PITTSBURGH — There is new fallout after a wild chase ended in a five-car pileup.
Channel 11 brought you live coverage from the scene in November.
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Pittsburgh’s new public safety director wants to fire the police officer who was involved.
Chief Investigator Rick Earle has learned exclusively that the director overruled the chief to recommend a more severe penalty.
Dramatic surveillance video showed an SUV crashing and rolling on Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg last November.
In all, police say four cars were hit by the speeding SUV, injuring nine people.
Just minutes earlier, Pittsburgh police stopped the driver of that SUV, Dior Richardson, on East Swissvale Avenue in the East Hills for suspected illegally tinted windows.
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According to the criminal complaint, the driver stopped, but when asked to roll down the windows, he took off.
The officer then proceeded behind him with emergency lights for a brief period.
The complaint says Richardson went into the oncoming lane of travel and overtook multiple vehicles.
The officer said he deactivated his emergency lights and reduced his speed as Richardson was doing 70 to 80 miles per hour.
Sources tell 11 Investigates officers are not allowed to chase for a vehicle code violation and they say the officer continued driving at a high rate of speed without his lights and sirens.
The chief suggested a two-day suspension. The public safety director overruled that and recommended firing the officer.
Executive Director of the Citizen Police Review Board, Beth Pittinger, says the message is clear.
“I think what we’re hearing is, look, our standard is higher, the expectation is there and you will reach it,” Pittinger said.
During the past decade, the Allegheny County District Attorney has also made it clear that police should not chase unless it involves a forcible felony or a significant danger to others.
“I mean, you are trying to save lives, not put people’s lives in danger,” Pittinger said.
In Richardson’s SUV, police said they found two guns. The feds charged him with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Pittinger says that doesn’t absolve the officer.
“You cannot excuse everything before because of what you find afterwards, and that’s the evolution of the tactic, and that’s what the district attorney has said. No, you just don’t go off and chase people,” Pittinger said.
Both the police union and public safety have declined to comment.
Sources tell 11 Investigates that the union will appeal the firing and present evidence in an effort to convince the public safety director that the violation doesn’t warrant termination.
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