Swine Flu Pittsburgh

2024/11/03

Chief Larry, We Hardly Knew Ye

Well, that was fast. Pittsburgh police chief Larry Scirotto has announced his resignation, barely a year and a half after taking the job. Unlike the departures of his two most recent predecessors, it’s not entirely clear why. Scirotto has not had any public disputes with the Fraternal Order of Police, mayor Ed Gainey, local activists, or any of Pittsburgh’s other movers and shakers. Sure, FOP president Bob Swartzwelder rants regularly about staffing levels and officer pay, but that’s normal, nothing that anyone would expect a chief to quit over.

On the surface of course, Scirotto resigned because he would rather continue his side job as a referee at college basketball games than continue as chief. Maybe it’s even true. Scirotto’s year off from refereeing last season may have reminded him how much he enjoys it, and with his pension from his previous career as a Pittsburgh cop locked in, he may well be financially secure enough to follow his heart. Maybe there’s more going on, though. We can never rule out behind-the-scenes conflicts and tensions in these cases, and if Scirotto was always so devoted to refereeing, why did he want the Pittsburgh chief’s job in the first place? One possibility is that he never intended to hold the position longer than it took to juice his pension (which increases with salary), but we can’t know for sure.

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2024/10/31

A Quick Look at the New Chief

By swineflupgh

Aaand this was our last post on the old platform. Stay tuned for a quick look at the “new chief’s” recent retirement. Originally published on May 29, 2023.

Please note that this post contains two links to articles in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. We regret the necessity of linking to an outlet whose writers and other employees are on strike, but the Wayback Machine is not working for the PG’s web site at time of writing and the links are essential to provide context for our piece.

It’s finally official. Last Tuesday the Pittsburgh City Council confirmed Larry Scirotto as the new chief of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police. While, as we’ve said before, it doesn’t make a lot of difference who is running the PBP, the process surrounding Scirotto’s selection is revealing.

For starters, we finally know what’s been going through former acting chief Thomas Stangrecki’s mind for the last five months. Back in January Stangrecki instructed his officers to ignore a city ordinance prohibiting them from using minor vehicle violations like tinted windows as pretexts for traffic stops, on the flimsy excuse that the ordinance was in violation of state law. This was an odd move from a man hoping to ascend to the permanent chief’s job. Why would he risk pissing off Mayor Gainey with such a blatantly defiant policy shift? Had Stangrecki been tipped off that he was out the running for the permanent spot and was lashing out in frustration? Or had he been informed that the job was his, that the search was a sham, and he was starting to reshape the PBP to his liking? We now know it was likely the former.

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2024/10/31

The Downtown Strategy: How Mayor Gainey is Exploiting Crime

By swineflupgh

A look at how the media and the mayor’s office uses petty crime for political gain. Originally published on February 16, 2023.

Last Thursday, in a highly anticipated “town hall” meeting with local residents and business owners, Mayor Gainey revealed his new plan to control crime downtown. In addition to the Allegheny Police officers who had already been deployed to the area, Gainey promised another 18 Pittsburgh officers and a larger downtown substation to replace or complement the existing facility at 600 Liberty Ave. The move was prompted by vociferous complaints from Pittsburgh’s Downtown Partnership, yuppie condo dwellers, as well as heavy coverage in the media of recent incidents, including shootings, in the area. Downtown crime, suddenly, was a huge problem that must be addressed immediately, before it spiraled out of control.

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2024/10/31

Agents of Recuperation Part One: The Crisis Response Stakeholders Group

By swineflupgh

We still haven’t gotten around to part two… Originally published on November 27, 2022.

Allegheny County’s so-called Crisis Response Stakeholder Group might be the most powerful local organization you’ve never heard of. We’d be tempted to call it a secret cabal, but it’s not, quite at least, a secret. The group first came to light in September 2020 in an investigative piece by Public Source’s Rich Lord, who revealed that its membership consisted of movers and shakers involved in law enforcement, philanthropy, and government in Allegheny County. None of the members would comment on its activities for the record, but Lord was able to piece together some basics using leaked documents and anonymous statements from sources close to the organization. CRSG hasn’t raised its profile much since. After its cover was blown, the county mounted a bare bones PR effort, but the group still largely remained under radar. It has never issued a press release under its own name, and has no social media presence. Subsequent press coverage of the organization has been notably sparse, with a followup article by Lord late last year being the only substantive mention.

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2024/10/31

Thanks, Trib Live!

By swineflupgh

This one was cute :). Originally published on November 22, 2018.

Well, this is fun. Trib Live wants us all to know how to defeat home monitoring devices, or at least it sure seems that way. They dropped a story on Friday about a guy who did just that, including a wealth of practical tips. A few takeaways:

The things malfunction often. “You get hundreds of false alerts,” according to a probation officer quoted in the piece. That of course makes it much harder to know when someone has disabled one.
Those ankle bracelets can sometimes be removed and put back on without cutting them. YMMV depending on make, model, and foot size, but still…
Even if you get caught, you can just blame it on faulty equipment.

Ankle bracelet wearers should be sure to read the whole article for full technical details.

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2024/10/31

Jailview Apartments: A Study in Social Control

By swineflupgh

Homeless shelters are part of the carceral landscape, just like prisons, jails, schools and psychiatric hospitals. This post goes into some detail about how that works locally, using the then-new shelter next to Allegheny County Jail as a case study. Originally published on November 18, 2022.

In the summer of 2021, news dropped that the city had broken ground on a new homeless shelter downtown. Unlike pretty much every other shelter in the county, this one was going to be a low barrier facility – open around the clock, welcoming to couples, with room to store belongings, and even open to those with cats or dogs. Nor was the facility to be just a roof above residents’ heads. Showers, laundry, a medical clinic, and a daytime hangout area open to all were also on offer. The opening date was not specified exactly, but was said to be sometime in the summer of 2022.

Less celebrated in the media were the drawbacks. No one under 18 would be admitted, and there were only 95 shelter beds, plus another 45 single room occupancy rooms for longer term stays, nowhere near enough to accommodate Allegheny County’s growing homeless population. Residents would be charged $525 a month for the SRO rooms. Worse, Pittsburgh’s practice of opening warming shelters in the winter would cease once the new facility came on line. Regardless, Second Avenue Commons, the new shelter’s official name, was greeted by many leftists and nonprofits as a positive development. In some ways they’re right, but looking at it from a viewpoint of counterinsurgency and social control reveals a darker aspect.

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2024/10/31

Getting Rid of Schubert Won’t Help

By swineflupgh

This was our first post, inspired by the departure of former Pittsburgh police chief Scott Schubert following Mayor Gainey’s ascension to office. Published originally on June 14, 2022.

Well, we won’t have Scott Schubert to kick around anymore. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police chief announced his retirement just hours ahead of an impending mayoral press conference to make a major announcement concerning the police. He is, of course, claiming that his decision was made far in advance of the press conference and that the timing was purely coincidental, and he might not even be lying. Speculation that Schubert’s job was on the line had been flying since new mayor Ed Gainey replaced Public Safety director Wendell Hissrich, and it intensified with the release of the new administration’s transition team report recommending Schubert be fired. Schubert’s announcement a mere 10 days later that he was taking a job with the FBI indicates he was likely circulating his resume well in advance of his “retirement.” Hell, he might have seen the writing on the wall as early as Gainey’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary last summer.

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2024/10/31

Welcome to the New Swine Flu Pittsburgh

By swineflupgh

Swine Flu Pittsburgh began in 2022 as an intermittent writing project looking at the underbelly of policing and social control in the Steel City. Recently, after experiencing technical difficulties with our old blogging platform, we decided to move to Noblogs and establish a social media presence. In the coming days we will be moving our old posts over to this site and publishing new ones. Stay tuned for further updates!

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