Council introduces ban on ‘no-knock’ warrants

Police say no need

Five Pittsburgh City Council members want to make certain Pittsburgh police officers physically knock on a door and announce themselves when serving a warrant.

While so-called “no-knock” warrants — a police tactic that employs forced entry without notice — are already banned by commonwealth law, according to Public Safety officials, council members Ricky Burgess, Daniel Lavelle, Erika Strassburger, Bobby Wilson and Bruce Kraus introduced a bill Tuesday that would write the rule into city code.

“This is a continuation of the Black Pittsburgh Matters agenda about reimagining policing,” Mr. Burgess said in a written statement, referring to an initiative he announced over the summer as protests against police brutality erupted across the nation and in Pittsburgh.

“No-knock warrants are a risk both to police officers and private citizens. This kind of legalized home invasion can quickly become deadly . ... We must ensure that no-knock warrants are banned in the city of Pittsburgh,” he said.

Black Lives Matter demonstrators over the summer said the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman killed during a no-knock raid in her Louisville, Ky., home,

underscored the need for banning the practice. In the following months, “Breonna’s Law” bills gained traction across the nation.

Pittsburgh police “do not authorize no-knock warrants. The Bureau has always followed the Rules of Criminal Procedure of the PA Consolidated Statutes, which requires police to knock and announce their identity and purpose,” said a bureau spokeswoman in a written response.

However, the rule “is not currently codified in the [bureau’s] policies and procedures,” she further said.

Community members lauding the introduction of the bill include the Pittsburghbased Alliance for Police Accountability, an organization that drafted the language with help from the American Civil Liberties Union.

“We are happy to see that City Council has grasped the necessity of this proposal,” Brandi Fisher, the alliance’s president and CEO, said in a news release. “This is a victory for the thousands of people currently circulating petitions to pass Breonna’s Law, though only a first step. We look forward to seeing this ordinance passed into law as written.”

Ms. Strassburger said there is “clearly community support for this . ... Hopefully, it’s successful in council.”

The bill has the mayor’s backing.

“Pittsburgh police do not use no-knock warrants, but Mayor Peduto supports council’s bill cementing the ban,” said Timothy

McNulty, mayoral spokesman.

The proposal follows a similar pattern of police reform bills approved by council in July in which the legislative body codified bureau standards or rules. Included in the five bills passed was a ban on chokeholds — already prohibited by the bureau’s use-of-force policy unless officers are “involved in a deadly encounter” — and a ban on Pittsburgh police receiving military surplus equipment, which Public Safety officials say hasn’t been in the bureau’s possession since 2007.

Robert Swartzwelder, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge 1, the union representing Pittsburgh officers, said, “It’s a violation of the PA state rules to conduct a no-knock warrant. Why City Council [introduced] it symbolically? That’s better answered by them.”

“We’re told by police that this is policy, but this is leaving nothing to chance,” Ms. Strassburger said.