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Tactical group given another year to gain better deployment

Friday, November 22, 2002

By Jonathan D. Silver, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Pittsburgh Police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr. is contemplating a radical change in the bureau's full-time SWAT team by making it a part-time unit or possibly disbanding it.

McNeilly has deferred his final decision for a year to give SWAT Cmdr. RaShall Brackney a chance to demonstrate that the team can be better deployed. SWAT principally responds to situations requiring tactical expertise.

"She promised us they would be more closely working with the communities than they have been. We gave her one year to show us," McNeilly said yesterday.

"If we can't show that they've really contributed to solving problems in the communities, they'll be realigned [in 2004]. It'll be up to the officers themselves to demonstrate they've made a contribution to the communities."

McNeilly's comments come in the midst of a controversial elimination of another part of the bureau, the Community Oriented Police program. Officers will be reassigned Jan. 1.

Instead of 70 COP officers assigned to specific neighborhoods, there will be 58 "community problem-solving" officers in each of the city's six police zones and 22 bicycle officers.

Rather than placing officers in specific neighborhoods, they will be directed to a community where problems have surfaced and then move on to another neighborhood after the problem has been solved.

McNeilly said the change in the COP program will eliminate a duplicate command structure and disabuse officers of the notion that some only fight crime while others only work with the community.

By moving the force's SWAT team away from full-time status, McNeilly would be falling in line with police departments around the country.

A part-time department is more the rule than the exception, according to Ron Watson, spokesman for the National Tactical Officers Association.

"By far, the vast majority of SWAT teams in the U.S. are part-time or even regional. We see a bunch of municipal police forces go on to form one team, and they're all part-time," Watson said. "Only the large cities typically have full-time SWAT teams --New York, L.A., Philly."

It is not unusual for police officers who receive SWAT training to handle other duties and be brought together only for training and to respond to emergencies, Watson said.

A survey of 2,027 police agencies conducted over the past several years by the tactical officers group revealed that 1,176 had SWAT teams. Of those departments, 576 responded to a questionnaire that showed 49 had full-time SWAT teams.

Mayor Tom Murphy's financial study panel, PGH 21, discussed consolidating police service such as the SWAT team, bomb squad and arson investigation with outside agencies. McNeilly said he would have to consult with the Fraternal Order of Police before handing city SWAT calls over to, say, the Allegheny County Police.

During the interview, McNeilly also talked about a final internal report about a high-profile SWAT incident early this year, the standoff with a gun-toting man on a Homewood roof during which the suspect and two police officers were shot and wounded.

McNeilly said the report highlighted communication breakdowns among police supervisors, suggested several policy changes and recommended disciplining two officers but would not identify them.

The incident covered by the report was a Feb. 20 standoff by Cecil Brookins on Hermitage Street. Brookins fled to the roof when narcotics detectives tried to serve warrants on him.

Cmdr. Dominic Costa of the Squirrel Hill station, a trained hostage negotiator, thought he had talked Brookins into surrendering when Brookins surprised him by drawing a hidden gun.

Brookins wounded Costa and former SWAT Officer Thomas Huerbin before another SWAT officer, Patrick Knepp, disabled him.

"He did his duties and he did them well," McNeilly said of Knepp.

The shooting sparked self-criticism by top police supervisors over how the incident was handled and a demand by the police union for an independent investigation. Questions have arisen about Costa's presence at the scene, his actions inside the house and his decision to not wear bulletproof clothing.

McNeilly declined to assign blame, but he allowed that there were lapses in communication among Assistant Chief Nathan Harper, who was in charge of the overall scene, Brackney and Costa.

McNeilly has held training for supervisors to address the problem and said an August hostage situation in Brookline in which SWAT became involved -- Knepp also shot and disabled the suspect in that case -- was an example of the right way to handle such incidents.

As a result of the Brookins shooting, McNeilly has ordered all officers working the inner perimeter of a standoff to wear bulletproof vests. In other changes, no one above the rank of sergeant is allowed to negotiate with a suspect, and negotiators are discouraged from speaking face-to-face with suspects.