And Hickton said cybercrime investigators last year solved a string of bomb threats at the University of Pittsburgh and its related hospitals, a case that many thought would go unsolved, but culminated with the arrest of a suspect in Ireland.
The drug trade in western Pennsylvania has been traced to illegal narcotics kingpins in Newark, N.J., Cleveland and Detroit, Hickton said, but his office is seeing a major, deadly new trend emerge: the abuse of prescription pills facilitated by doctors and pharmacists in the region. “A lot of people sit back and say, ‘This is not in my community,’ but Washington County had more than 50 basically synthetic heroin deaths through pill abuse last year.
Attorney’s office has prosecuted some well-publicized cases in Indiana County in recent years, including the guilty pleas and sentencing of three men who admitted burning a cross on the lawn of a multirace family’s home in Robinson, West Wheatfield Township, and the current investigation of the embezzlement of millions of dollars from Falcon Drilling Company in Indiana.
“It will be a large organization of community leaders that’s working on crime prevention councils … beginning with a partnership with the United Way called Be One in a Million, a mentoring program that spins off an existing program called Be a Sixth Grade mentor,” Hickton said.
The components with jobs and with cyber are a part of that, it’s understanding that there may be a connection to make western Pennsylvania the go-to place for cyber like it is a go-to place for Marcellus shale right now,” Hickton explained.
“I have my responsibilities to bring the cases and enforce the law, but in my view, to do this job correctly, you have a broader mission and that is to ensure freedom and justice, by enforcing the law and protecting the public welfare,” he said. And what good do I do, really, if all I do is just hammer criminals and bring drug prosecutions if I don’t recognize that maybe we need to go and find out who are the church leaders and how can they help, who are the dedicated community activists?