Downtown Pittsburgh may soon see the law enforcement presence in the neighborhood tripled, according to a new public safety plan. Mayor Ed Gainey shared the first details about a series of safety initiatives in a letter to Downtown groups Thursday.
Gainey said the city has been working “to better understand what investments we need to make in order to have a Downtown where everyone feels safe and welcome and where the heart and soul of our great city can continue to thrive.”
The letter contains a list of plans for Downtown that pledges additional police, more frequent trash pickup and a new “public safety ambassador” program that will include 18 civilians assigned to help police handle “non-criminal nuisances and connecting people to mental health services.”
According to a Pittsburgh Police spokesperson, the bureau plans to create a dedicated Downtown public safety center “that will operate semi-autonomously under the direction of the Zone 2 Commander.” The beat officers will patrol the Central Business District primarily on foot and bicycle and will operate out of the Downtown station along Liberty Avenue. Officers on this beat will work alongside officers assigned to the larger police Zone 2, which includes Downtown, The Hill and Strip Districts and Lawrenceville.
The new downtown unit will be staffed by officers who volunteer to be reassigned, according to the spokesperson. “A solicitation has been sent out to all [Pittsburgh Police] personnel,” with a Feb. 17 deadline to apply, the bureau said.
The unit will operate seven days a week with two overlapping shifts, “effectively tripling the presence of officers during peak hours,” the bureau said.
The bureau nor the mayor clarified whether officers might ultimately be pulled from other zones to staff the new Downtown unit, a move that could raise further questions about an ongoing shortage of city police officers.
The department is budgeted to have 900 sworn officers but, according to the police union, it currently has fewer than 820.
According to a spokesperson for Mayor Gainey, the “tripled” police presence could also include support from Allegheny County, Pittsburgh Regional Transit and Point Park University — all of which have departments in the neighborhood.
But the police union wasn’t immediately supportive of the idea of overlapping police departments. At a City Council hearing earlier this week, FOP President Bob Swartzwelder pledged to file a labor law complaint if the city pursued relying on County officers downtown without union input.
Contract talks between the police union and Pittsburgh went into arbitration late last year.
The administration has taken heat from some residents and business owners who felt the city hasn’t acted quickly enough to address a string of fistfights, assaults and shootings. But in the Thursday letter, Gainey argued that an effective safety plan required time to develop.
“When I stood up last April and set a goal of zero gun homicides in our city, I did so because I wanted everyone in Pittsburgh to know that public safety was going to be one of our major priorities as an administration,” Gainey said.
“I knew that if we were going to meet this goal it would require long term systemic changes – the kind of changes that take serious investment and time to yield results.”
A spokesperson for the mayor said the city plans to unveil further details about the downtown public safety initiatives at a town hall meeting next week.
Gainey's letter claimed the new plans for Downtown were inspired by ideas from community groups and stakeholders. He called on those groups to continue offering their feedback as the city works “diligently to meet the challenges Downtown is facing.”
“While we are beginning to see some early results, we know that change will not happen overnight,” he wrote. “Our success can only happen if we work together.”
