Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey championed police reform during his campaign and now faces the challenge of governing as a progressive leader. After nearly two years, he and his new police chief are at odds with activists and city-hired consultants who urge more drastic change.
July 19 had all the ingredients to be a landmark day for Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s no-longer-new administration. With his police chief installed after a yearlong search, the mayor announced a press conference to unveil the results of a lengthy police staffing study that had the potential to bring a major shakeup to the city’s Bureau of Police.
Instead, the report landed with a thud and some confusion. Gainey’s handpicked chief of police, Larry Scirotto, flatly rejected the report’s central finding that the bureau has too many patrol officers and should shift 188 of them to other, more specialized roles.
During the press conference, Gainey hailed the staffing study as a crucial document that would guide his police bureau into the future. But when Scirotto stepped to the podium, most of his time was spent talking about how and why he would disregard its key finding.
What will become of the $180,000 study’s recommendations is unclear.
Gainey, who was elected the city’s first Black mayor on the heels of the 2020 George Floyd protests and fierce calls for police reform, made it clear he is more or less giving Scirotto the keys to the department.
Read more: Consultants give Gainey plan to fix ‘overstaffed’ police, but new chief disagrees
Mayoral Press Secretary Olga George initially declined PublicSource’s request to interview Gainey, saying she did so on his behalf and without his knowledge. He was made aware of the request five days later after PublicSource renewed its request via email. Gainey did not grant an interview prior to the publication date of this article.
“I definitely thought we’d be further along,” said Brandi Fisher, leader of the Alliance for Police Accountability. “I don’t think there’s been much work done with policing. There’s been a lot of planning and a lot of talk about what’s going to be done.”
A mayoral spokesperson pointed to a new disciplinary system, ongoing recruit classes and crime numbers lower than last year’s abnormally high levels as signs of progress.
The city had the police staffing study report in hand long before July, Gainey said at the press conference, “but we wanted to wait until the chief came on so he had a chance to read it, understand it, tell us what he agrees with, which direction we need to go and, as chief, we will follow that direction.”
It’s not fully clear what parts of the study, if any, will be implemented. Scirotto said he agreed with the study’s recommendation to civilianize a number of officers, but his vision is to add civilian employees, not to replace existing armed officers with civilian roles, which is the study’s recommendation. He also suggested he would look at reallocating officer volume by time of day to better align with call volumes.
But without the city acting on the report’s recommendation to shift 188 officers out of patrol, and the numerous proposals that stem from it, reform advocates who helped get Gainey elected say the study is hardly a blueprint for major change to the police bureau.
“Folks who have been waiting are wondering when we’re going to see the changes we so desperately need,” said Bethany Hallam, a progressive county council member who was among few elected officials who backed Gainey’s 2021 campaign. “People are getting restless.”
