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Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto answers media questions with Mayor Ed Gainey Thursday, August 24, 2023, regarding Wednesday’s fatal police standoff in Garfield.
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Editorial: Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto is nixing community relations in favor of throwback policing

Sebastian Foltz/Post-Gazette

Editorial: Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto is nixing community relations in favor of throwback policing

The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police under Mayor Ed Gainey and Chief Larry Scirotto is abandoning community engagement in favor of a Street Crimes Unit (SCU) along the lines of the disbanded SCORPION unit of the Memphis Police, whose officers were charged in the death of Tyre Nichols. 

The internal solicitation for officers to join the unit, reviewed by the Post-Gazette Editorial Board, explicitly indicates that the unit will participate in “community engagement” for the purpose of intelligence gathering, not trust building. This move is being combined with dismantling the Bureau’s existing community relations infrastructure.

Taken together, these moves reflect the challenges facing a department experiencing the worst staffing crisis in its history, but also a choice of priorities that contradicts Mr. Gainey’s promise, and Mr. Scirotto’s, to focus on enhancing community-police relations.

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Throwback policing

Across the country, street crimes units are growing in both number and controversy. These units, as the internal PBP solicitation obtained by the Post-Gazette Editorial Board explains, “conduct intelligence-led deterrence policing in hot spot areas.” They are “highly proactive,” which means they are looking to disrupt criminal activity before it occurs.

It’s not impossible for such units to succeed, and many departments around the country boast of the guns and drugs their SCUs apprehend, and the number of arrests they make. But they are also considered throwbacks to an earlier, Dirty Harry style of policing that is the polar opposite of the reform promised by Mr. Gainey and Mr. Scirotto.

The “hot spot” proactive approach almost guarantees a disproportionate number of arrests, often for low-level offenses, will be of people of color — exactly the approach that exacerbates the current disparity that Black Pittsburghers are more than six times more likely to be arrested than white residents. While it may appear to decrease crime in the short run, bringing more Black men into the criminal justice system — rather than rooting out the deeper causes of violence — will only further destabilize communities in the long run.

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Further, these independent units tend to develop ends-justify-the-means cultures, unless they are subject to exacting oversight. In Baton Rouge, the BRAVE (Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination) unit allegedly set up a warehouse torture chamber (the “Brave Cave”) before being disbanded. And in Memphis, SCORPION (Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods) became known for abusive behavior, before five officers brutally beat Tyre Nichols in January of this year. The Department of Justice has indicted the officers, and the Memphis Police has disbanded SCORPION.

The trouble with SCUs can be seen right in the PBP document, which explains that Pittsburgh’s unit “will also work toward community engagement.” But the purpose of that “engagement,” such as “attending youth basketball and football games,” won’t be to build trust for its own sake, but to scout for criminals. It sets up a fundamentally antagonistic relationship with the community, rather than one of partnership.

It’s clear that, with manpower dwindling, Mr. Scirotto is choosing to emphasize high-impact — but also high-risk — throwback policing, rather than true community engagement.

A deepening crisis

When the Editorial Board first reported on the staffing crisis — and the Gainey administration’s hesitant response to it — in March, the Bureau had 811 sworn personnel. Eight months later, it is down to 776, reflecting 41 resignations and 25 retirements so far this year. Up to 20 more officers are scheduled to retire before the end of the year, bringing the total annual attrition to more than 10% of the force.

Despite having funding for a police academy class in 2022, Mr. Gainey only opened his first class of recruits in July 2023. Of the 27 original members of that class, 25 remain. A second class of 20 began recently. Therefore, the best case scenario is that 45 new officers will be ready for next summer and fall — but by that point, the staffing crisis will have deepened to a devastating degree.

Early in his tenure, Mr. Scirotto testified to City Council that his force would be restored to 870 in 2024. Then, in September’s preliminary budget, Mr. Gainey allotted funds for 850 officers. Unless the chief plans to manufacture 100 police officers in a laboratory, both of these numbers are fanciful.

Nixing community relations

Lacking the capacity to fulfill all the Bureau’s responsibilities, in part due to Mr. Gainey’s inattentiveness, Mr. Scirotto has been forced to make hard choices about his priorities. Community relations, despite being a marquee promise of both the Mayor and the Chief, is on the chopping block.

The Community Engagement Office is being disbanded. The office, founded under former Mayor Bill Peduto, undertook community outreach projects such as an annual “Cops and Kids Camp,” which demystified policing, brought officers and families together, and laid the foundation for young people to consider law enforcement as a career.

Further, the number of Community Resource Officers — who have specialized training in relationship-building and who participate in events such as community meetings, “chess with cops” and library storytimes — has been reduced from three to one per zone, for a total of six across the entire Bureau.

Mr. Scirotto has explained that community engagement is the job of every officer, and that is true. But that doesn’t remove the need for specialists, any more than the fact that every member of a hockey team is responsible for defense removes the need for specialized defenders. If everyone is responsible for community relations, then, in practice, no one is.

Except, apparently, the SCU officers, who build relationships for the purpose of scoring arrests. Mayor Gainey and Chief Scirotto are setting a course toward a much smaller, and much less progressive, Pittsburgh police force.

First Published: November 12, 2023, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: November 12, 2023, 11:37 p.m.

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Sebastian Foltz/Post-Gazette
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