PITTSBURGH — 11 Investigates has learned that contract employees in the city of Pittsburgh are required to have specific background checks and clearances before conducting work in a police station.
According to Chief Investigator Rick Earle, during a recent theft investigation at the shared medic/police station in the city’s West End, officers discovered that the contract plumbers hired to fix a leak didn’t have the proper background checks and should not have been in the police station.
A medic at the station in the West End, which shares a building with Pittsburgh police, filed the theft report.
The medic said someone took her personal Carhartt jacket from inside the building.
Pittsburgh police, with the help of surveillance video, initially suspected a contract plumber hired to fix a leak in the building.
When confronted by police, he denied it and said he was actually carrying out his own sweatshirt as seen on the surveillance video.
He even retrieved the sweatshirt from his car and showed it police.
While the investigation into the alleged theft continues, police discovered that the two contract workers didn’t have the proper background checks and clearances to work inside a police station.
Earle spoke about the clearance issue with the director of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board.
Earle: “How does this happen?”
Pittinger: “It’s beyond me. I mean, this is a caper we haven’t heard of in the past.”
Pittinger said there’s a reason background checks and clearances are required when working inside a police station.
According to multiple law enforcement sources, the contract workers had free access to come and go inside the station.
Pittinger said that’s a big concern.
“You have law enforcement sensitive information, evidence, you have weapons, you have reports that are confidential in nature, and they should not be available to eyes that are not authorized to be in that area,” Pittinger said.
Pittinger also said the background clearance issues exposed during the theft investigation raise troubling questions about the process and protocol for hiring contract workers.
“How did they get the job in the first place?” Pittinger said. “I mean that should be part of the authorization to do the work. Yes, you’re qualified, and that includes passing the appropriate background check.”
Those contract plumbers were not allowed back in the building.
Earle reached out to the Public Safety Department about all of this, and they are looking into it.
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