A Maryland man who claims he was harassed by Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor’s pick for police chief sent a lengthy email last week to City Council members that cast aspersions on Jason Lando in an effort to derail his nomination.
The Dec. 30 email from Daniel Sullivan, a retired police corporal in Frederick, Md., where Lando was chief, raised questions about Lando’s suitability for the top police job in Pittsburgh.
“Leadership matters,” Sullivan wrote. “Based on these facts, Jason Lando’s conduct is fundamentally incompatible with the ethical, legal, and leadership standards required of a chief of police.”
Sullivan claims Lando harassed him through anonymous, expletive-laced texts sent from “burner” phone numbers that were used deliberately to hide the sender’s identity.
Criminal investigators in Maryland linked Lando’s name and phone number to the burner app account that sent the half-dozen crude text messages last summer, according to a law enforcement report obtained by TribLive.
Lando has refused to tell TribLive whether he sent the texts.
Lando, a Squirrel Hill native who served as a Pittsburgh officer for 21 years, was chief of the Frederick Police Department in Maryland at the time.
The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office investigated the matter and did not charge Lando. The case was closed.
Prior to being sworn in Monday as mayor, O’Connor had introduced Lando as the person he planned to nominate to run the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, which has been rocked by leadership instability and a revolving door of chiefs.
Sullivan emailed 27 Pittsburgh officials — including four council members, five of council’s nine districts and five chiefs of staff — calling for them to not support Lando. The subject line read: “I am one of the people Lando harassed and you need to read this before you vote.”
“I also understand that Mr. Lando is personable, articulate and widely regarded as likable in public settings,” Sullivan wrote, according to a copy of the email obtained by TribLive. “But leadership is revealed not by charm on a stage or social media, but by conduct when no one is watching.”
Mountain out of a molehill?
Two council members who were on Sullivan’s distribution list — the South Side’s Bob Charland and Greenfield’s Barb Warwick — told TribLive on Tuesday they had not read Sullivan’s email and could not find it in their inboxes.
A third, Erika Strassburger of Squirrel Hill, said she saw the email and questioned if this is a “disgruntled person making a mountain of a molehill.”
Lando did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.
Dan Gilman, O’Connor’s chief of staff, declined to comment and referred to an earlier statement by the mayor backing Lando when news of the investigation broke last month.
“Chief Lando has a record as a longtime advocate for police, justice and community relations, and he is widely respected by both officers and the community,” O’Connor told TribLive. “I think that his reputation and his accomplishments with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police speaks for itself.”
Response from council on Tuesday was muted.
Warwick stressed she wanted to give Lando “the opportunity to address the issue in his public interview with council.”
“I think that’s a fair thing to do before making any comment,” Warwick said.
Strassburger said she hasn’t spoken with Sullivan and doesn’t know “what his motivations are.”
“I’ve heard one side of the story — that’s Mr. Sullivan’s,” Strassburger said, adding that she would reserve judgment until she speaks to Lando.
Strassburger said she needs to understand if Sullivan is raising a “truly legitimate” issue.
Bad blood
Sullivan’s complaint on Aug. 5 first triggered the sheriff’s office investigation in Maryland. It revolved around text messages sent in July and August to Sullivan, who previously was Lando’s subordinate.
Both men have told TribLive their relationship is marred by bad blood.
The sheriff’s office report did not accuse Lando of sending the messages. It said authorities traced the texts to a Burner app account used to create fake phone numbers to mask a sender’s identity.
Lando has defended himself. He told TribLive Sullivan’s rancor became “next-level” after Lando tried to discipline the corporal over his use of force.
“What kind of chief or leader would I be if I said, ‘I’m not going to hold this guy accountable because it might escalate?’” Lando told TribLive last month. “I did the right thing … and sometimes this happens.”
Frederick police — and Lando specifically — handled several disciplinary actions involving Sullivan, records obtained by TribLive through an open records request in Maryland show.
At least eight citizen complaints were filed against Sullivan between 2021 and 2023, while Lando served as chief, police records show. Sullivan was disciplined with counseling or a “performance notation”; at least four incidents resulted in no disciplinary action.
Though Sullivan joined the Frederick police force in 2004, disciplinary records before 2021 are not public under an attorney general ruling, open records officials said.
Authorities also investigated Sullivan for uses of force.
In July 2022, Sullivan allegedly failed to obey traffic devices, hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk and left the scene of the accident. A 32-page report later ruled that the allegations “not sustained.”
Later that year, in December 2022, Montgomery County police investigated Sullivan for firing two shots at a man who had fled and hid behind a car, records show. The man was not injured. Maryland’s State’s Attorney’s Office deemed Sullivan’s use of force “reasonable.”
In 2023, a suspect alleged Sullivan took them into custody “without probable cause,” a July 19, 2023, internal memo shows. Lando “administratively” closed the investigation after Sullivan “requested to be on terminal leave through his official retirement date.”
Sullivan retired Dec. 1, 2023, as the city’s Police Accountability Board reviewed a citizen complaint about “discourtesy,” records show.
