Chief Nate Harper
Chief of Police
Police Bureau
 1203 Western Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15233 

Dear Chief Harper, 

Thank you for meeting with the Black Political Empowerment Project (B-PEP) and affiliated community groups on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008. We wanted to follow up with you regarding the discussion about accreditation. Several suggestions for moving forward with accreditation were given at the meeting.  You responded that the biggest obstacle to getting accreditation was the cost.  Yet it appears that a good, independent cost assessment has not been performed.  We would like to work jointly with City officials to assess precisely how much accreditation would cost, and then to consider the availability of non-City funding sources.  Some of the possibilities suggested at the meeting were to ask City Council to provide funding; get certified by the PLEAC (Instead of CALEA) in order to reduce costs; and find interns graduate students at local universities as a no-cost source for gathering and analyzing data.  

Since the tragic death of Jonny Gammage at the hands of several area police officers in 1995, the passion for improving police accountability and community-police relationships has been strong. In fact, the 1997 federal consent decree which caused Pittsburgh to be the first city in the nation to adopt strong standards for police conduct came about as a result of that passion. Among all cities in the nation, Pittsburgh should be among those who maintain those standards. Now that the consent decree has been lifted and there is no accreditation program despite City of Pittsburgh code (section 116.02-d), that passion is returning. We feel that in order to increase citizens' confidence and trust in the police to enforce the law while acting within the law, it is essential that an accreditation program be implemented, providing a yearly audit, and consideration of PCRB in the review process of incidents involving the investigation of police misconduct.  (See attached Exhibit 1.) 

We would like to know if you are willing to adopt the measures suggested at the January 10th B-PEP Planning Council meeting in order to move forward with implementing the accreditation program, the annual review, as well as support the addition to§ 160.01 REQUEST TO OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY Title One, Article VII: Procedures, Chapter 160: Investigations of Police Conduct, by adding § 160.02.  The Black Political Empowerment Project and many concerned citizens of Pittsburgh await your response. We stand ready to assist in this opportunity for a partnership for progress! 

Sincerely, 
 

Tim Stevens, Chairman

The Black Political Empowerment Project 

TS:lfb

cc: Ms. Beth Pittinger, Citizen Police Review Board

Atty. Vic Walczak, Legal Director, ACLU of Greater Pgh

The B-PEP Planning Council