ULISH CARTER
Shortly after his former bodyguard Fred Crawford Jr., a 25-year retired police officer, said the mayor knew about the debit cards drawn from a credit union account under investigation by the feds, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl announced he was not going to run for re-election, shortly after he had said he was running for re-election. What’s up with that?
First there was the announcement that he was standing by Police Chief Nate Harper. Then the next week he announced that he had asked for and received the chief’s resignation. So I guess he figured it would all end there?
But then came statements by his former bodyguard that the mayor knew about the debit cards because he and the mayor’s current bodyguards were given these cards. The mayor denied knowing about it and called Crawford a liar. But Crawford has stood by his statements.
What really bothered me about the Crawford article was that after listing Crawford’s accusations not only was the mayor’s denial listed but the writers went way back to the 1980s to talk about Crawford being sued for child support, then talked to a woman about his alleged affair outside his marriage with her. Now, what did that have to do with whether he was telling the truth or not about the mayor? If you are going to drag up that old news then drag up the fact that the mayor just recently went through a divorce in which there were allegations that he cheated. Does that make him a liar?
The issue should have stayed with the mayor and his former bodyguard calling each other liars. What in the world does child support in the ’80s or a relationship outside his marriage have to do with whether he’s telling the truth or not about this issue in 2013? And the same is true of the mayor. What happened between he and his ex-wife has nothing to do with this issue.
Once a liar, always a liar I guess is what they were trying to say in the paper. But that can go both ways.
The one good thing about the mayor stepping out of the race is that now the candidates for his seat will have to tell the voters why they should vote for them. What are they going to do to make Pittsburgh a better place to live, and what have they done?
A group of activists met last week to express what they believe should be the priorities of the new police chief. Well I believe the first priority must be to make sure there are a representative number of Blacks in every police recruiting class. Real diversity is not diversity if it does not include Blacks who make up over 30 percent of the population in Pittsburgh.
One of the things that upset Harper the most was that even though he took it on himself to actively recruit all over the country when it came time to hire, some way, somehow those Blacks were eliminated, even though some were hired in other cities. This was extremely frustrating to him because he truly believed that there was going to be more Blacks in the last class that ended up being only two.
Another area the new chief must continue to work on was also a priority of Harper, and that is Black on Black crime. The violence in the streets as well as the violence at social events must end, and it’s going to take some strong measures by the police, which may not be liked by some of the community, especially the thug families.
I consider Nate Harper to have been one of the best police chiefs we have had, if not the best, so whoever the new chief is, he’s going to have to keep most, if not all the programs Harper had in place plus adding more. Because Harper came from the Black community he legitimately cared about what happened and was working to improve police community relations as well as curtailing the violence in our communities. It’s a shame he wasn’t able to finish what he started.
With Harper gone, and most of the Blacks in high positions leaving within a year or two, we will go back to the token positions and the Jordan Miles incidents will once again become the norm instead of the exception with White officers disrespecting the Black community. As a Black man who surrounded himself with several Black officers Harper understood the problems and what needed to be done to correct them in the Black community but wasn’t able to make most of the changes he wanted because he didn’t get the support he needed from the top.
So since there will be a new mayor, and the new police chief should be selected by that new mayor, we had better make sure that everyone running for that seat is very clear on what they expect from their police chief and police department, and what commitment they are willing to make toward true diversity, which means making sure Blacks are hired on the police force at some ratio close to what their general population is in the city.
I’m still waiting for the FBI report on what they are charging the former police chief with, and what the money in the savings and loan account was spent on.
(Ulish Carter is the managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)