Although it wasn’t a surprise, Amera Gilchrist received a very special birthday present when, surrounded by friends and family, she was promoted to assistant chief of Pittsburgh’s Emergency Medical Service—becoming the only woman or African American to reach that rank.
But she said it wouldn’t have been possible if not for the people of Freedom House Ambulance Service—the all-Black service that invented modern EMS in the 1960s.
“It’s awesome,” she said of the Feb. 16 ceremony.
“But I can’t take all the credit. This is for all the people who came before me that pushed me to this position. Freedom House was the staple of this department. It’s because of all the men and women who worked there that I got to this point.”
Gilchrist, named a New Pittsburgh Courier Woman of Excellence in 2014, most recently served as district chief of EMS, where she supervised daily field operations. She joined EMS in 1999 and rose to crew chief, a capacity in which she served until 2013. She is completing her work on her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management at Robert Morris University.
Gilchrist said being the first African American and first woman to make assistant chief is very meaningful for her.
Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire
“I have two daughters that I’m trying to raise to be successful, intelligent women and I’m just trying to be for them what it means to work hard and achieve greatness,” she said.
“Being a mother and a Black woman and knowing there are not a lot of strong role models out there I want to be one for my children, the community, anybody. I need to let young people push to do the best they can.”
The ceremony, itself, marked the first joint promotion ceremony for Pittsburgh’s fire, police and EMS bureau command staff, and featured remarks from Pittsburgh’s Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich, Fire Chief Darryl Jones, EMS Chief Robert Farrow, Council President Bruce Kraus and Mayor Bill Peduto, who administered the oath to all the officers.
“Throughout your careers you have asked for more responsibility and have proven yourselves with each of these roles and chances to excel,” he said.
“Each of you has earned this. And we will put more resources into public safety. We now have the most police officers since 2004, the most medics since 2004 and the most firefighter since 2004. But we need more. And we’ll have a new state-of-the-art training facility in starting in 2019 where not just Pittsburgh officers, but officials from across the region can work together.”
In addition to Gilchrist, Lavonnie Bickerstaff followed in the footsteps of Gwen Elliott and Maurita Bryant, becoming the third Black woman to be named assistant chief of the Bureau of Police.
Joining the force in 1990, she rose quickly to sergeant, serving as a liaison for former Chief Robert McNeilly, and as a sergeant in Homicide, Robbery, Witness Protection and in the Office of Municipal Investigations. She earned promotion to Commander and in that capacity served in Major Crimes and most recently as commander of the Zone 1 station.
Also promoted to assistant chief were Lisa Kudrov, most recently Zone 2 commander, and Linda Rosato-Barone, formerly Narcotics commander. She will assist Hissrich and carry the additional title deputy Public Safety director.
During the ceremony, police Assistant Chief Thomas Stangrecki was promoted to deputy chief, Mark Larkin was promoted to district chief of EMS, and Norman Auvil, former Division Chief for Allegheny County Emergency Services; Bureau Director of Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency; District Chief for Pittsburgh Emergency Medical Services, was hired as assistant fire chief.
Lastly, acting chief of police Scott Schubert was officially sworn in as chief. He thanked the mayor for his trust and support, his mentors—including Elliott—the community for helping him build trust, and his fellow officers for doing what they do.
“You put your lives on the line each day for complete strangers and I thank you. I see amazing things ahead. We’ve stumbled and fallen over time but we always get up, and we’re never going o stop. We will always come to people’s aid and will treat people with dignity and respect when we do,” he said.
“I contemplated writing a speech, but considering how I felt, it would have taken hours—and there’s cake out there.”
With these promotions, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police command staff is now comprised of chief Scott Schubert; deputy chief Thomas Stangrecki; assistant chiefs Linda Rosato-Barone, Lavonnie Bickerstaff, Anna Kudrav, and Larry Scirotto; and executive officer Eric Holmes.
Executive Officer
As the mayor noted, and announced in a press release the next day, the Bureau of Police is now staffed at its highest level in more than a decade. With the swearing-in of new officers Feb. 17 at Police Headquarters, the city has 891 sworn officers. Another 30 recruits are in training, which will bring the number of officers up to 921, which is the greatest amount of officers since 2002.
The department’s annual report for 2016 is not complete, so the current demographics on race and gender are not yet available. According to the 2015 report of the Bureau’s 666 officers 83 were Black males and 35 were Black females.
(J.L. Martello contributed to this story.)
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