Mar 23, 2021 3 min read

A police chief in northern Washington County who is running for an open district magistrate seat is under fire after he reportedly helped oversee a social media page for police officers that included racist postings critical of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mount Pleasant Township police Chief Louis McQuillan was an administrator of the Facebook group “Pittsburgh Area Police Breakroom” that started about four years ago and had about 2,200 members until it was removed recently, according to the Associated Press.

Members in the group at times used racist and transphobic language to criticize rallies and marches held last summer amid civil unrest across the country to protest police brutality. McQuillan was listed as one of four administrators in the Facebook group, meaning he helped to monitor comments and set the terms of use for it members.

In a post in the group in June 2017, McQuillan took issue with a financial settlement reached between the family of Michael Brown and the city of Ferguson, Mo., after Brown was shot to death by a police officer in 2014, according to the AP reporters who had access to the private Facebook page.

“future earnings? lol What about Ofc Wilson? What about his lost earnings? Joke,” McQuillan wrote on the page alluding to former officer Darren Wilson, who resigned from his position after the shooting. Other people responded to McQuillan’s post insinuating Brown’s future earnings would have involved crime or welfare payments.

Reached for comment Monday afternoon, McQuillan said he “stands by” a brief statement he provided recently to the AP, but declined to comment further.

“Of course, I regret the loss of any life. My comments and posts from four years ago were meant to support law enforcement and police officers everywhere. And I believe in law and order,” McQuillan told the AP.

Township Manager Darla Protch said Monday that they were aware of the situation, but did not have details about the Facebook group or postings made on the page.

“I really don’t know much,” Protch said. “I understand it’s a website for police officers. I don’t know about anything that’s on it because it’s private and not public.”

She declined to comment on the AP story, and said it would be up to the township’s board of supervisors to decide whether McQuillan would face discipline.

“I don’t know of any action,” she said. “This just happened last week, so the supervisors would have to discuss that.”

Board Chairman Gary Farner did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.

In addition to serving as Mt. Pleasant’s police chief, McQuillan is in his second term as a McDonald Borough councilman. He also is running in the May 18 primary for the open magistrate seat for the district based in McDonald and Cecil, Mount Pleasant and Robinson townships.

McQuillan was hired as a part-time officer in Mt. Pleasant in September 2002.

He was temporarily promoted to officer-in-charge in March 2008 when Mount Pleasant Township supervisors illegally fired former police chief Dean Casciola during a closed-door meeting. Since that action violated the state Sunshine Act, the supervisors at the time were required to vote in public to terminate Casciola. They held a special meeting a week later and instead voted to reinstate Casciola.

Casciola eventually left the position, however, and McQuillan was promoted to chief, a position he’s held for more than a decade.