Asked during his introductory press conference how he came to believe the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police was steeped in bad morale and distrusted by the community, incoming police Chief Cameron McLay was direct.
“I got that from all of you, the media. I’ve done my homework,” he said.
And as the first chief to ever come from outside the bureau, he said he will have lots more homework to do if he is to fulfill his boss Mayor Bill Peduto’s mandate of “restoring trust in the community and rebuilding morale within the bureau.”
Joined by the mayor and Public Safety Director Stephen Bucar, McLay, 56, laid out his general agenda for achieving those ends through leading by example, instituting a new era of community policing, and by instituting leadership the community can trust and the rank-and-file officers can respect.
“As police chief, my job will be to close the gap between the community and the bureau of police,” he said. “My first responsibility, my first priority is to restore the legitimacy of the police bureau—by number one, restoring the integrity of the accountability system.”
McLay, who most recently served as a leadership development consultant for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said accountability will be his watchword, from command staff all the way down to patrol officers.
Without that accountability, the bureau cannot expect to rely on the community cooperation needed to curtail the high level of homicides. And on that score, McLay said he would re-institute the dormant Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime, or PIRC.
“It’s my intention that we are going re-institute and re-implement PIRC because the shootings and the violence in our neighborhoods absolutely has to stop. The bureau will not only support PIRC, but lead.”
The program, designed by David Kennedy of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, basically uses a community/police carrot-and-stick approach to turn youth away from gang violence. The Pittsburgh police never did their part.
Asked what he would do to address the entrenched constituencies within the bureau who, like former Acting Chief Regina McDonald, said PIRC was “unenforceable,” McLay said they would be “held accountable.” He did not reveal any specific structural changes he plans, though he said it would involve retraining for command staff.
“A physician diagnoses before prescribing,” he said. “So I need to get my feet on the ground first.”
McLay said he would do that by visiting all the police zone stations, and by conducting surveys both in the community and internally. He said his approach will be data driven and—if he can get assistance with data collection and analysis—he will use that data to allocate resources wherever they are needed in as close to real-time as possible.
Even with a community that sees police using tactics that are “overbearing, abusive and even oppressive” and a dysfunctional bureau reeling from corruption scandals, he sees opportunity.
“I see a community that wants to have a relationship with the bureau. I see a mayor and a public safety director talking about change. There are so many who want to help,” he said. “That’s a huge opportunity.”
NAACP Pittsburgh Unit President Connie Parker said she will wait to see how the new chief works with the community before voicing an opinion.
“I’ll give him the opportunity to come in and do his job, and if he does a good job he’ll get respect from the department and the people he deserves,” she said. “But we’re glad the mayor chose to get someone from outside to come in.”
McLay, whose appointment still requires city council approval, is looking to live in Squirrel Hill where his first official day on the job was Sept. 15.
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
