Why isn’t the Arnold police chief at work?

No one knows.

Well, the people of Arnold don’t know. The people who have placed Chief Josh Stanga on administrative leave obviously do know.

What they won’t do is divulge the reason, beyond Mayor Shannon Santucci stating that he is the target of an investigation by the state police and Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.

The state police won’t say what’s up — beyond saying they don’t confirm or comment on investigations until there are charges filed.

The attorney general’s office is equally mum. And it should be. Stanga should understand. His department should be just as tight-lipped about any investigation it conducts.

But the situation sits at an intersection. One road is the public’s right to know and the public’s need to have confidence in its law enforcement. The other is the two-way street of the responsibility to keep an investigation quiet for the sake of the investigation and not unfairly tar the reputation of a subject.

Once you put a public official — especially a police officer — on leave this way, the two-way street is a farce. The investigation is subject to public speculation whether anyone comments on it or not. The reputation is soaked in tar and just awaiting feathers.

The public has come to expect that police can betray their trust. It has happened too often.

Former Greensburg police chief Shawn Denning, 43, of Delmont pleaded guilty to federal drug crimes in April. His sentencing is set for December. Another former Greensburg officer, Regina McAtee, 51, of New Kensington, pleaded guilty to related crimes in May. She was suspended after Denning’s January 2023 arrest; after five months without pay, she retired and has received her pension despite her plea.

Police charged former Ligonier Valley chief John Berger, 52, with sex assault last month. That incident is unrelated to a May 2023 raid by federal Department of Homeland Security officials and state police. Berger was fired days later. No charges have been filed regarding that raid to date.

However, cases like Denning’s, McAtee’s and Berger’s are what come to mind when situations like Stanga’s arise.

A coy half-silence on an administrative leave does not serve the people. It leaves them in a limbo where they have no direction on who to trust. It does not serve the investigation as it says something is happening but leaves those doing the investigating in a no-win situation where they cannot confirm or deny.

And it is unfair to the subject of the investigation who is being both outed and obscured.

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