PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

If you are going to police us then you got to live with us.
by stephen donahue Wednesday, May. 04, 2005 at 12:34 PM

Move led by suburban Pittsburgh legislators would forbid residency requirements for police.

If it passes Pennsylvania Senate Bill 438 would mandate that no Pennsylvania municipality (city, borough, township or municipal authority) may require its police officers to be residents of the municipality in which they serve. Presently cities like Pittsburgh have such a requirement. SB 438 is being championed by lawmakers representing mostly suburban and rural areas of the state and by the Pennsylvania Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. This same measure has been tried in the past but so far has failed.

There is noting unusual or unfair about residency requirements for those who hold a public trust. The Governor of Pennsylvania must live in Pennsylvania. The mayor of Pittsburgh must live in Pittsburgh. The City Council members who write the laws for the city must also live in the city and so should those who enforce those laws
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Consider the grave public trust that a municipality places on law enforcement. They are given lethal power and put on the street to enforce the law. We give them greater power than the Mayor or the City Council that being the power to make arrests and to kill. So should law enforcement be required to live in the same community where they police? The answer is yes.

Proponents of SB 438 do not think that a police officer should have to see a person whom they might have arrested on another occasion at the local grocery check out line. Why not? An encounter like that is a good thing. Its all about a community.

Police officers take big risks and there is no denying that fact. Sometimes people want to get even with a cop and will make threats against them and their family members. Living in the suburbs does not necessarily remove that threat. A good sense of community will lessen the threat as will a relationship of trust between those policed and those doing the policing.

Trust is a big issue. There is an “us – them” mentality that is present between the policed and the police. It goes both ways. Residency requirements don’t fix this problem but just think how much worse it will get if most of the police in our city drive in from Butler County and Westmoreland County each day.

Lets be real about this. People in the suburbs have a generalized and broad based fear and dislike for those people who live in the city. Get a job at a downtown Pittsburgh office and then tell your new office mates that you live in Garfield and after you explain to them just where the Garfield neighborhood is located just watch their faces and listen to their words. They fear the city. They dislike the city.

Of course an over arching racist culture reinforces this urban phobia. Racism contributed to suburban development as much as the private automobile did.

Do residents of Pittsburgh want their law enforcement officers coming from that suburban milieu of mistrust, fear, and dislike for the city and its residents?

We hear a lot about “community oriented” policing as being the way to build trust and respect between law enforcement and the public. Well a prerequisite for community oriented policing should be that the police live in the community (city) which they police. (If I had my way the police would live in the very neighborhood which they police.)

Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy has said that he wants the Pittsburgh city police to live in the city and be invested in the life of the city. This is certainly not too much to ask. If Pittsburgh is a good enough place for the 330 thousand folks who reside here to live then it is a good enough place for those who police those same 330 thousand folks to also live.

The police deserve and need the best in pay, benefits and pensions. They should have strong collective bargaining. They should also live in the same municipality that they police.

We don’t want outsiders with guns coming into our city each day and telling us what to do. If you are going to police us then you got to live with us too.

Let municipalities decide for themselves about residency requirements. Harrisburg can butt out.

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good words
by Honus Friday, May. 20, 2005 at 11:43 AM

Very well spoken Mr. Donahue. I like how you pointed out that we don't want people coming into our city every day with guns. A public servant who does not know the public is less inclined to do them any service.

But I have a feeling that this is all in preparation for the wiping of the slate of pittsburgh via LEGISLATION, to rewaken the long lost city of Allegheny.

Wait till the Indians return to fight another war. Oh how nice the water round here tastes lately.

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