International Courant
A now-retired Pittsburgh police commander has been charged with utilizing police-issued body-worn cameras to illegally report different cops final 12 months, authorities mentioned.
Allegheny County police mentioned they had been requested in October to research after a body-worn digicam was discovered hidden in an unmarked Pittsburgh police automobile. Investigators later decided that a number of Zone 2 officers “had been recorded with out their information on cameras that had been positioned inside unmarked police automobiles,” county police mentioned Friday in a Fb submit.
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Former Zone 2 Commander Matthew Lackner, 50, was charged Friday with 4 third-degree felony counts of interception, disclosure or use of wire, digital or oral communications. Lackner has retired from the drive because the investigation started, officers mentioned.
The downtown Pittsburgh skyline at night time as photographed from the Riverwalk in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 26, 2016. (Picture By Raymond Boyd/Getty Photographs)
Investigators allege that Lackner used a minimum of 11 police-issued body-worn cameras to report officers a number of occasions between Sept. 27 and Oct. 4, capturing about 75 hours of recordings, based on a legal criticism.
Based on the criticism, Lackner advised officers he’d recorded that it was a part of a federal investigation of an unnamed particular person and ordered them to not converse of it once more, however county police mentioned federal authorities had confirmed that no such probe approved any such exercise. Authorities have not supplied one other clarification for Lackher’s alleged actions.
Requested Friday about Lackner, Pittsburgh police Chief Larry Scirotto mentioned “anybody that betrays the belief of our group is handled instantly,” the Tribune-Evaluate reported.
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Court docket paperwork don’t listing an lawyer representing Lackner; a quantity listed in his identify rang unanswered Monday after which disconnected. Robert Swartzwelder, president of police union Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 1, declined remark, the Tribune-Evaluate mentioned.
Retired Pittsburgh police commander charged with illegally recording officers
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