In lieu of no response from Chief Harper to Our President’s Letter as well as no offer of future cooperation from the Pittsburgh Police on the Fallen Heroes Ride, we regrettably must cancel our Fallen Heroes Ride in the future. We have also cancelled our planned banquet to honor the families of the three Fallen Officers. We cannot continue to support the families and children of Police Officers without Police support. We would like to thank all of the LEO’s, bikers, businesses, and local citizens that have supported the run over the last three years. We have raised a total of $52,000 for the Family’s of Fallen Heroes. We could not have done it without community support.
We are requesting that the FOP and Officer Mark Stephenson cut checks from this year’s proceeds and distribute the money directly to the families of the three Fallen Officers as soon as possible. We set the Fallen Heroes Ride up so that the War Dogs Motorcycle Club had no access to the money or funds and left that responsibility in the hands of the FOP and Officer Stephenson.
Chief Nathan Harper
Pittsburgh Bureau of Police
1203 Western Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
August 14, 2009
Mick Morrow
War Dogs Motorcycle Club
National President
Dear Chief Harper:
First, on behalf of my Club, we would like to extend our deepest condolences to your entire department in regards to the murders of Officers Stephen Mayhle, Eric Kelly, and Paul Sciullo as well as the injuries to Officers Timothy McManaway and Brian Jones resulting from the terrible incident in Stanton Heights on April 4th, 2009. As you might be aware, several dozen of us were standing on the curb in Oakland in formation and at attention when your funeral procession passed in April. This was a monumental tragedy for your department, law enforcement worldwide, and our entire community and surely a life changing event for the families of these fallen heroes.
Shortly after the murders, we were contacted by an Officer from Zone 5 and asked to assist in a Motorcycle Ride to raise money and show support for your Fallen Heroes. That Officer was aware that we had already done two Fallen Heroes Rides to raise money for the sons or daughters of Police Officers, Firefighters, and Veterans who were killed or wounded in the line of duty. We have awarded eight $2500.00 scholarships in the last two years. When we had these runs, we donated 100% of the proceeds to the scholarships. Our Club even absorbed the expense of the runs so that we could award the most money possible for the scholarships. When the Officer from Zone 5 called and asked for our assistance, we agreed to suspend our run and concentrate all of our efforts on your Fallen Heroes Fund for the families of your Officers. We felt honored to do it. In the course of organizing the run, all of the local Blue Knights Motorcycle Club Chapters joined with us to make this the most successful run possible. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge # 1 was instrumental in helping us organize the run and they took responsibility for all the money collected. The run was a tremendous success and we would like to extend our sincere thanks to all the bikers, businesses, and citizens that supported the run. Raising money for the Fallen Officers was important to all of us in organizing this run, but riding through the neighborhoods of the three murdered Officers and then riding by the Zone 5 Station to show our deep respect to those Officers' families was the primary objective of the run.
We were all surprised when you decided to pull the support of the Pittsburgh Police to assist with traffic control one day before the run. We were informed that you got a call from the State Police telling you that there were several members of another Club that had joined our Club several years before. Since that Club had been known to be involved in criminal activity, you made the decision that you did not want to provide assistance or traffic control for this event. Obviously our information concerning your basis for the decision was true in lieu of the following email response that you sent to Ms. Nancy Mehler regarding your departments last minute decision to withhold traffic control from the Fallen Heroes Run.
__________________________________________________________________ Original Message-----
From: askpgh <askpgh@city.pittsburgh.pa.us>
To: bobnanci@aol.com
Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 2:31 pm
Subject: RE: Motorycle Event
Dear Nancy,
Please see the response from Chief Harper below:
The integrity of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police is held at a high standard. There were motorcycle groups with disreputable reputations, which I will decline to name, who organized and participated in this event . The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police and State Police Intelligence Units advised me with proprietary information regarding this event. Had the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police participated and/or sanctioned this event it would have jeopardized and tarnished the integrity of the Bureau.
Therefore, it was my decision for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to neither sanction or support this event.
Nathan E. Harper, Chief
Pittsburgh Bureau of Police
1203 Western Avenue, Suite 156
Pittsburgh, PA 15233
(412) 323-7814 Fax (412) 323-7830
Please allow me to clarify some facts, Sir. We do have five members that were former members of the Club that you had concerns about. They obviously left that Club because they did not want to be involved with that Club anymore. Our Club has been in existence for over eight years now. We have hundreds of members and we have never had a member of our Club convicted of a felony since they have become members of our Club. We do not sell drugs or commit crimes and there is absolutely no evidence, prior convictions, or history to indicate otherwise.
We have gotten an unfair reputation that stemmed from a series of SPIN Reports about our Club and me personally. They emanated from one particular Officer in the State Police. I understand he is a decent gentleman and I believe he was making an honest mistake with his SPIN Reports. However, his reports were so outrageously inaccurate and incendiary that the aftermaths of the allegations are still damaging the reputation of our organization today. Maybe you are not familiar with the SPIN Network, so I will give you a brief description.
The SPIN Report is a local Police Intelligence Network hosted by the Ross Township Police. They have over 800 Law Enforcement Officers in the network. Every LEO in the network has the privilege of posting any information of a Police Intelligence nature that they deem of importance to their fellow Officers. It is not an official LEO site, but it was started by a Ross Township Police Officer in order to help spread information that may be helpful to the LEO community as a whole. On premise, the site sounds like a great idea. Why not help other LEO's if you have some important information that may help an Officer to better accomplish his or her goals to protect and serve the public. It would only make sense to warn fellow LEO's of a potential danger that might keep them out of harms way.
The problem is that there is no process in place for the screening of the accuracy of the individual posts. If a particular Police Officer did not like his neighbor, Mr. Smith, he could post a message on the SPIN Network that Mr. Smith was a known serial drunkard and had violent tendencies. He could warn fellow LEO's that Mr. Smith was rumored to carry illegal firearms and caution LEO's in the local area to exercise extreme caution when dealing with Mr. Smith. The SPIN would be disseminated to over 800 Police Officers without any verification of the accuracy of the information and Mr. Smith would not even be notified of the allegations against him.
I have included numerous SPIN Reports about our organization and our reply to them. Since the SPIN report does not give any citizen an opportunity to post a reply to an outrageous SPIN Report, this information was posted on our website for almost a year. Since the facilitators of the SPIN Report stopped writing unsubstantiated SPIN Reports about our organization over a year ago, we took the information off of our website. As an experienced investigator, I will let you make your own assessment as to the quality and accuracy of these reports.
I have also included a copy of an article from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette from March 14th 2005 that detailed an investigation of another incident involving the State Trooper who initiated the first series of SPIN Reports about our Club. I will let you decide whether you think his reports were competent or accurate.
I believe that you put the safety of our riders in jeopardy by pulling your Officers from traffic control support for the run. I am confused as to why five members of a Club as large as ours would cause you to make that decision. None of those five members has been charged with a crime since they joined our organization over three years ago. I am sure you are aware that you have at least one member of your own department who is an active member of a Motorcycle Club whose members have had numerous felony convictions in recent years. I am sure you are aware that you have several Officers married to convicted felons which are in direct violation of your regulation that Officers cannot associate with known felons. Why would you make such a decision that jeopardized the safety of 1500 riders that showed up to support the families of your Fallen Officers with not the slightest evidence that our organization has done anything illegal? If Nazi's or Ku Klux Klansmen scheduled a legal demonstration in Pittsburgh, you would have been compelled to provide them police protection. I know that your department provided police protection for members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church when they were scheduled to protest a local soldier's funeral in the North Side who was KIA in Iraq several years ago. Many Members of our Club were there to counter protest them and there was a large Pittsburgh Police presence. The protestors got lost on the way to the funeral so they did not show up, but your department's decision to provide protection was clear.
You did not hurt our Club Sir; you jeopardized the hundreds of riders who came to support your Fallen Officers and their families. You jeopardized Officer Kelly's Mother who rode on my motorcycle. You jeopardized several members of the Sciullo family and Trooper Joe Pokorny's son who was riding his murdered fathers Harley for the first time. We were very fortunate to have two motorcycle Officers from the McKeesport Police Department and one from the Beaver Falls Police Department that lead the pack for traffic control. Without their support, we would have had to cancel the run which generated approximately $30,000.00 for the families of your Fallen Officers and more importantly gave the community another chance to show their families our deep respect for their sacrifice.
I have no doubt that you have a very difficult job. However, I ask that you might consider that we are a group of men with strong ideals and a passion for American values. Our Club is interested in supporting our Brotherhood through good times and bad. We have scores of combat veterans who have joined us upon their return from the War in order to help facilitate their transition to civilian life through a Brotherhood with like minded men. We would never tolerate any member who sells drugs or commits crimes. I am sure, in time, one of Members will violate our policy and commit a serious crime. We will promptly expel him from our Club. When that time comes, it should not reflect on our Club anymore than it reflects on Law Enforcement as a whole when a Police Officer is arrested for committing serious crimes.
I hope you will reconsider your position Sir. Without your assistance we will not be able to have this Run in the future. We hoped to continue it every year by continuing to take the same route through the Officers neighborhoods so that they will not be forgotten.
I appreciate your time and consideration and do have great admiration for your public service.
Respectfully,
Mick Morrow
War Dogs Motorcycle Club
National President
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