Pittsburgh council considers amendments to stop-and-frisk legislation

Pittsburgh City Council on Tuesday recommitted legislation outlining new regulations for stop-and-frisk incidents, meaning the measure will be discussed further and possibly amended before a final vote.

The measure requires police to document why they are stopping and searching a pedestrian before they do so. Officers will have to use a body-worn camera or vehicle-mounted recording device to document their reasonable suspicion for initiating a stop-and-frisk.

The measure, sponsored by Councilman Ricky Burgess, also requires that officers provide the pedestrian with documentation explaining their reason for the stop if a stop-and-frisk encounter does not result in an arrest. Exceptions will be made if “officer safety or confidential requirements” prevent officers from sharing such information.

Stop-and-frisk refers to incidents in which police stop, search or detain a pedestrian without a warrant.

When Burgess introduced the measure in January, he said he wanted to enact a policy that would reduce racial profiling in top-and-frisk incidents. He cited statistics showing that nearly 70% of such encounters occur with Black residents.

The measure does not eliminate stop-and-frisk, but rather seeks to ensure there is probable cause for the stops.

The legislation calls for the Bureau of Police to provide an annual review of the policy to the Department of Public Safety and City Council.

Burgess said he supported delaying a final vote on the measure to have further conversations about potential amendments that would improve the measure.

“There has been some community input of wanting to strengthen the bill and put more teeth in it,” he said.

The goal of the legislation, Burgess said, is to make the community feel protected against unwarranted stops and to bolster public confidence in police.

“The best way to improve public safety is to increase community confidence,” he said.

On Tuesday, Ralph Bangs, former associate director of the Center on Race and Racial Problems at the University of Pittsburgh, spoke to council members about tweaks he’d like to see them make to the bill.

His suggestions included ensuring reasonable suspicion used to initiate stop-and-frisks couldn’t be based solely on an officer using broad reasons, like an individual is acting “suspicious” or making “furtive movements” without more detailed reasons for the stop. It would also ensure that officers only frisk someone if they have “particular, individualized and objective information that a suspect is armed and dangerous.”

Other measures he recommended would require police to notify dispatchers before initiating the stop, activate body or car video recording before initiating the stop, provide their names and badge numbers to anyone they stop and file a full report for each stop, including demographics of the individual they stopped and a narrative detailing their reasonable suspicion.

“The problem with stop-and-frisks before was that police did not have reasonable suspicion and were stopping people because they were Black or they were in a high-crime area,” he said.

Tim Stevens, chairman and CEO of the Black Political Empowerment Project, also urged council members to pause the legislation to make additional changes.

“Make it a legislation that we can all be proud of and that will actually create the results we seek,” he said.

Stevens credited council for taking up the issue, and supported the idea behind it.

“For officers, if they are required to list why they are stopping someone, they are more likely to not stop people for inappropriate reasons,” he said. “This legislation is extremely important.”

Burgess said he would talk with members of the community and Public Safety officials about potential amendments. The measure will appear on Wednesday’s standing committee agenda, though Burgess said it will likely be held for a week or more to iron out details of potential changes.

When council members took a preliminary vote last week, Council President Theresa Kail-Smith said she would’ve preferred to pause the legislation until council could speak with local youth. Council members are planning to host a meeting with at-risk youth to hear their perspectives on public safety and violence prevention in the wake of a deadly shooting at an Airbnb early Easter morning that left two teens dead and nine more wounded.

It was unclear Tuesday whether that meeting would occur before the measure is passed, or whether input from that conversation would be considered.

This comes after City Council late last year passed legislation barring Pittsburgh police from initiating traffic stops for minor, secondary violations, like an improperly placed licenses plate or temporary tag, as long as it’s visible. Officers are not permitted to stop drivers when their registration, inspection or emissions stickers are expired by less than two months.

Burgess called the measures “companion” bills, driving at the same ideas around equitable policing.

“In many ways, it has the same goal, which is to give the community confidence that they are being treated fairly,” Burgess said.