Former Pittsburgh police chief Robert McNeilly
	Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl

The Pittsburgh police chief at the time of the 2005 handcuffing of now-Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said yesterday that the incident should've been documented and that the mayor erred by arguing with an officer and then not going public with the details sooner.

The mayor responded that former chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr.'s comments are proof that the rumors that long swirled around the Halloween handcuffing were a political smear campaign.

"I made my comments yesterday that I think there are political people behind it," the mayor said, a day after giving his account of the incident. "I think some of those that came forward today just vindicate and validate my belief that this is politically motivated."

Chief McNeilly's wife, Cmdr. Catherine McNeilly, was demoted by Mr. Ravenstahl's chosen police chief, a move that was temporarily reversed by a federal judge.

Mr. Ravenstahl said Thursday that in the incident -- which took place in 2005 when he was a 25-year-old city councilman -- police Officer Mark A. Hoehn charged into a crowd outside a Steelers night game. Mr. Ravenstahl criticized Officer Hoehn, who cuffed him, brought him into the stadium, and then let him go.

The mayor denied being drunk, touching the officer or pulling strings to get off the hook. There was no report written of the incident.

Yesterday Officer Hoehn and Sgt. John H. Fisher Jr., who was present when the decision was made to let Mr. Ravenstahl go, would not comment. Both said they would only comment if told to do so by Chief Nate Harper, who could not be reached for comment.

Chief McNeilly, whose tenure with Pittsburgh's Police Bureau was ended by the late Mayor Bob O'Connor in January 2006, said he hadn't heard of the incident until reporters asked him about it in recent months. He now heads Elizabeth Township's police department.

"In a high-profile situation, everybody up the chain of command should've been notified," he said. That is the case even if the officer is working a private security job, as was Officer Hoehn.

"Some documentation should've been made," Chief McNeilly said.

"If they released him, they should've explained why they [handcuffed him]." Otherwise, he said, "Ravenstahl could've made the accusation that he was falsely arrested. That's a criminal, as well as civil, issue."

"There should've, at minimum, been a field contact report," said Elizabeth C. Pittinger, executive director of the Citizen Police Review Board. "This guy was restrained. He identified himself as an official. ... Just by virtue of that, they should've made a note of it."

Ms. Pittinger acknowledged that people are handcuffed and released without the filing of a report "all the time," and that's often appropriate.

Steelers spokesman Dave Lockett would not say what the team's security squad did during the incident, or whether they wrote a report. "The incident was handled the way all incidents are handled," he said. "I'm not going to get into the specifics."

The incident could have been prevented had Mr. Ravenstahl followed protocol, Chief McNeilly said.

"It's not his duty to yell at an officer, certainly not using vulgarity," said Chief McNeilly. "He should've gotten the officer's badge number and filed a complaint with [the city's Office of Municipal Investigations]. That's the mature way to handle it."

"Don't argue with a cop," said Ms. Pittinger.

Chief McNeilly said he was speaking out not because he was sore about his wife's demotion, but because the mayor put him in a bad position by not confronting rumors of the incident when they began swirling after the distribution of an anonymous fax in October. Chief McNeilly said reporters contacted him months ago about the incident, and he told them it was "urban legend."

"If he had been forthright with the media then, nobody would have come to me about it, and I wouldn't have looked like I didn't know what was going on," the chief said.

His wife, Cmdr. McNeilly, was demoted to lieutenant by Chief Harper. The demotion followed her Oct. 9 e-mail to City Council members and others suggesting that former city Operations Director Dennis Regan had quashed discipline against an officer, and she attached a disciplinary report related to that officer.

She filed an ongoing federal whistleblower lawsuit and was temporarily reinstated to the higher rank by Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose.

Mr. Ravenstahl's supporters have long viewed Cmdr. McNeilly's actions as part of a pattern of political activity. In 2001, she was reprimanded by Mayor Tom Murphy for sending a letter to 20 people urging them not to support Mr. O'Connor, who was in the midst of a losing mayoral campaign.