Former Braddock, Pa. mayor John Fetterman, now a top Democrat nominee for United States Senate, illegally ordered a police officer to release police reports on a rival, city council members and the city’s former attorney alleges.
City council members demanded Fetterman’s arrest for illegally seeking information on Cox and police officers were even asked to remove Fetterman from a council meeting after he became emotionally unstable and ranting while discussing his opponent.
Fetterman later had the city attorney fired, the only time in 13 years he voted in council meeting, and as Lieutenant Governor tried to alter the law he allegedly broke.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
In a heated 2009 mayoral campaign, Braddock solicitor Lawrence Shields accused Fetterman of “abuse of your mayoral authority” for ordering a Braddock cop to obtain a police report from a 2004 domestic incident involving Fetterman’s challenger, Jayme Cox. Braddock city council members called for Fetterman’s arrest for violating state laws regarding the handling of criminal information in cases where charges are dropped…
…Fetterman admitted to asking a police officer for the report on Cox and discussing it with others. But he denied pressuring the officer to dig up the information and said it was necessary to inform voters about Cox, who had charges dropped after taking a domestic abuse class…
…Reached by phone, Cox acknowledged he got in an altercation with his wife in 2004 but said the allegation he hit her “wasn’t true.” The seven-year Navy veteran told the Washington Free Beacon he and his wife reconciled and remained married until she passed away in 2017. He said he still doesn’t know how Fetterman obtained the police report.
“He’ll stab anybody in the back who gets in his way,” Cox said of Fetterman…
…As lieutenant governor, Fetterman has proposed rewriting the very same law he was accused of violating in 2009, the Criminal History Record Information Act. He claimed the act “unfairly” disqualified “many Black and Brown Pennsylvanians” from employment. Braddock solicitor Shields said in 2009 that Fetterman’s release of the police report on Cox, who is black, opened Braddock up to a potential lawsuit for violating the act, which bars the release of criminal information three years after an arrest when no conviction occurred. Pennsylvania’s Bucks County was fined $67 million in 2019 for violating the act by publishing protected criminal information.
It’s not Fetterman’s first controversial interaction with Braddock police as mayor. In 2013 Fetterman held an innocent black man at gunpoint, appearing to violate several laws.
After hearing fireworks outside his home, Fetterman grabbed a shotgun and ran outside. He then saw Christopher Miyares, a black jogger, and immediately assumed he was a criminal. Fetterman then chased Miyares in a pickup truck, holding him captive with a loaded weapon pointed at Miyares’ chest.
When police intervened and informed Fetterman he was wrong, Fetterman refused to apologize. No charges were filed against Fetterman for reckless endangerment or false imprisonment. Fetterman admitted he “may have broken the law” but insisted “I did the right thing” by chasing a black man in a pickup truck and holding him at gunpoint.
Fetterman’s time as Braddock mayor appears to be his first full-time job. Fetterman, the Harvard-educated son of wealthy insurance executives, reportedly lived off an allowance from his parents until he was nearly 50.
Michael Brigham
Michael Brigham has written for American Action News since the summer of 2019. His areas of expertise include foreign affairs, government, and politics, but regardless of the subject matter, he has a nose and an insatiable appetite for news. In his free time, he enjoys reading nonfiction, watching a mix of comedies and true crime documentaries, and spending time away from the swamp hiking in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
And to think there could possibly be people MORE brain dead than this moron who will vote for him. We’re so screwed.