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Correction officers and advocates press council to review hospital leg‑shackle policy and petition signature validity
Summary
Union leaders and community speakers urged council to address an unintended public‑safety consequence of a proposed leg‑shackle policy for incarcerated patients and raised concerns about the validity of signatures on a petition tied to the measure.
Union representatives and community speakers used the public comment period to press Allegheny County Council on practical and legal questions tied to hospital leg‑shackle policy and a related petition circulating in the county.
Brian Engler, president of the correction officers' union at the county jail, told council he has urged county officials to revisit a plan that would have hospital or outside security apply leg shackles to people in custody when they are treated at hospitals. Engler said the union believes that practice would violate a local referendum restricting restraints and could create repeated safety and legal issues if hospital security or outside police apply and remove restraints during routine bathroom or care activities. "When hospital security applies these leg shackles, they're violating the referendum," Engler said in public comment, and he said correction officers would not comply with procedures that, in his view, would place them in conflict with the ordinance and expose staff to liability.
Engler also urged council to review a sharp increase in overtime among certain jail staff and said the union has requested impact bargaining on the leg-shackle policy proposal.
Other speakers raised concerns about the petition process and the petition's signatures. Tanisha Long told council she has reviewed the petition signatures and believes many are written in similar handwriting and that numerous signers are not registered voters in Allegheny County. Long said she plans to bring copies of the signatures to council at a future meeting and urged that the council confirm a mechanism for signature verification before taking up the matter formally. "I don't think we should be voting on the leg-shackle referendum at all until we figure out... if people who sign this referendum are actually registered voters," she said.
Council did not take formal action on the points raised during public comment. Union and community representatives asked the council to resolve questions about custody, visitor access for hospitalized incarcerated people, signature verification for petitions and potential conflicts with consent decrees and voter-passed referendums.
