Pittsburgh Police are expanding their community engagement efforts with a new online information hub meant to connect people to officers who work in their neighborhoods. At a press conference Thursday, Police Chief Larry Scirotto said the effort falls in line with his vision of making community relations a responsibility of every officer.
“It's the responsibility of all of our officers to have that same level of connection and relationships with the members of our community,” he said. Previously, the bureau assigned community relations to a handful of dedicated officers.
“It was unfair to continue to place that responsibility on a small team when I have the resources of an entire organization,” Scirotto said. “It's just a way of resetting the way in which we think, trying to organically change the way in which police officers engage. And in that, I think we can move the needle in a real positive way.”
By involving officers from all around the city, Scirotto said the program will help make community policing a bureau-wide priority instead of placing the initiative on the shoulders of a few. Officers will go door to door to interact directly with residents in their neighborhoods.
“It's an opportunity for our officers to engage with community members where they are, in their neighborhoods, and make real connections based on the officers that respond to calls for service in those neighborhoods,” he said.
The Pittsburgh Police Cares website will list weekly crime statistics by police zone, provide information about community resources and contact information for officers by neighborhood.
Scirotto said he envisions residents relying on the Pittsburgh Police Cares web pages regularly to get info on community or police events. The bureau’s initiative is aimed at making police-community relations a two-way street.
“That's what neighborhood policing is supposed to be about — it’s about problem solving [and] connectivity together,” he said, adding that the program could create “a real opportunity for us to engage in a way that we haven't in a long time.”
The new initiative is an expansion of a pilot program that started in Zone 1 in the North Side. Cmdr. Shawn Malloy, who has led the program there, plans to add more information on each zone page to lead residents to resources like food pantries in their area.
“When we talk about community engagement and helping us, we need the neighbors and the community to help us,” Malloy said. “But neighbors don't know each other anymore. So they have to look out for each other.”
Improving police-community relations could start with a casual conversation, according to Malloy.
“With my officers, I was trying to tell them the idea just to get out there and meet people, right?” he said. “It's a simple word of just saying hello. You know, that starts the whole engagement, that starts building that trust.”
Community feedback on the program and on neighborhood policing as a whole will be important, according to Scirotto. The department plans to survey the community next year to gauge the program’s progress.
90.5 WESA’s Kiley Koscinski contributed to this report.
