Pittsburgh police release 2020 annual report; chief pledges transparency, accountability

The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police released the department’s annual report on Tuesday, a 169-page document giving a breakdown of everything from the race and gender of the city’s victims and offenders to the number of lawsuits filed and settled against the department and individual officers.

Chief Scott Schubert called 2020 a “challenging year on many levels.”

“But every challenge provides an opportunity,” Schubert said in a statement. “I believe we have an opportunity now to reevaluate and reconfigure how we think and operate as an organization and profession.”

The report, which encompasses all of 2020, comes just a week after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on all charges relating to the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man.

The data and narratives in the report are set against an unwritten backdrop of a year usurped by a pandemic and months of civil unrest, outrage and pleas for racial justice. In Pittsburgh, protests continued for weeks after Floyd’s killing. Protesters on one afternoon burned two police vehicles, and police used gas, smoke and projectiles against protesters in several different instances. The decision to use such methods on June 1 in the city’s East Liberty section led Mayor Bill Peduto to call for a review of the situation.

City council members were flooded with calls and emails demanding police reform and budget cuts in the weeks afterward. In December, dozens spoke at a virtual council meeting demanding the city cut its police budget by 50%.

Despite the turmoil and distrust, Schubert said, he remains “a firm believer” in community-oriented policing – that is, policing that grows positive relationships among police and community members.

“We recognize that our legitimacy largely depends on a mutual trust and respect between police and the communities we serve,” he said.

Crime in 2020

While homicide numbers increased in Pittsburgh last year, the three other violent crime metrics fell: the number of reported rapes from 82 to 41, reported robberies from 653 to 470, and aggravated assaults from 793 to 765.

Most property crimes also fell last year. The city saw drops in the number of burglaries and reports of theft and vehicle theft. The number of arson cases, however, rose from 96 in 2019 to 127 in 2020.

Combined, those violent and property crimes fell by 20% from 2019 to 2020.

Some measures of gun violence also rose last year. The number of aggravated assaults with guns rose slightly from 161 in 2019 to 180 in 2020. Non-fatal shootings also saw a small increase, from 146 in 2019 to 154 in 2020.

Calls for shots fired fell from 3,323 to 2,415.

The upticks last year have flowed into this year.

As of Tuesday, Pittsburgh police have investigated 23 homicides and around 50 non-fatal shootings this year. Those numbers represent an increase of more than 80% in homicides compared to the same time frame last year. It’s a 90% increase in shootings.

The Tribune-Review will be taking a deeper look at the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police’s 2020 annual report in the coming days.