New Latrobe police captain is retired state trooper, liaison to school district police force

Latrobe has expanded its police force to include a new captain position and has turned to a nine-year veteran of the department to take on the role.

Rob Daerr, who has served as the city’s liaison to the Greater Latrobe School District police force, will be promoted to captain effective March 1, as approved Monday by city council. A salary for the new position has yet to be approved.

Police Chief Richard Bosco said the role of captain will fall in the chain of command between that of chief and the department’s three sergeants.

“One thing I’ve learned is that, for an agency to grow, it has to have a legacy of succession,” Bosco said. “If one person falls out, the next person has to step in.”

He said his goal is to prepare city police officers with the training and mentoring they would need to be able to move up to the next level in the command structure.

Bosco said Daerr is the perfect fit to serve as captain. “His strength is working with people,” Bosco said. “He has that (law enforcement) skill set nailed down.”

A 1988 graduate of Greensburg-Salem High School, Daerr is a Marine Corps veteran, having served with the military police based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

“That’s where my love for being a police officer started, and it’s just carried on from there,” Daerr said.

He served as a trooper with the Pennsylvania State Police from 1992 to his retirement in 2014 and joined the Latrobe police force the following year.

Daerr was an initial member of the school resource officer program at Greater Latrobe School District, which has now grown to its own 12-member police force. While other Greater Latrobe police officers are employed directly by the school, Daerr remains the city department’s sole liaison to the district.

“That (school) department has grown,” Daerr said. “I think my work is done there. It’s the standard for school police.”

He said he sees the new Latrobe captain role as “an opportunity where I could branch out into the city. I thought it would be a good addition to the department down here.

“I want to come down here and be a positive influence for these younger officers.”

Daerr noted he already has provided risk assessments for some churches and businesses in Latrobe.

“I’ve fallen in love with the city and the people here,” he said.

Bosco said he wants to promptly replace Daerr in his existing position “from the bottom up” while adding another policeman to bolster the ranks in the coming summer, for a total of nine patrol officers.

Applications for full-time officers are being accepted through Feb. 22, with civil service testing of candidates to follow: an agility test on March 8 and a written test on March 9.

City police advisory body to form

City council this week also passed an ordinance to amend Latrobe’s code concerning the city civil service commission, a step toward forming a new police advisory body.

Bosco said that body’s functions will be “to look at our policies and best procedures and practices, and make sure that they’re standardized with society’s best practices” and to “develop the best path forward for the commission and the recruitment, retention and hiring of officers.”

Membership on the new advisory panel is still to be determined. In addition to himself, the mayor and the deputy mayor, Bosco would like it to include representatives from the school district and the local legal community, as well as another area police chief.

“The community stakeholders should have direction and influence on the practices of the police department,” Bosco said, adding that the city police “can’t exist without the community, and the community can’t exist without us.”

Council on Monday filled a vacancy on the civil service commission, appointing Judith Maher. She is a licensed attorney who recently retired from Saint Vincent College’s human resources office.