From the resignation of Former Police Chief Nate Harper to the debate over officers living within city limits, the Pittsburgh city police department has been a topic of criticism over the past year.
The latest issue is a recent report criticizing city police working side jobs. Post-Gazette reporters Jonathan Silver and Liz Navratil have covered the story in which they describe the situation surrounding the Toprani Report.
This report, authored by former Washington County District Attorney Steve Toprani, investigates the state of the policies and procedures set up to regulate police officers taking “side jobs,” or, employment outside of the bureau.
“Do I think this is a rampant problem in the department? It’s not. But if there are even a few officers operating outside this area, it poses the same risk of harm. And that’s what we’ve hoped to ameliorate by putting forward what I feel are very common sense recommendations that could be implemented to change the way the city policy does business,” explains Toprani, saying these changes could prevent any harmful conflicts of interest.
Silver says Pittsburgh's new Mayor Bill Peduto and his administration will play a large role in how the bureau proceeds.
“Clearly it’s a new day and new administration and a lot of it is going to come down to the will of him and his administration about how they want to clarify these policies, how they want to work on these going forward,” he adds that one of the biggest wild cards in the move forward will be who is named the next Pittsburgh city police chief.
