East Pittsburgh considers disbanding its police
East Pittsburgh officials may disband their police department in the wake of the fatal shooting by police in June of unarmed 17year-old Antwon Rose II.
Borough leaders discussed the possibility during a council meeting Tuesday, but said they don’t yet know which agency would take over policing in the borough of about 1,800 residents. Council President Dennis Simon told Pittsburgh Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV that a final decision has not been made on whether to dissolve the force and said the borough is considering financial, safety and practical concerns.
“We’ve been thinking about this for years, actually,” he said. “It’s something that’s been in progress for a long time.”
East Pittsburgh police Officer Michael Rosfeld, 30, was charged with homicide after he shot and killed Antwon as the teenager ran away from a June 19 traffic stop in the borough. Since then, East Pittsburgh has had several informal sessions with Allegheny County police to discuss whether the countywide department could take over for East Pittsburgh’s ninemember force, county police Superintendent Coleman McDonough said Wednesday.
He has had similar informal discussions with a handful of other municipalities since the high-profile shooting. But there are significant hurdles to consider for both county police and
the municipalities, particularly regarding manpower and finances, Superintendent M cD ono ugh said.
“To use a sports analogy, we don’t have a bench,” he said. “We have a fixed complement of officers in the Allegheny County police and we can’t simply reassign them to start policing a municipality effective tomorrow, especially for the longerterm.”
Although county police now provide 24/7 policing in Wilmerding, the agency would need to hire and train new officers in order to take on round-the-clock patrols in additional municipalities, Superintendent McDonoughsaid.
That process takes months.And it costs money.
“Our contract sets the salary and benefit rates for our officers and therein lies the rub — our rates are significantly higher than a lot of whatis paid by small municipalities who often employ part-time officers,” Superintendent McDonough said. “There is a big difference between what they pay now and what they would have to pay to have the same numberof county police.”
A first-year county police officer earns $59,082, which rises to $71,911 in the officer’s second year. The salaries of East Pittsburgh officers were not immediately clear — East Pittsburgh’s five borough council members, Mayor Louis Payne and his daughter, police Chief Lori Fruncek, did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
With more than 200 officers, county police are typically responsible for policing the airport and county parks; they conduct homicide, narcotics and general investigations in the county and examine crimes at the jail.
The agency hired three new officers and changed some existing roles in order to effectively police Wilmerding at the start of 2017, Superintendent McDonough said, where the county provides 24/7 coverage with one officer per shift. The borough paid the county a base fee of $250,000 for the first year of policing and the five-year contract calls for incremental increasesin that fee each year.
While Wilmerding is the only borough in the county that relies fully on county police, many municipalities in the state do not have their own police departments. Some contract with neighboring municipalities for services, while others are patrolled by Pennsylvania State Police, which is obligated by state law to provide day-to-day policing services for any municipality in the state that doesn’t have its own department or coverage from a regional department, according to spokesmanRyan Tarkowski.
Two of Allegheny County’s municipalities receive full-time coverage from state police — Haysville and Glenfield —while Fawn receives part-time coverage.
State police do not charge for that coverage, although they’d like to. Several times, the agency’s proposed budget has included plans for a “fee for service” for municipalities that rely full time on state police, but the Legislature has not passed the proposals,Mr. Tarkowski said.
Glenfield Mayor David Orbison said Wednesday that the borough of 200 relies on state police because it can’t afford its own police force, but that residents rarely need to call troopers becausecrime is rare.
“It’s a pretty tight community,” Mr. Orbison said. “Neighbors are very observant and very in contact witheach other.”
About half of the state’s 2,500 municipalities rely on state police full time, according to data provided by state police. In many counties, well over half of municipalities receive full-time coveragefrom state police.
Allegheny County has the most municipalities of any county in the state, according to state police data, but 98 percent of those municipalities police themselves.
It’s a system that Superintendent McDonough sees as problematic, particularly given disparities seen across local departments in training,pay and resources.
“I think something has to change,” he said. “It’s obvious that in many of the less affluent communities, it’s a model that is not sustainablein the long term.”
He added, however, that many local departments are able to provide excellent services and acknowledged that some residents prefer a local force.
East Pittsburgh officials said in June that they were reviewing their police department after the Allegheny County district attorney raised concerns about a lack of departmental policies addressing critical incidents like use of force.
When Allegheny County police took over in Wilmerding, the department made a careful effort to connect with locals by attending council meetings and offering outreach programs, Superintendent McDonough said.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “this is a conversation thatneeds to take place.”