Pittsburgh’s new public safety boss is throwing out the police chief’s call for leniency and is instead pushing to fire a city officer tied to a November chase that ended in a five-car pileup in Wilkinsburg. The move sharply raises the stakes around how the city polices car chases and punishes officers, and it sets up what could be a bruising internal and legal battle.
According to WPXI, Chief Investigator Rick Earle reports that the public safety director has rejected the police chief’s earlier disciplinary recommendation and is instead seeking to terminate the officer. WPXI also reported that the Citizen Police Review Board planned to answer the director’s call for stiffer punishment during Channel 11’s evening coverage.
City records and local reporting identify Sheldon Williams as the recently confirmed director of public safety and Jason Lando as Pittsburgh’s police chief this year. WESA covered their confirmations, and the City Council agenda lists both men as the city’s top public-safety officials.
The November crash
The dispute traces back to Nov. 20, 2025, when a vehicle fleeing police smashed into four other cars on the 1100 block of Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg. Nine people were hurt, and five of them were taken to the hospital after the multi-vehicle wreck. The crash was first detailed in a multivehicle crash in Wilkinsburg injures nine, which summarized the initial local TV coverage.
Discipline, arbitration and the stakes
Pittsburgh’s system for disciplining officers is tightly constrained by state Act 111 and the city’s union contract, which steer many serious disputes into binding arbitration. Reporting by PublicSource has documented a pattern in which some officers fired by the city later return to the payroll with substantial back pay after grievances are resolved.
That history looms over the current case. By overruling the chief and pushing for termination, the public safety director has increased the likelihood that this clash will move beyond an internal review and into a wider fight involving the Fraternal Order of Police, the Citizen Police Review Board, and arbitration panels. City Council records and meeting agendas are the next places to watch for formal statements from the bureau and city leadership; the council’s agenda already lists both Williams and Lando as invited public-safety representatives. This story will be updated as the Citizen Police Review Board and city officials go on the record about the director’s decision.
