After Pittsburgh police call in help to disperse South Side crowds, union president points to understaffing
The Pittsburgh police union says a recent incident on the South Side should be raising alarms about the level of police staffing in the city.
When the bars let out at 2 a.m. early Sunday, East Carson Street filled with an unruly crowd of 1,500 to 2,000 people. Pittsburgh police needed to call in officers from Monroeville, Shaler and Etna to form a line to clear the street. It's something the police union calls unprecedented.
"In my years of experience here, 32-plus years in the city, I've never seen us have to call outside agencies. We've never had to call in agencies to come in and do normal operational policing," said FOP President Robert Swartzwelder.
But because of understaffing, Swartzwelder believes this will be the first of many. In his room, he tracks how the bureau continues to lose more officers to retirements and resignations than it is training and hiring as new recruits. Today, he says there are just 664 officers working in the city — the lowest number anyone can remember.
"Is that a dangerous level?" KDKA-TV's Andy Sheehan asked.
"Perilously dangerous," Swartzwelder replied.
Councilman Anthony Coghill has been sounding the alarm about police staffing for years now and says it's reached a crisis stage. He blames the current and former administrations for pausing police hiring, saying now the city can't catch up.
"There were a lot of mistakes made starting going back to Bill Peduto not putting a recruitment class on. When the Gainey administration came in, they thought it was prudent not to put a class on," Coghill said.
In a statement, the Pittsburgh Public Safety Department denied current staffing levels put the public at risk and said recent efforts, including hiring a full-time recruitment officer, have resulted in close to 200 potential recruits in the pipeline.
"While police staffing is a challenge for most major police departments on a national and international level, the Pittsburgh Police Bureau is actively working on a number of initiatives to address recruitment and retention of officers."
The administration and the police union are in contract talks. The city is cash strapped, but Coghill says it needs to find a way to raise police pay and improve benefits to keep existing officers and attract new ones
"From what I understand, they're miles apart and that's not a good sign," he said.
