Pittsburgh City Council introduced a bill last Tuesday which would allow the city’s police force to enter into agreements with agencies around the region for patrol assistance and security during the 2026 NFL Draft on the North Shore.
City Council named 18 agencies they would like to get assistance from, but only two of them are university police departments, and one isn’t even in Pennsylvania — it’s in West Virginia.
Of those agencies, Point Park Police was not one of them, despite the department’s proximity to this year’s NFL Draft. The only other university police department sought in this agreement is the University of Pittsburgh’s.
Jeffrey Besong, Point Park’s chief of Police, said he wasn’t aware of the bill and was never informed about it. Besong said he regularly attends weekly meetings with Pittsburgh officials on preparing for the NFL Draft and knowing what public safety needs have to be met with the city.
Past meetings with Pittsburgh Public Safety have occurred on campus in the past, hosted in conjunction with the Rowland School of Business, but they were not open to the press and did not have any public information available to share.
Besong couldn’t say if his police department’s size has anything to do with not being selected for assistance. Many of the departments listed were larger, such as the Allegheny County Police department, the Washington County Sheriff and the Westmoreland County Park Police.
Mayor Corey O’Connor said such an agreement will not cost Pittsburgh any money. Additionally, he said the city will get about $2 million in federal assistance to cover any overtime costs incurred by the city.
In comparison, the University of Pittsburgh’s police department says they have 100 commissioned officers and 46 security guards not including administrative positions and communications staff, while Point Park has 10 officers.
However, one department listed, the Pitcairn Borough Police Department, only has 15 officers according to 2015 data from FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Pitcairn does not publicly list how many officers the borough has on staff, and other third-party sources mention numbers ranging from two to four officers.
But notably, federal departments are listed in this potential agreement as well, such as the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco & Explosives (ATF). In an interview with TribLive, Pittsburgh Public Safety information officer Cara Cruz said agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will not be assisting with Draft security.
District 3 Councilman Bob Charland, who serves the South Side, amended the bill to include language barring any agency assisting with the NFL Draft from doing any immigration enforcement in Pittsburgh. District 8 Councilwoman Erika Strassberger and District 9 Councilman Khari Mosley sponsored the amendment.
Also absent from the list of supporting agencies is Port Authority Police, Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s police force. Their agency is also based in Downtown, much like Point Park Police, and has 47 officers. WVU police only has two more officers than Port Authority’s force.
City Council approved the bill yesterday.
