January 26, 2010
Hon. Luke Ravenstahl, Mayor
City of Pittsburgh
512 City County Building
414 Grant Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Mr. Nate Harper, Chief
Pittsburgh Bureau of Police
1203 Western Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
Dear Mayor Ravenstahl & Chief Harper:
At the Saturday, January 23, 2010 Twelfth Annual Black & White Reunion Summit Against Racism held at East Liberty Church leadership from the Black & White Reunion Coordinating Council, the Black Political Empowerment (B-PEP) Planning Council and the Coalition Against Violence “Working Group”, supported by those in attendance at the Summit, made a decision to urge either desk duty or the suspension of the three police officers involved in the beating of eighteen year old CAPA honor student Jordan Miles by three undercover Pittsburgh Police officers. The Creative and Performing Arts High School senior was traveling between homes owned by his mother and his grandmother when the incident occurred. We cannot understand why the stopping of an unarmed young man would lead to such a terrible and unnecessary beating. On a personal note, I cannot remember in my more than forty years of community activism, seeing a picture much worse than that of the severely beaten face of Jordan Miles. I cannot fathom how the Pittsburgh Police, could in any reasonable way, defend the beating, stomping, choking and kicking of an unarmed 5’7” 150 pound teenager by THREE armed police officers. Some things, just on the surface, seem blatantly wrong! This seems to us to be one of those situations. Simply moving the police officers from their former undercover status to uniform status does NOT properly handle this very troubling situation. These officers are still on the street to possibly brutalize other innocent non-suspecting citizens. They must be taken off of the streets and they must be moved now, pending a full investigation of the incident by the Pittsburgh Office of Municipal Investigations and the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board (CPRB).
The irony of the timing of this incident is that it came days before the January 23rd Black & White Reunion’s 12th Annual Summit Against Racism, a summit which was created out of the chaos that followed the tragic death of Black businessman Jonny Gammage of October 12, 1995, an incident which many citizens in the Metropolitan Pittsburgh Region thought was a death, at the hands of area police, which should never have happened. When I first saw the pictures of a severely beaten Justin Miles, I immediately thought of the pictures shown of Jonny Gammage’s badly swollen face following his death almost fifteen years ago. As many Pittsburghers know Mr. Gammage’s death led to creation of the Citizen Police Review Board (CPRB), as well as significant policy and procedural changes in the operation of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police which came about from the 1997 Consent Decree forced by the lawsuit of the ACLU of Greater Pittsburgh, the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch and Parents Against Violence. As both of you are aware these were changes which led to police representatives from other police departments throughout the nation to visit the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to witness how these changes were being put into place.
For some time members of the Black Political Empowerment Project and the Black & White Reunion have called for either the codification of those changes brought about as a result of the 1997 to 2002 Federal Consent Decree, or the City’s adoption of Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission PLEAC. We were told, some time ago, by Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper and Beth Pittinger, Executive Director of the Citizen Police Review Board, that adopting the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission (PLEAC) policies and procedures might be a more workable solution to permanent change than codifying the 1997 Consent Decree policies and procedures. If that is indeed the case this incident makes it very clear that the time is NOW to adopt the PLEAC regulations. The Black Political Empowerment Project therefore requests that both of you along with support from the City Council of Pittsburgh move expeditiously to do so. It was the death of Jonny Gammage and the community activism around that death which led former Republican Governor Tom Ridge to call for the establishment of the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission (PLEAC). It is troubling that our own City of Pittsburgh has not yet adopted those important regulations, policies and procedures. It is important to note that both Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Police Department and the Duquesne University Police Department have adopted the PLEAC approach to policing, as has the Finley Township Police Department. The Finley Township Police Department even went further and in 2008 adopted the national Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agency standards. It would be great for Pittsburgh to do the same!
The possible abuse of the immense powers of area police is what helped initiate the formulation of the Black & White Reunion and the Black & White Reunion’s Annual Summits Against Racism. While all of us realize that police have a very difficult and dangerous job to perform, their job is to “protect and serve”, not to abuse and terrorize. We cannot help but wonder if this was a classic case of “racial profiling”, in this case “walking while Black”.
If this beating can happen to an honor student known to be a “good student” and a “good guy”, a young man with no criminal history, who is safe? It is time for the City of Pittsburgh and its Bureau of Police to re-examine its policies and procedures of how they interact with the citizens of Pittsburgh, and particularly with young Black males. Building confidence in our Pittsburgh Bureau of Police on the part of all citizens is the very best way to create positive police community relations. If the three police officers in question are found guilty of police abuse in this case we feel they should be fired.
Members of the B-PEP Planning Council, the Black & White Reunion Coordinating Council, the Coalition Against Violence “Working Group”, along with representatives of other groups, stand ready to meet with both of you to further discuss these issues.
Thank you for your consideration of our thoughts and recommendations.
Sincerely,
Tim Stevens, Chairman
The Black Political Empowerment Project
Co-convener, Coalition Against Violence