Changes to the Office of Emergency Management came under the direction of new Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich following internal reviews of the city’s response to a Donald Trump rally in April that resulted in three arrests and four injured police officers.
A committee of about 15 people from the police, fire and emergency medical services departments, plus a consultant, compiled an after-action report on the rally, reviewing items such as witness statements, emails and about four hours of radio communication, Mr. Hissrich said Wednesday.
Such after-action reports will be standard now, police Chief Cameron McLay said, and they will be made public. He would not, however, go into specifics of the Trump rally report at a news conference Wednesday, saying, “We have not finished processing it internally.”
Chief McLay said the predominant lesson learned concerned a breakdown of command and control.
“Police officers, regardless of our rank … when there starts to be an emergent threat toward the safety of other people … the tendency is to rush toward that scene and see what one can do to help,” Chief McLay said.
Immediately after the rally, the Fraternal Order of Police president questioned why officers were not allowed to wear riot gear, thus exposing themselves to possible danger.
“We have the gear, it just wasn’t allowed to be worn,” Officer Bob Swartzwelder said at the time. “Some high-level person made a command decision that it wasn’t going to be worn. Uniforms, your equipment, your formations, those are all command decisions. And my officers are concerned about it.”
Mr. Hissrich said Wednesday that he believes command and control problems had been rectified.
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Officer Swartzwelder said in response.
The police department will utilize a new crowd management team for tonight’s game, Chief McLay said. The new system should be completely in place for the Fourth of July weekend, when Billy Joel and Kenny Chesney concerts are coming to town.
“The decision was made that the emergency management office will now oversee all planning from start to finish, to include an after-action. This will not only include special events pre-planned but any type of natural or man-made disaster, i.e., a hazardous material incident, railroad derailment, active shooter situation,” Mr. Hissrich said.
Police, fire and EMS will take a unified approach to planning for those events, he said, something that hasn’t occurred in the past.
“What I observed was basically that police would create their own plan. Fire created their own plan. EMS created their own plan. Then approximately several days before, if we had that time advantage, we would all come together” and try to iron out contradictions, Mr. Hissrich said.
Now, a police commander, an assistant fire chief and a member of the EMS command staff will oversee the office’s daily operations and have a staff to conduct planning, Mr. Hissrich said. He would not name those officials Wednesday, but he said fire Chief Darryl Jones is in charge of the office for now.
After a 41-year career with the city, Ray DeMichiei had his last day as emergency management coordinator May 27.
Now, the incident commander of the unified command will fall to one person in fire, police or EMS, and can change throughout a situation, he said. For example, during an active-shooter situation, police would be in charge, but that could give way to needing a mass-casualty response, which EMS would lead, he said.
Funding for the office won’t change, Mr. Hissrich said.
The new plans follow the National Incident Management System and National Response Framework, all in keeping with Homeland Security Presidential Policy directives. If major events, such as a national nominating convention, come to Pittsburgh, it allows local authorities to “be on the same sheet of music,” Mr. Hissrich said.
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