Settlement reached in lawsuit accusing Pittsburgh police dept. of racially biased hiring

PITTSBURGH — Five men who accused the Pittsburgh Police Department of racially based hiring reached a settlement Monday with the city that all parties involved called fair and reasonable.

Vic Walczak, American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania’s legal director, said his organization and Pittsburgh city leaders hope the settlement will pave the way for more African-Americans to join the city police force and work in neighborhoods that have a large minority population, including Zone 1 on Pittsburgh’s North Side.

"It's a new day in the city of Pittsburgh,” Walczak said.

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The settlement awards $985,000 to the five men who said they were turned away from the police department because they're black. The city will also pay $600,000 for attorney's fees.

"For some of those, that's not going to be enough. It's not going to be full compensation," Walczak said.

Two of the plaintiffs are currently Pittsburgh police officers, and two others are working to become officers.

The ACLU claimed that the department had an unfair hiring bias. A study revealed that 85 percent of Pittsburgh’s current police force is white and 13 percent is African-American.

"What the expert found was the African-American candidates had one-fifth the chance of getting the job as a white applicant,” Walczak said.

When the lawsuit was filed in 2012, 4 percent of African-American candidates made the police force. The most recent class is 25 percent African-American.

The ACLU plans to work with city leaders to make sure that number continues to increase as the department works to recruit more minorities.

"I say give it a new look because we'll be watching and hopefully making sure that the process continues to be fair going forward,” Walczak said.

Representatives for the city said that if a settlement hadn’t been reached, the lawsuit could have lasted another five to seven years.