can also share their thoughts with the city via a community survey.
