Fitzgerald names 4 to Allegheny County police review board

Four people have been named to Allegheny County’s Independent Police Review Board, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced Friday.

The board receives and reviews allegations of misconduct filed by a person against a police officer working for any municipal police department or the county’s own force.

The four people chosen include:

• Former Pittsburgh police detective Stacey Hawthorne, owner of SH Polygraph Services LLC. Hawthorne is a certified polygraph examiner who retired from the police in 2019. According to a statement from the county, her last assignment was to the Internal Affairs Unit where her duties included investigating problem officers.

Hawthorne is a Pittsburgh resident. She will serve an initial three-year term.

• Coleman McDonough, a former superintendent of the Allegheny County Police who has also served as a municipal chief of police, worked with the Pennsylvania State Police and worked as a law enforcement coordinator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

McDonough currently teaches and serves on the Allegheny County Bar Association ad-hoc Committee for Police Reform. He is a Bethel Park resident and will serve an initial four-year term.

• Neville Township resident Robert Meinert will serve an initial one-year term. Meinert is senior investigator and partner of Cyber Protection Bureau LLC. He has previously served as a private investigator, manager of security, police officer, elected district judge and a detective.

A former adjunct professor at the Community College of Beaver County, he is also an instructor with the Allegheny County Police Academy, Pennsylvania Minor Judiciary School, and for Act 235 certification.

• Pittsburgh resident Rev. Regina Ragin-Dykes will serve an initial two-year term. She is the first vice president of the Pittsburgh Branch NAACP and pastor of New Life A.M.E. Church in Homewood. She has also worked as a workforce development specialist at the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and served as executive director at the Hazelwood YMCA.

The county said a search is underway for a ninth member.