Author Archives: swineflupgh

2025/05/03

Three Vendors Qualify to Bid on Cop City

Months after its self-imposed deadline, Pittsburgh’s Office of Management and Budget has finally identified three contractors who are qualified to bid on the Gainey administration’s Cop City project, more formally known as the Public Safety Training Campus. According to an email received by Swine Flu Pittsburgh, the three firms are:

– Manns Woodward Studios, Inc., of Nottingham, Maryland.

– MCF Architecture, located at 437 Grant Street, Suite 1600 here in Pittsburgh.

– HDR Architecture, Inc., a global firm with a Pittsburgh office at 301 Grant Street, Suite 1700.

An associated Request for Proposals titled “2025-RFP-049: Public Safety Training Campus Phase I Master Planning” is referred to in one of the emails we received from the city in our Right to Know request. However, as of this writing no record of this RFP appears to be available in either Pittsburgh’s Beacon portal or their OpenGov account. More competent investigators than ourselves are encouraged to assist. We can be reached at 412swineflu AT riseup D0T net.

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2025/04/12

Highland Park Firing Range Likely To Be Permanent

By swineflupgh

A friendly reader has provided Swine Flu Pittsburgh with a trove of emails concerning the Cop City project, obtained from the Gainey administration via a Right to Know request. We are still in the process of sifting through them (attachments especially), and will post all relevant messages in the coming weeks. Some developments are becoming clear already, however. For starters, the administration has been purposely misleading Highland Park residents about replacing the outdoor police firing range.

For background, Pittsburgh is one of the only major cities in the US that trains its police on an outdoor shooting range near a residential neighborhood. The Highland Park range has been a thorn in the side of residents since at least 1989, but they have never convinced the city to transition to a quieter alternative, such as an indoor range or a more remote location. Emails from high ranking officials in the Gainey administration shed some light on the persistence of the outdoor range, as well as the administration’s approach to community relations.

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2025/01/17

WESA Teams Up with DA’s Office to Make Zionist Propaganda

By swineflupgh

Last Wednesday, WESA dropped a story entitled Allegheny County D.A.’s office offers ‘Combating Antisemitism’ training for universities, authored by one Matt Eidson. The story is about a seemingly inocuous training recently given by a seemingly benevolent nonprofit to local university officials on identifying and fighting antisemitism. The nonprofit, StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism, is described as ‘an international organization founded in 2001 that seeks to address “the continued rise of antisemitism within the culture and around the globe” through education and collaboration.’

Sounds perfectly worthy and unobjectional, doesn’t it? Who could possibly complain about education and collaboration in the service of addressing the continued rise of antisemitism? Unfortunately, StandWithUs’ Wikipedia page tells a very different story. There the group is revealed as a “right-wing, pro-Israel advocacy organization” that “actively works to counter Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns on campuses and beyond.” Elsewhere in the page we learn that SWU “does not believe the West Bank is occupied” and is ‘opposed to J Street, a self-declared “dovish” pro-Israel lobby.’

None of these positions is remotely hinted at in the WESA article. We are told however, that the training was specific to law enforcement, and that it was spearheaded by the deputy district attorney with the Violent Crimes, Firearms, and Narcotics Unit in the Allegheny County DA’s Office.

In addition to the misleading information the piece included, it is noteworthy for the context it left out. Let’s fill in some gaps. On the international level, the “continued rise of antisemitism” is in large part not antisemitism at all, but protests against Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and beyond. Here in Pittsburgh, the author makes no mention of the nearly two dozen people being prosecuted in connection with a Palestinian solidarity encampment at Pitt last June. Nor is there anything in the story about the two local white supremacists recently unmasked by Idavox. The pair are members of Patriot Front and White Lives Matter, two deeply antisemitic organizations.

Taking the above into account, it is clear that the SWU training was not simply a generic this-what-antisemitism-looks-like affair. Its purpose was obviously to mobilize university cops to repress pro-Palestinian speech on campus even more harshly that they do already, with the able assistance of the district attorney. That WESA, an ostensibly liberal outlet, is behind the piece is not too surprising in a time when many news organizations are caving in to Trump. That doesn’t mean we need to fall for such obvious deception.

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2024/12/10

Gainey Administration Planning a Cop City for Pittsburgh

By swineflupgh

The Gainey administration is planning to build a massive police training and administrative compound on the site of the former Veterans Administration hospital in Lincoln-Lemington. Local activists discovered a so-called request for qualifications web page inviting contractors to show they have the capacity to take on the project. An RFQ is the first step in the formal procurement process. According to the above-linked page, qualified vendors will receive a request for proposals by January 10th, 2025. The city is facing a May 2026 deadline to finalize a development plan as part of its agreement with the federal government to acquire the site.

Two documents linked on the RFQ page (re-hosted on this blog) reveal the scope of the project. Included in so-called Option B, the preferred approach, are a firing range, emergency vehicle driving course, and K-9 training facility, along with a burn tower for the Bureau of Fire and several other training and logistical operations. Of particular concern is the so-called Public Safety Training Village, which will incorporate “storefronts, low rise buildings and streets/intersections.” The “village” is an obvious attempt to imitate Atlanta’s Cop City, a training environment and mock city for riot cops that has sparked widespread opposition.

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2024/11/06

We have a Mastodon Account!

By swineflupgh

Please follow us on Mastodon at https://kolektiva.social/@swinefluPGH for all updates!

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2024/11/03

Chief Larry, We Hardly Knew Ye

By swineflupgh

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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