Portland is not unique. Peduto’s police are no different from Trump’s gestapo. Peduto and the City of Pittsburgh allow their robocops to hide their identities and refuse to identify themselves to community members when asked. Peduto says he “opposes” Federal agents in Pittsburgh – which makes sense if he already has police in our city openly and anonymously terrorizing and surveilling Black community members, activists, and witnesses. Police that collaborate with Homeland Security, the DEA, and FBI to target, isolate, and detain our friends and family members.
Below is a redacted vs unredacted excerpt of Section 4.0 of PBP FORM 290, ORDER #: 42-13 (2/14/19) which outlines the Operational Guidelines of Pittsburgh’s “Special Response Team (SRT)” aka riot cops. It is unclear why the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police have attempted to redact these paragraphs, except maybe to hide fascistic policies that are both embarrassing and jeopardizing to their public image as crime-fighting comic book heroes – particularly in white imaginations. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police tried to hide its policies allowing its officers to hide their own identities. They didn’t do a good job of hiding it, so we thought we’d share with you all.
Hover and slide the divider below [] to view the unredacted version ⤵️
Hover and slide the divider [] above to view the unredacted version ⤴️
You can view and download the entire 42-13 Special Response Team policy here. (To view the redacted text, just copy and paste into a Word document).
DOWNLOAD
Anonymous riot cops and secret police are not new. We are reminded of COINTELPRO‘s presence in Pittsburgh. We are reminded that anonymous cop brigades evolved from execution firing squads: the identity of the state agent who fires the lethal shot is never to be revealed.
If local agents of state violence remain unidentifiable, then how do we keep them accountable?
While Bill Peduto praises the Pittsburgh Police’s collaboration with Trump’s FBI to arrest activists and alleged petty vandals via the Damage Assessment and Accountability Task Force (DAAT) –they’ve made no effort to identify the following agents of state violence.
We are asking for the public to help the Mayor find his courage and publicly identify these members of our city’s very own secret police:
Hover and click to view footage of the June 1st East Liberty police attacks:
