These types of units have a disturbing history of excessive force, corruption, and other abuses. The NYPD’s street crime unit was temporarily disbanded after one of its officers murdered Amadou Diallo in 1999. A similar unit in LA was responsible for the Rampart scandal. More recently, Memphis’ so-called SCORPION unit was shut down after five of its members beat Tyre Nichols to death in 2023. Scirotto claimed to have solved this problem when he created Pittsburgh’s version of SCORPION, telling city council “It can be done with the appropriate training, the appropriate selection of personnel and the appropriate oversight.”
The ex-chief’s strategy is now a little clearer – to select favored officers not long from the academy, who would presumably be less indoctrinated with an old-school culture of brutality and impunity, and more amenable to training in modern, constitutional policing. But if that was the plan, it obviously didn’t work. Dilimone reportedly smashed a full bottle of beer against a bouncers head in a drunken rage, after the group chased another patron out of the bar. If “violence prevention” detectives can’t even prevent themselves from committing violence in a bar after work, what are they like on duty?