Mayor Peduto, Pittsburgh public safety leaders address protest arrest in Oakland

What was meant to be a “low-visibility arrest” of a protester by plainclothes officers in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood Saturday turned into a social media firestorm, pushing Mayor Bill Peduto to call a news conference Sunday to express his concerns over the incident while police leadership explained why they thought their tactics were necessary.

“I was very uncomfortable,” Peduto said of watching the arrest unfold on television and social media. “I saw it like anybody else saw it: Why are we having plainclothes officers in an unmarked vehicle arrest somebody through a ‘pop-out tactic?’ ”

The arrest of 24-year-old Matthew Cartier came several hours into a protest that began about 3:15 p.m. on Walnut Street in Shadyside. Social media video showed officers not in uniform emerge from an unmarked van and pull Cartier inside.

Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Ed Trapp alleged Cartier was blocking an intersection unnecessarily, stepping in front of cars and attempting to direct traffic during the protest.

“We began to fear — and we’ve seen it before — they were going to turn cars into traffic and they’re going to cause an accident, cause a pedestrian to get run over, something like that,” he said.

Just a quick reminder: Abducting protesters off the street, as officers did yesterday in your city, isn't just flat-out wrong — it's a violation of your own policies.

We need answers. https://t.co/k21bMpOqDF

— ACLU (@ACLU) August 16, 2020

Trapp said officers — including Sgt. Donald Mitchell of the Civil Affairs Unit — asked Cartier to move the line of bicycles he was directing out of the intersection.

“We attempted to have the individual in question move his line of bicycles about 25 feet back to open up the intersection of Fifth Avenue and North Dithridge Street,” Mitchell said, noting hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students were moving onto campus Saturday.

“He refused,” Mitchell continued, “not on one occasion but on several occasions, saying that he does not listen to police.”

Sgt. Mitchell, of the PBP’s civil affairs unit, on the arrest of the protester yesterday. pic.twitter.com/b3d9CFdfrx

— Megan Guza (@meganguzaTrib) August 16, 2020

Mitchell said the main concern was for anyone who might be trying to get a loved one to one of the nearby hospitals.

The decision was made, Trapp said, to go with a “low-visibility arrest” when Cartier continued attempting to direct traffic and block the intersection.

“When high-visibility stuff takes place with these marches, it tends to attract a crowd and incite things further,” he said.

Looking for an opportunity to arrest Cartier away from the main body of the march also gave time for the arrest to be called off “if he started cooperating,” Trapp said.

Cartier faces charges of disorderly conduct, failure to disperse and obstructing the roadway, according to online court records. He was arraigned about 1:30 a.m. Sunday and released on his own recognizance.

A person on Twitter identifying himself as the man who was arrested by the plainclothes officers said in a series of tweets that officers in the unmarked van approached him and “lured me closer by pretending to need directions around the march.”

He continued: “The actions taken by the city’s police department and tacitly endorsed by (Peduto) are horrifying. Every protester must now live in fear of getting grabbed by the police in such a violent and terrifying manner.”

Cmdr. Trapp on the same incident pic.twitter.com/9vlOHWls49

— Megan Guza (@meganguzaTrib) August 16, 2020

Chief Scott Schubert said that’s not the case.

He said a lack of communication between protest leaders and police has contributed to some of the tense moments during protests in the weeks since George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was killed by police in Minneapolis on May 25, touching off protests around the country.

“We do everything we can to help ensure that people have the First Amendment right to express themselves,” Schubert said.

Officials said the Civil Affairs Team has had some success in coordinating with some protest leaders about the route beforehand, but others have not been receptive.

“Communication is key for safety,” Schubert said. “We can’t continue to be out there and not know where somebody’s going to turn, or when they’re going to start, or when they’re going to stop.

“No cooperation at all is going to lead to somebody getting hurt or somebody getting killed, and that’s the last thing I want to see in our city.”

Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said the lack of communication has prompted the city to go back to using guidelines that designate certain city intersections as red or yellow. The guidelines, put into place in 2018 during protests stemming from the East Pittsburgh police killing of Antwon Rose II, are meant to keep protesters from blocking critical intersections and streets.

Defense attorney Lisa Middleman tweeted that she is representing Cartier, who she did not mention by name. She described her client as “a Pittsburgh tech company engineer who was abducted by the police at yesterday’s protest.” In a series of tweets in response to the mayor’s press conference, she said, in part, “I am disturbed by leadership’s failure to admit the errors in judgment and tactics that are designed to have a chilling effect on the exercise of civil liberties and constitutional rights.”

I am representing the Pittsburgh tech company engineer who was abducted by the police at yesterday’s protest.

Today’s press conference deflected from the wrongful arrest’s dangerous and unconstitutional nature and instead focused on insincere and false hypotheticals. (1/5)

— Lisa Middleman (@LisaMiddlemanDA) August 16, 2020

Running as an independent, Middleman challenged Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. in the November 2019 election, losing with 43 percent of the vote. She also works as an Allegheny County public defender.

Peduto said the idea of a “pop-out” arrest deserves an examination, including whether it’s appropriate to use at all, whether it should be used during a protest and, if it is, when and why.

“I have serious concerns over the tactics that were utilized yesterday,” he said, noting that he and police leadership reviewed video footage of the incident Sunday afternoon.

It was an opportunity, he said, “to go through the different operations and techniques and tactics that could have been utilized and those that were.”

“There’s a lot of room for improvement,” he said.

Late Saturday, Peduto had tweeted, among other things, that the city had consulted with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others in formulating policies regarding how to handle protests.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania responded Sunday. Legal director Witold Walczak acknowledged that, including when addressing unpermitted protests that block roadways.

“However, based on eyewitness accounts, the arresting officers were in clear violation of their own guidelines. … (They) made no effort to work with protest leaders to clear the area and gave no clear dispersal order. Instead, they tricked a protest leader to approach them and then whisked him away.

“The ACLU of Pennsylvania has never suggested that the snatch-and-stash arrest of a peaceful demonstrator is ever acceptable.

“Mayor Peduto and Chief Schubert owe the people of this city a full accounting of what happened in Oakland (Saturday). If the officers involved failed to follow the city’s own guidelines for managing protests, those officers must be held accountable.”