Database of police misconduct launches in Pennsylvania

Police departments statewide must now use a database to track complaints and misconduct allegations against officers, a move meant to keep problem officers from moving from department to department.

The launch of the Police Misconduct Database comes one year after Gov. Tom Wolf signed the legislation into law. The legislation was championed and spearheaded by Attorney General Josh Shapiro after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, though the roots go back to the 2018 police shooting of Antwon Rose II.

“Police and community agree that officers with a pattern of misconduct do not make our community safer,” Shapiro said Wednesday at a news conference in his office in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. “They should not be allowed to go from department to department, and misconduct records need to follow those officers.”

The legislation requires all departments to participate in the database and input information on performance and disciplinary actions for each officer. Department heads must consult the database as part of a required background check when hiring.

“When I got this call (from Shapiro) a year-and-a-half ago, being Antwon’s mom, of course, I was leery,” said Michelle Kenney, whose son was shot and killed by a suburban Pittsburgh police officer in 2018. “I’m sure the public is leery as well.”

Michael Rosfeld, the former police officer who shot Rose, had just started work at the now-disbanded East Pittsburgh police department at the time of the shooting. He had been a University of Pittsburgh police officer from October 2012 through January 2018.

Questions arose in the aftermath of the shooting regarding Rosfeld’s reasons for leaving Pitt. Officially, he resigned, but it was only after he was suspended and presented with notice of his termination.

“I know the public is going to say, ‘Oh, it’s only a database, we still have work to do,’ ” Kenney said. “That is so true. But to get this database in the state of Pennsylvania — we have to admit it is groundbreaking.”

Pittsburgh police Chief Scott Schubert called the database long overdue.

“There’s no chief that’s frustrated more than when somebody retires before you can terminate them,” he said. “The lack of being able to share information with other police departments for fear of liability — this takes that all off the table.”

The database is not public — it is available only to law enforcement agencies. Shapiro said the transparency comes from the public knowing that decision-makers are required to review officers’ records before hiring them.

Kenney agreed.

“We will no longer have to worry about an officer being relocated to your neighborhood when you know he took a life in the neighborhood next to yours,” she said.