City school police chief defends work, cites anti-terror training
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The suspended chief of the city school district's police force testified Wednesday that federal law enforcement counterterrorism training he has received contributed to his mindset when he pulled over an ambulance on Route 65 last July.
In defending his actions in the fourth day of a school district dismissal hearing, Chief Robert Fadzen said he had attended a seminar in which the FBI handed out booklets warning about the use of "cloned vehicles" by terrorists.
Such vehicles are look-alikes of official vehicles, such as mail trucks or buses, that terrorists may use to carry out attacks.
Chief Fadzen said one website, which he had been told to access at an FBI seminar, warned to be on the lookout for ambulances being driven by potential car bombers.
"I get paid to think that way," he said.
The district suspended the chief in September over the incident and is now trying to fire him, accusing him of repeatedly acting outside his authority.
Chief Fadzen said he pulled over the NorthWest EMS ambulance because it was driving erratically and dangerously in Downtown rush-hour traffic and maintains the district is out to get him.
Stacey Vernallis, special counsel to the administration, wrapped up her part of the case Wednesday. Chief Fadzen's lawyer, Ralston Jackson, will now present his defense, but no new hearing dates have been set.
The proceeding has strayed far from the actual traffic stop, with Ms. Vernallis trying to show that Chief Fadzen has engaged in a pattern of exceeding his authority and Mr. Jackson arguing that the chief is a trained law officer whose duty is to protect the district's students rather than its public image.
Mr. Fadzen spent much of Wednesday discussing his credentials and close ties with other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Pittsburgh police and the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office.
"I think I have an outstanding reputation," he said.
But he said the school district has often been at odds with how he does his job, ordering him to stop talking to the media and turn over investigations to Jody Spolar, head of the human relations department.
He said he was particularly angry about a sex assault allegation against a teacher in which a district guard, in violation of his policy of reporting all sex assaults to Pittsburgh police, instead told the principal of the school.
At one point he read excerpts from a letter of reprimand in which the district told him he was on the wrong "team," meaning he was closer to the district attorney's office and city police than to the administration.
First Published February 2, 2012 12:00 am
