Back in 2006, Ravenstahl had to drop his public safety director nomination of Dennis Regan. Part of the reason was because police Cmdr. Catherine McNeilly had sent an email to city officials warning them that "Mr. Regan undercut her effort to discipline city Detective Francis M. Rende, the brother of the woman with whom Mr. Regan shares a Point Breeze home." The article in the Post-Gazette back then noted that Rende had a "dozen accusations of conduct unbecoming an officer, verbal abuse and excessive force" including coming back to have sex with a woman who was depressed and very drunk when he had answered a domestic call earlier that day. Rende was also calling off sick for his police job to work side jobs and had been using another officer's password to pick up even more work. The other part was because Bill Peduto (and others) were hammering Regan as being completely unqualified for the position. Rende kept his job.
Now, some six and a half years later, Officer Frank Rende is in the news again, but this time, Ravenstahl is calling for him to be fired. Maybe it's because this time the incident is on tape. But the snark in me says that while Luke was able to look past officers beating down Jordan Miles and look past officers having incidents of domestic violence when promoting them, this is just a case of projection on Luke's part. After all, soon he may be the drunk white guy who's partied a little too hard on the South Side:
