Photo: Heather Mull

Citizen Police Review Board meetings can be lonesome affairs. At monthly meetings, the board and staff review citizens' complaints about police interactions and make disciplinary recommendations to the police chief and mayor. For months at a time, CPRB meetings have been held with little or no audience, despite being open to the public.

But at a Sept. 18 CPRB hearing on an array of police misconduct issues, council chambers were jammed with people outraged about one particular case and looking for answers. And CPRB meetings have been well attended ever since.

During the three-hour hearing, the crowd of nearly 80 was there to rally around Pamela Lawton, prompted by a Sept. 15 article in the New Pittsburgh Courier and barrages of e-mails and phone calls. During an Aug. 26 traffic stop at Kentucky and Negley avenues for an expired inspection sticker on Lawton's car, police officer Eric Tatsuko allegedly pulled a gun on the unarmed Lawton, reportedly pointing it at her 7-year-old daughter. Lawton's attorney, Joseph K. Williams, contends that Tatsuko threatened to "blow [her daughter's] brains out." Because Lawton's insurance and registration weren't current, her car was towed and she was cited. Weeks after the incident, Lawton received another citation for disorderly conduct.

Both the CPRB and the Office of Municipal Investigations -- the city's internal police-review office -- are investigating the incident after Lawton filed complaints, but neither would discuss specifics of current investigations. Pittsburgh police spokesperson Tammy Ewin also declined comment, but did confirm that Tatsuko is still working, with no sanctions against him.

Now anger and frustration over the incident have galvanized an informal coalition to stand behind Lawton and, participants hope, to maintain the momentum created by the incident.

"You'll never again see [only] one person at these meetings," says Paradise Gray, the Wilkinsburg hip-hop artist and community activist whose e-mail list and MySpace page informed many of those in attendance about the CPRB meetings. He has since spoken at several of them. "It's bridging gaps," he says. "Christians, Muslims, Jews, young, old, men, women, white, black. I'd like to see those kinds of bridges continually built."

"There's been an interesting coalition of groups that have come together," says Lawton's attorney, Joseph Williams. "This has been the issue that's galvanized groups that previously didn't have much to do with each other."

While many groups crossing religious and racial lines have been represented in support of Lawton -- from the Sept. 18 CRPB hearing to her Municipal Court appearances in October -- activists say their concern about the incident transcends their specific affiliations.

"This is not about any organizations or anything like that -- this is to honor our sister," said Cornell Jones, speaking at Lawton's court arraignment. Jones is a member of both Urban Youth Action and the newly formed One Hood Coalition. Rather, he adds, the groups are coming together and uniting behind a common cause.

"What we need to do is get the police under control," says rapper and activist Kay "Da Buttonpusha" Bey, who has also spoken up at recent CPRB meetings. "We need to start it yesterday. There's a 7-year-old girl that's afraid to go to sleep because of Officer Friendly."

So far, Gray's assertion that CPRB meetings would never be empty again has held true: After the crowded Sept. 18 hearing, more than 20 came to the regularly scheduled board meeting on Sept. 26, while 70 people accompanied Lawton at her arraignment Oct. 13, and dozens came to Lawton's preliminary hearing on Oct. 25.