PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is calling for a full investigation into the way crowds were dispersed in East Liberty following protests on Monday, June 1.
"In order to provide clarity to the actions that occurred that day and provide third party, independent, professional analysis and recommendations, I am requesting the Office of Municipal Investigations to conduct a full investigation into the actions in East Liberty on Monday, June 1, 2020," he wrote to OMI.
"For the past 36 hours, I have studied best practices of less lethal crowd dispersion, I have read countless comments on social media and viewed first-hand video, photographs and accounts. The Public Safety Director provided me with the written official transcripts of all Command operations during that day and I have talked with every person in the Command rank who was on the ground or in the Command Center. Without question, there is a difference of opinion about what happened that day and the appropriateness of the actions of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police."
According to several videos and eyewitness accounts, protesters are seen on Centre Avenue peacefully when authorities announced "I hereby declare this an unlawful assembly."
Protestors are seen holding their hands up chanting, "Our hands are up, don't shoot," and "This is not a riot."
Witnesses say tear gas was dispersed along with firing rubber bullets two minutes later.
Mayor Peduto's social media feeds have been flooded with video and eyewitness accounts.
The protest was announced unsafe by Pittsburgh Public Safety after a small group began breaking windows and throwing items at police once the initial protest was over.
Demonstrators were marching in East Liberty to speak out against violence and injustice in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota and others throughout the country, demanding urgent change.
Cognizant of the city's curfew order, march leaders promised the crowd "two more hours" as they paused in front of the East Liberty Target before winding to Bakery Square returning to End their peaceful march in front of backdrop of a wall with the words "Say Their Names" - a chain-link fence holding the names of dozens of victims of police brutality and violence. By 7:00, a majority of the demonstrators dispersed, but a few pockets of protestors remained, defying the 8:30 curfew order set in place and began vandalizing buildings along Centre and Negley.
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