Groups deliver list of police reform demands

Defund police and fund black communities. End no-knock warrants. Create an independent civilian police review board.

These are just three of the dozen demands black activists from Pittsburgh and across Allegheny County delivered to Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto on Monday.

The Allegheny County Black Activist/Organizer Collective — comprising the groups 1Hood, Alliance for Police Accountability, Take Action Mon Valley and Okra Ethics, among others — convened a news conference on the portico of the

City-County Building, Downtown, before delivering the list of demands to the top offices in local government.

“The safest communities are not the ones with the most police, but the ones with the most resources,” said Jasiri X, CEO and co-founder of 1Hood.

The news conference follows weeks of sustained protests across the nation and locally after a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, for nearly nine minutes, killing him, while three other officers stood by. All four officers have been charged.

Protests have forced the conversation of police reform at the federal level and in local governments around the U.S.

Allegheny County has just over 100 police departments; reporting by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2018 revealed wide disparities in resources and policies among those departments. In Pittsburgh, the county’s largest municipality, 55% of city spending is on public safety, according to 2019 figures.

Mr. Peduto released a statement last week praising his administration’s work on racial equity; on June 4, he endorsed the national “8 Can’t Wait” campaign aimed at reforming use of force. The city’s police force already follows several of the guidelines.

“Those who are most affected should be the ones that are leading in the conversation,” Jasiri X said. “So when we’re talking about an issue where black people are being killed by police, and that’s what the focus of the protests are, then we should be the ones consulted around police reform. And we weren’t consulted around police reform when the mayor announced ‘8 Can’t Wait.’”

Rather, the collective is demanding the following:

• Defund the police and fund black communities.

• Demilitarize police.

• End the criminalization of black people.

• Remove police from schools.

• Make public all collective bargaining with police.

• Terminate Robert Swartzwelder from his job as president of the Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1.

• Disband all private police departments.

• End no-knock warrants.

• Cease partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

• End cash bail.

• Release all vulnerable individuals from jail.

• Create an independent fully funded police review board.

The activists criticize the “lack of urgency” on issues around police brutality and say more “reform and training [of police] aren’t going to make our communities safer,” said Miracle Jones, director of policy for 1Hood.

Brandi Fisher, head of the Alliance for Police Accountability, said budgets are a municipality’s “moral document.”

Allocating the majority of funds for public safety “shows us that your priority is to lock people up,” she said.

“We need these top officials that like to placate or have these attitudes that like to play into respectability politics to see us and understand our fervor and frustration and that fact that we will not be ignored,” said Brittani Murray, of Okra Ethics.

Neither Mr. Fitzgerald nor Mr. Peduto were present to accept the list of demands from activists.

The groups requested a response within seven days.

In a written statement, Mr. Fitzgerald’s office said “at first glance, many of these items are not ones to which the county can respond as they are under the purview of the state Legislature,” according to Amie Downs, county spokeswoman.

“We have and will continue to invest in black communities. The county executive has also made clear his support for the end of cash bail. Even prior to COVID-19, he has championed the need to reduce the population at the jail and has been supportive of the efforts of the Judicial branch in doing so during this pandemic,” the statement continued.

“He is proud of the work of the Public Defender’s Office which has assisted in the review of vulnerable populations at the jail for potential release and filed corresponding motions with the Court. He has also long been on record as supporting a Citizen Review Board but recognizes that it will take state action to expand its reach beyond just the county police. The legislation failed last year in County Council and although re-introduced in January, it has not been brought up by the Chair for consideration in Council’s Public Safety Committee yet. Unfortunately, an effort to pull that bill from committee and allow for its

“We need these top officials that like to placate or have these attitudes that like to play into respectability politics to see us and understand our fervor and frustration and that fact that we will not be ignored.” — Brittani Murray, Okra Ethics

consideration by the full Council failed this past week.”

County Councilwoman Olivia Bennett, DNorthview Heights and chair of the Public Safety Committee, was present with the activists Monday and said getting support for a countywide police review board is “like swimming upstream on both sides” of the aisle.

“Places like Crafton, Carnegie, Pine, Richland, Fox Chapel, Mt. Lebanon, those folks don’t seem to feel a need for a civilian police review board as folks in the inner city or folks in the Mon Valley do. So that’s the challenge, getting folks to understand we are representative of the whole county,” Ms. Bennett said.

“Mayor Peduto is thankful for this community input on reform measures, and calls for changes like these are the driving reason why he is creating the City’s Office of Community Health and Safety,” said Timothy McNulty, mayoral spokesman, in a statement, referring to the new office announced last week.

“Among the office’s tasks will be developing community health and safety priorities and areas of focus based on community input and areas of need most frequently encountered by public safety personnel, and establishing a group of community health and safety advisers made up of public health leaders to advise, educate, support and inform on best practices for sustainable social and health support in city programs, policies and legislation,” the statement continued.

“The mayor supports broader reforms being debated in Harrisburg, and locally is reviewing budgets and preparing more action that will be announced soon. The mayor’s office will carefully review the presented recommendations to identify what measures the city can unilaterally address versus those that will require state action.”

Officer Swartzwelder could not be reached for comment.