Two recent events — the mid-April Donald Trump rallies and Sunday’s Pittsburgh Marathon — created concerns about the public safety department’s preparedness to handle major events and will be the subject of reviews.
“We’ll be doing more after-actions on every type of event, whether it’s a scheduled event, whether it’s an unexpected event,” city Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said Wednesday. “There will be after actions across the department of public safety to include EMS, fire and police, not to hang anybody, but to figure out how we can make the improvements down the road.”
Wednesday’s comments came a day after police Chief Cameron McLay sent a letter to rank-and-file officers, apologizing for a failure in the planning phase of the marathon that led to officers having to work the event with “inadequate notice.”
Chief McLay took responsibility for the failure and said the matter was under investigation.
“In recent events, I recognized a vital disconnect; those who are responsible to command our events are not involved in the planning. This is a structural defect that can result in weak planning and poor execution,” he wrote.
The Pittsburgh Fraternal Order of Police took issue with the circumstances that led to officers working the marathon on short notice and will file an unfair labor practice complaint.
Following rallies for presidential candidate Donald Trump that brought thousands of supporters and protesters to Oakland and Downtown April 13, the FOP questioned why police leadership did not allow officers to wear riot gear.
“Apologies are nice,” said Bob Swartzwelder, police union president, “But I still have to protect my officers.”
The chief said he would make personnel changes to avoid future breakdowns in planning and execution. Those changes include assigning a commander to oversee the Special Deployment Division, which includes traffic, tactical and K-9 units, common elements used during major events.
“I’ll have a commander responsible for both the planning process and then on game day, that will be the same person who’s in charge of running the show,” he said.
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