Four people have been named to Allegheny County’s Independent Police Review Board, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced Friday.
The board receives and reviews allegations of misconduct filed by a person against a police officer working for any municipal police department or the county’s own force.
The four people chosen include:
• Former Pittsburgh police detective Stacey Hawthorne, owner of SH Polygraph Services LLC. Hawthorne is a certified polygraph examiner who retired from the police in 2019. According to a statement from the county, her last assignment was to the Internal Affairs Unit where her duties included investigating problem officers.
Hawthorne is a Pittsburgh resident. She will serve an initial three-year term.
• Coleman McDonough, a former superintendent of the Allegheny County Police who has also served as a municipal chief of police, worked with the Pennsylvania State Police and worked as a law enforcement coordinator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
McDonough currently teaches and serves on the Allegheny County Bar Association ad-hoc Committee for Police Reform. He is a Bethel Park resident and will serve an initial four-year term.
• Neville Township resident Robert Meinert will serve an initial one-year term. Meinert is senior investigator and partner of Cyber Protection Bureau LLC. He has previously served as a private investigator, manager of security, police officer, elected district judge and a detective.
A former adjunct professor at the Community College of Beaver County, he is also an instructor with the Allegheny County Police Academy, Pennsylvania Minor Judiciary School, and for Act 235 certification.
• Pittsburgh resident Rev. Regina Ragin-Dykes will serve an initial two-year term. She is the first vice president of the Pittsburgh Branch NAACP and pastor of New Life A.M.E. Church in Homewood. She has also worked as a workforce development specialist at the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and served as executive director at the Hazelwood YMCA.
The county said a search is underway for a ninth member.
