Pittsburgh Police Announces They Will No Longer Respond to Calls That Are Not Ongoing Emergencies

Thanks to low recruitment numbers in recent years, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has announced that they will no longer respond to early morning calls that are not ongoing emergencies, and not everyone thinks it’s such a good idea.

Chief Scriotto explained that, from now on, any phone calls made to the police station between 3:00 AM and 7:00 AM that are not on-going emergencies will not be picked up by an officer but, instead, sent to a telephone reporting unit. Otherwise known as an answering machine.

If it is, their call will be forwarded to an on-duty officer; if not, it will go straight to voicemail. Then, at 7:00 AM the officer scheduled to work the desk will listen to the voicemails and send officers as needed to assess any potential crimes.

This means that if a car has already been stolen, a burglar has come and gone, etc., the police will not arrive on the scene to investigate until the next day.

Therefore, in order for police to respond to an alarm, they now “require there to be a second verification, a second authentication factor, such as it’s not just the front door, if there’s interior motion, there’s video, there’s audio, there’s glass break,” said Scirotto.

Historically, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has anywhere between 850 to 990 officers on staff, but as of March 2024, there are only about 740. And according to Scriotto, his officers are simply worn out.

But that doesn’t mean Swartzwelder wholeheartedly believes that Scriotto’s plan is the best course of action. He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “I think the strategy at this point is a hope and a prayer that they can base everyone on data. It may pan out to be correct. It may be disastrous.”

To combat this crime downtown, a public safety center was opened in the neighborhood. This center is designed to help reduce crime by being staffed with officers and social workers 24/7.

For example, now the center only has 16 officers on duty in the facility from 8 a.m. to midnight every single day — a walk back from the 24/7 on-duty team that some people thought they were getting.

Just last year, the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy released a report stating that rising crime in downtown Pittsburgh remained “perhaps the most pressing matter before the city and county.”

And continued, “Is there any other large city in the country that’s a part-time police department? I mean, does that make any sense to any of you guys? It doesn’t to me.”

Mayor Gainey said, “The chief has made clear that there was a cutback, but there was going to be patrolmen there, and there would be patrol people ready to go, so again, that’s why I’m saying you’ve always got to talk to the person that’s implementing the new rules. That’s the chief or the public safety director.”

Rich Cupka, the owner of Cupka Café 2, is not a fan of what the police are doing. “The whole city of Pittsburgh is at risk,” Cupka told CBS News.

One local explained that they’d been told by police before that they could not help, even though someone was trying to break into their car one night. As a result, this latest move simply makes some locals once again feel that the police are not responding to crimes that occur in their neighborhoods.

“I think a lot of the calls that can come can be handled through the telephone as they’re proposing it, but I just have concerns that they aren’t enough police officers,” Judy Hackel explained.

“We have to see how it’s going to work out, but I know it’s been tried in other places, and it seems successful, so we’re just going to have to see how it goes,” Frank Monaco said.

Although it’s too soon to tell what effects these new changes will have on the city, some are wondering if crime will increase, especially during the early morning hours when they know officers aren’t there to respond.

Scirotto said that now, between 3:00 AM and 7:00 AM, there will be between 25 and 30 officers in the city. And went on to say, “Average night, we’d have seven officers out on the road in each zone, so [we had] like 42 officers, generally. We cut 12. People think I cut 112.”

If it doesn’t work and crime increases or residents continue to feel unsafe, the plan will, of course, be scrapped. However, if it does work, it may change the way other police departments suffering from staff shortages run their precincts in the near future.

In response to these allegations, he explained that the restructuring had to be done. “We are doing our job to keep the city safe, the residents within it and our officers,” Scirotto said. “To do that, you have to make informed decisions.”

The bureau is undergoing a restructuring that will introduce new policies to the force. This includes the introduction of four-day work weeks for officers. Officers will now work four days a week for 10 hours each shift.

This team will also help them understand all that they have to do when applying for this position, such as undergoing background checks and psychological evaluations.

“These are the steps applicants have to go through just to GET to the academy,” Cruz explained. “This is where the bureau loses a significant amount of the applicants before they even sit in the Academy at day one. This is where the new recruitment team will be placing much of its focus.”

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, almost 200 officers are eligible to retire with full benefits in upcoming months. The paper believes that at least 100 will do so by summer, driving home the staffing shortage problem within the department.