Latrobe police get new 5-year contract, praise for arrests

Latrobe Council approved a new five-year labor agreement with the city’s police union.

Covering more than a dozen officers, but excluding the police chief, the new contract will be in effect from Jan. 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2024, and includes annual wage increases of 2.25%, according to city manager Michael Gray.

But, Gray noted, officers are “going to be contributing more toward their health care deductions than what they are now.”

The officers will receive an annual uniform allowance for various equipment. Under the new agreement, Gray said, “This will be officer-specific, so that way each officer has to track and be held accountable for what they can and cannot get, based upon what’s allotted.”

Regarding negotiations, Gray said, “It was a really simple contract. They really didn’t ask too much.”

Latrobe officers were praised at the council session and, later that evening, at the Greater Latrobe School Board meeting, for their arrest on Sunday of a Derry woman during a traffic stop. City police acted on a tip that the woman allegedly had returned from Pittsburgh with 10 bricks of suspected heroin to sell in the area, according to court documents.

Latrobe police dog Zeus performed an exterior search and obtained sufficient probable cause to search the car, discovering 500 stamp bags marked “NYQUIL,” as police also confiscated $782 in cash, the documents note.

“This drug bust could have saved potential lives, could have maybe saved a person from trying heroin for the first time,” said school board member Michael O’Barto. “We need to celebrate these victories more.”

O’Barto also remarked on the vigilance of Greater Latrobe’s school resource officer. “Every day you have to watch,” he said. “You don’t get a day off.”

Latrobe police also were recognized at the council meeting for their arrest of a Latrobe man, charged with attempted homicide in an Oct. 2 stabbing caught on surveillance video outside the Latrobe Manor apartment complex.