Mayor-elect O'Connor taps veteran officer Jason Lando as next Pittsburgh police chief

Pittsburgh Mayor-Elect Corey O’Connor on Thursday tapped Jason Lando, a 21-year Pittsburgh police veteran now running a police department in Maryland, as the next chief of the city’s 750-officer bureau at a time when it is struggling with low morale, leadership woes and staffing declines.

“I think you’ll see Chief Lando is somebody we’ve wanted and somebody we need in Pittsburgh,” O’Connor said as he introduced his pick during a press conference at his transition office inside the One Oxford Centre building Downtown.

Lando, a Pittsburgh native whose nomination must pass muster with City Council, said he wants to focus on Downtown safety.

“Once I hit the ground that’s going to be one of the big priorities,” Lando said.

Lando also said he believes in community policing and wants people to feel safe when they see police cars in their neighborhoods and be willing to speak with police after crimes.

“Building meaningful relationships with our communities is the only way we’re going to be successful,” Lando said, adding he hopes to build a robust wellness program for officers and connect with local youngsters.

O’Connor’s selection drew swift praise from South Side Councilman Bob Charland, whose district is home to the East Carson Street corridor that was plagued in early summer by unruly bar crowds.

“I’m thankful that Mayor-elect O’Connor made a choice that reflects the urgency of establishing stability at the top of the police department,” Charland said.

“Chief Lando brings deep connections with both Pittsburgh residents and Pittsburgh officers, along with a clear commitment to co-response and alternative response. I look forward to the opportunity for both myself and my district to get to know Chief Lando ahead of his interview with Pittsburgh City Council.”

‘Sidney Crosby kind of guy’

Lando, 48, grew up in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, near the police bureau’s Zone 4 station on Northumberland Street and a mile away from O’Connor, 41.

In 2018, their shared childhood neighborhood would become a notorious crime scene, site of the nation’s worst antisemitic attack. Lando, who is Jewish, led the police response to the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, where he attended services in his youth.

Lando served on Pittsburgh’s police force from 2000 to 2021. He walked his first beat in the Hill District and rose through the ranks, retiring two decades later as the commander of the bureau’s narcotics and vice unit.

Former police officers, civilians and activists applauded O’Connor’s choice and gushed about Lando.

“Jason is a Sidney Crosby kind of guy — he just gets law enforcement. He sees it from a different perspective,” said William Valenta, 64, of Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood, a long-retired Pittsburgh police commander who was a lieutenant when Lando joined the bureau.

“He understood the whole concept behind building trust — not just with the community but with his officers,” Valenta added. “Jason is very genuine — there’s no special sauce to it.”

Lando had been named one of three finalists in the national police-chief search Mayor Ed Gainey launched in 2022, which cost the city $80,000.

This time, there was no such hunt. Instead, O’Connor named his pick weeks before his swearing-in ceremony in January, finalizing a lengthy courtship process and addressing a critical concern.

Previously, Lando was edged out in 2023 by Larry Scirotto, another longtime Pittsburgh officer who had left the bureau to run a department in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Scirotto resigned amid controversy just 18 months later.

In all, five different people have led the police bureau during Gainey’s four years on Grant Street. Lando needs City Council’s approval before taking over.

During a televised debate in October, O’Connor said finding a new chief would be his “No. 1 priority.” Local experience was key, he added.

“First of all, we have to have a police chief who understands the city of Pittsburgh,” O’Connor said.

Months before voters elected O’Connor to take over after Gainey’s single term, many police officers and others in the police bureau’s orbit considered Lando’s appointment a safe bet.

Even the Republican in this year’s mayoral race — Tony Moreno, a retired Pittsburgh police officer himself — praised Lando. The perennial political outsider, however, also told TribLive he’s raised concerns with the police-chief nominee about returning to Pittsburgh.

“Jason Lando’s a great guy and he’d be a great chief,” Moreno told TribLive, shortly before Election Day.

“But I’ve told him not to come back,” Moreno added. “I said, ‘They’re not going to change their policies and you’re not going to be able to do what you want to do.”

Community connection

Lando has said he never grew out of his childhood dream of becoming a police officer.

A University of Pittsburgh alumnus and former flight paramedic, Lando joined the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police on May 15, 2000.

Five years later, on Dec. 17, 2005, WPGH-TV, Channel 53, aired an episode of the documentary show “Cops,” where Lando, then a detective, patrolled a beat flush with drug users and prostitutes.

Lando later earned a master’s degree in legal studies from what is now PennWest University-California.

Several Lando supporters said the police chief nominee defined his tenure as a Pittsburgh officer by touting a “community-minded” approach during his two years as Zone 5 commander.

That precinct consistently has the city’s highest crime rates and covers Pittsburgh’s East End neighborhoods: Bloomfield, East Hills, East Liberty, Friendship, Garfield, Highland Park, Homewood, Larimer, Lincoln-Lemington, Morningside, Stanton Heights. It also covers the Waterworks Mall near Aspinwall.

“He believed everything was community-based policy,” said Monica Watt, who led Highland Park Community Council during Lando’s watch. “(He thought) you really have to bring people together for the common good. And he was successful with it.”

Watt remembered how Lando regularly played basketball with kids at neighborhood schools. The games often culminated with pizza.

“It was all about trying to get them young and change their perception about what police do,” she said. “(He stressed) that the police are there for them, too.”

Retired Pittsburgh police officer Kim Stanley, who worked under Lando doing community outreach, remembered when a young mother was killed in the East End. The family didn’t have enough money to put the children in decent clothes for their mother’s funeral.

Lando stepped in and bought the clothing with his own money, she said.

“He is so great at wearing different hats,” said Stanley, 55, a Pittsburgh resident who retired in 2022 from a 27-year run on the city force.

“He can advocate for his officers while advocating for the citizens and not making it an ‘us versus them’ thing. I can’t imagine how anybody in a leadership position wouldn’t give their left arm to have him as chief.”

Retired Pittsburgh police Commander Karen Dixon recalled how she once introduced Lando at a community meeting in her precinct: “This is Commander Lando. This is the commander you wish you had.”

Zinna Scott saw Lando’s intensity while she served on the Zone 5 Public Safety Council.

Lando attended community meetings and open houses, Scott told TribLive. But he also showed up, sometimes when he wasn’t working, for things like dunk-tank fundraisers. If there was a neighborhood barbecue, Lando often brought the food.

“And he never wanted any recognition for doing it,” said Scott, who lives in Homewood. “He’d rather that nobody knew.”

Tale of two cities

Lando helped command the police response on Oct. 27, 2018, when a gunman opened fire at a Squirrel Hill synagogue, killing 11 worshippers during a Shabbat service.

Lando lived down the street when growing up in the neighborhood. He also attended services and celebrated his bar mitzvah at the synagogue.

His grandfather — Morris “Moe” Lebow, then in his late 90s — was a regular at the synagogue. Lando later told a reporter at the time he feared Lebow was inside the building and had been shot.

Lando continues to lecture throughout the U.S. about his work that day.

Lando started serving as chief in Frederick, Md. in the same month he retired from Pittsburgh police in 2021.

His hometown and his new town had similarities. Pittsburgh sat at the confluence of three rivers. Frederick, Md., the state’s second-largest city behind Baltimore, was built around the Monocacy River.

There also are the two O’Connors. Mayor Michael O’Connor was Lando’s boss in Maryland. In Pennsylvania, it will be Mayor Corey O’Connor.

In other ways, the two cities where Lando served differ greatly.

Pittsburgh has nearly four times the population and three times the poverty rate of Frederick, Md., census data shows. Even though staffing levels in Pittsburgh’s police bureau linger around a 20-year low, the force is still five times larger than the one Lando leads in Maryland.

Pittsburgh reported 42 homicides last year, a 19% drop from a year earlier. Frederick, Md. reported just two.

One community leader in Frederick, Md. said Lando’s interest in community policing played well there.

Lando has strengthened the 140-officer department’s presence in city schools, said Timika Thrasher, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Frederick County. But he’s also helped change the tone of the force. Officers follow the chief’s lead and engage with the public in a more empathetic way, she told TribLive.

“I feel you really have to meet people where they are — it’s about policing but it’s also about getting to know people first,” Thrasher told TribLive last year. “I think Chief Lando has done an amazing job of doing that.”

“I’m pretty thrilled he’s here,” she added. “I’m hoping nobody snatches him up.”

‘Doing something right’

If approved by City Council, Lando will inherit a beleaguered police force afflicted by staffing shortages, poor morale and an aging vehicle fleet.

A new mayoral administration also will begin in the midst of negotiations with the police union, whose officers’ three-year contract ends Dec. 31.

While homicides and non-fatal shootings have trended downward in Pittsburgh since the pandemic ended, perceptions around public safety remain tender — especially in Downtown Pittsburgh and the city’s bustling South Side entertainment district.

O’Connor repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail to improve public safety by focusing on police staffing. He also raised concerns that a merry-go-round of police brass had spurred instability among rank-and-file officers.

“If you’re an officer right now and you have different command staff every day, you’re getting different directions from everybody, especially when you’re on your fifth chief of police,” O’Connor told TribLive in May, before he ousted Gainey in the spring primary. “That’s just unacceptable.”

“You need a chief of police if you want to recruit new officers and retain our current officers,” O’Connor said during a primary-season debate. “Our officers have no direction right now from the police force.”

Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, thinks Lando might offer that stability and direction.

“The rank and file support (Lando) and like him,” Coghill, an O’Connor ally who chairs the governing body’s public safety committee, told TribLive. “He’s been holding that chief’s job down in Frederick, Md. so he’s obviously doing something right.”

“But, whoever the next chief is, they have their work cut out for them,” Coghill added.

Lando appeared confident he would get the job despite having to be approved by council. He said his last working day in Frederick is Dec. 5, and he plans to move to Pittsburgh the following day.

Pittsbugh this year allocated about $175,000 for the chief’s position; that salary is on track to rise to $180,000 next year.

That compares to the $187,273 Lando earned last year in Frederick, according to the website GovSalaries.com.

When Lando retired as a commander in Pittsburgh in 2021, his salary was of $108,996.37, bureau records show.