Content warning: This story contains racist and homophobic characterizations made in a public complaint and hearing on a discrimination case.
An encounter between a professional dog walker and a Pittsburgh park manager that got physical and included at least one slur now awaits a decision by the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations. Unusually, the accused city employee admitted to police that she used a homophobic slur, but the city is questioning its own commission’s enforcement authority.
In a two-day public hearing in December, the commission heard testimony related to a complaint by Michelle Cook, of Sewickley, who said a Pittsburgh Department of Public Works employee punched her and called her the slur while she walked 12 dogs in a Highland Park hockey court.
Cook alleged that the slur was a violation of the city code that bars discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, and that the parks manager assumed that the dog walker was a lesbian.
The incident occurred under Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration in June 2024. Gainey has been an outspoken supporter of Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ+ community. The administration, though, did not discipline Parks Maintenance Manager Tara Pinnix, accused in the complaint.
The commission receives relatively few complaints related to sexual orientation. A list of 325 complaints received by the commission over nearly three years, provided to Pittsburgh’s Public Source in response to a request under the Right-to-Know Law, included just 17 referencing sexual orientation.
The case is unusual in another way, said Rachel Shepherd, executive director of the commission.
Shepherd said she was “shocked” that the city let the case go all the way to public hearing, “because we had direct evidence” from police body cam video. “You did it,” she said, referring to Pinnix. “You said you did it.”
Reached by phone, Pinnix declined comment.
A punch and a slur?
Cook, a dog walker and trainer, testified that she was walking 12 of her clients’ dogs at Flynn Parklet, a small city park with tennis, basketball and hockey courts in Highland Park.
She took the dogs inside the hockey court, which she said she had done several times before without issue. She said there were no signs in the court to indicate dogs weren’t allowed there, just a handwritten sign asking that guests pick up after their dogs. There was also a dog poop bag dispenser affixed to the fence.
Cook said Pinnix drove up in a city vehicle, and shouted to Cook that she couldn’t be in the court with the dogs. Pinnix testified that Cook was not allowed to be on the hockey court with dogs per city code, and noted that a nearby tennis court was posted with a “No dogs allowed” sign. Pinnix did not issue a written citation.
Cook said she remained respectful but did not leave the court because Pinnix didn’t give her a reason.
Cook said Pinnix called her “dyke,” using the slur “upwards of 40 times.” Cook called 911.
Pinnix opened the gate to the hockey court and released several of Cook’s dogs into the street, according to Cook. When Cook tried to go through the gate to chase after the dogs, she testified that Pinnix stood on the other side and held the gate closed. Cook said that as she tried to exit the court, Pinnix ripped her tank top and punched her in the face.
Pinnix’s account differs. She said she called animal control and then called her supervisor, Parks Maintenance Superintendent Joe Rush. She said when she returned to the hockey court, Cook approached her aggressively with balled fists.
Pinnix argued she kept her arms out in self defense, and said Cook grabbed her shirt first and broke her necklace. Pinnix said she later underwent finger surgery due to the struggle. Throughout the hearing, Pinnix at times argued she open-handedly contacted Cook’s face, rather than throwing a punch.
The city also argued that Cook instigated the argument by calling Pinnix a “Black bitch.” Assistant City Solicitor Wendy Kobee said in the hearing that the incident was rooted in the fact that “a white woman couldn’t accept the authority of a Black city employee.”
Cook denied this, saying during the hearing that she called Pinnix a bitch, but never referenced her race. When asked if she’d ever used a racial slur, Cook said, “I never have and I never would.” Cook’s attorneys also said Pinnix never told police about racist language at the time of the incident.
Police responding to the 911 call spoke to Cook and Pinnix separately. Body cam footage of both encounters was presented during the hearing.
In footage of Pinnix, an officer says Cook told them Pinnix called her the homophobic slur. Pinnix responds, “Yes I did.”
No discipline, questions about commission
Cook stopped walking dogs in Highland Park after the encounter. In the nearly 18 months since, Cook’s attorneys estimated she’s lost more than $30,000 in earnings she would have made if she continued working with clients in Highland Park. They argued the city should compensate Cook for those lost earnings.
During the hearing, Cook said she’d “never been called a name like that before,” and that she felt hurt, embarrassed and afraid.
After the incident, Cook filed a claim with the city Law Department, which handles claims against the city. The department answered that it was “not responsible or liable for criminal or quasi-criminal acts of its employees, as those acts are not within the course and scope of employment.”
The same letter “strongly” recommended Cook cooperate with the city’s Office of Municipal Investigations. OMI investigated the case, though Cook’s attorneys said OMI never contacted her.
In October 2024, OMI found that Pinnix had violated the city’s employee disciplinary manual by fighting and using abusive language, and sustained the allegation. OMI has no disciplinary power.
Pinnix was never disciplined by the city. Rush, her supervisor, testified at the hearing that, when Pinnix called him the day of the incident, he could hear the two women fighting over the phone. Rush said he did not feel discipline was warranted, because he believed Pinnix was “provoked” and acting in self defense.
“This is a system-wide issue that started with the city never training its employees on anything: use of force, interaction with the public, discrimination.”
Attorney Christine Elzer
Cook’s lawyers said it was the city’s “lack of accountability” that led them to take the case.
“Miss Pinnix isn’t just a rogue employee that did something crazy and had a bad day,” Christine Elzer, one of Cook’s attorneys, told Public Source. “This is a system-wide issue that started with the city never training its employees on anything: use of force, interaction with the public, discrimination.”
Elzer said the ordinance that gives the commission the authority to enforce Pittsburgh discrimination laws does not extend to disciplining or terminating a city employee. Because the city hasn’t yet disciplined Pinnix, said Elzer, “I can’t imagine any consequences coming from that to her.”
Asked for an interview, Kobee, representing the city, said the Law Department does not comment on active litigation.
A commission’s conflict with its city
The independent commission educates the city about human rights and enforces civil rights laws in Pittsburgh.
Established by a city ordinance in 1955, the commission has the power to create rules and procedures “necessary to administer, implement and enforce” Pittsburgh’s discrimination laws. City code bans discrimination of protected classes in housing, employment and public accommodations. Any person who claims to have experienced discrimination in those categories within Pittsburgh can file a claim with the commission.
At the end of the December hearing, solicitor Kobee questioned whether the commission had legal authority to hold a public hearing against the city at all, and argued, “any aspect of city code inconsistent with state or federal law is a problem.”
Shepherd said the city has argued that city code doesn’t explicitly state that the commission can hold public hearings against the city, so it doesn’t have the authority to do so. Shepherd countered that there’s precedent for commission hearings against the city, and that the code outlines her department’s authority to enforce discrimination laws widely — extending to the city.
“This is an argument that the city has used for a couple of different cases now, that we don’t have the authority to do certain things,” Shepherd said. She said that if the code is at odds with state or federal standards, it’s the Law Department’s job to take action to address that.
“When they start pulling things like this out at the very end of a public hearing, I’m like, ‘If you didn’t believe you had to be here, why are you here?’” Shepherd said. “If you honestly didn’t think that we had the power, you wouldn’t have taken any part of this process seriously. But here you are.”
The commission is currently working to update its portion of the city code to make its jurisdiction clearer, Shepherd said.
Complaints by the numbers
Shepherd said the commission is constantly striving to tell residents that it exists.
The last time the commission was popularly known in the city was the 1990s, Shepherd said, when residents would often report hate crimes to them before even filing reports with the police. Today, she said many residents aren’t aware they can file discrimination complaints.
There were 325 new complaints filed with the commission from 2023 through late 2025, according to information the commission provided in response to a request by Public Source. Complaints name one or more of 20 classes protected by Pittsburgh code.
Disability, race and sex are among the most represented classes in the data — along with claims of retaliation.
Shepherd said some protected classes may be less represented in the data because people may not realize they can even file complaints based on certain statuses, like domestic violence survivors or medical marijuana patients.
Of the total Commission on Human Relations cases that have been resolved, the most common results were:
- 105 findings of lack of probable cause to believe that a violation occurred
- 43 settlements
- 26 transfers to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
If Cook’s hearing results in a finding against Pinnix, that would be the first such conclusion since June 2025.
Complaints like Cook’s, based on sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation, are relatively uncommon. Shepherd attributed that to “fear.” The commission has found some don’t report anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination because they’re worried they’ll face retaliation for it, and feel risking their housing or job isn’t worth it, Shepherd said.
That fear became more acute last year. On President Donald Trump’s first day back in office, he filed an executive order dismantling federal protections for transgender people. Since then, Shepherd said, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Department of Housing and Urban Development have largely stopped taking gender identity cases. Shepherd’s commission has directed special outreach to Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ+ community as federal discrimination protections wither.
Tory Basile was a fall 2025 editorial intern and can be reached at tory@publicsource.org.
This story was fact-checked by Katherine Weaver.
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