Foregoing a national search, Mayor-elect Corey O'Connor on Thursday nominated Jason Lando as Pittsburgh's next police chief.

"Chief Lando is somebody that we wanted. Somebody that we need right now," O'Connor said.  

In picking Lando, O'Connor said he needs a permanent police chief on day one, touting the former commander's knowledge of the city and his strong record of fostering solid police-community relations.  

"Understands that policing is not just making arrests and solving crimes, but somebody who believes in community policing, which is something that I believe in," O'Connor said. 

"Building meaningful relationships with our community is the only way we're going to be successful as a police department," Lando said. 

Lando says his top priority is reducing violent crime and the way to do that is partnering with the community in that effort, something at which he was successful in heading Zone 5 in Homewood and East Liberty. But he also inherits a bureau that is understaffed, overworked and poorly equipped with police cruisers well past their useful age.

"In addition to the community engagement, one of my first orders of business is going to be to look internally to see what can we do as a police department that makes this a place that people want to come work," Lando said.  

To that end, Lando wants to beef up recruiting and institute officer wellness programs to better tackle and address stodgy problems like street crime Downtown and on the South Side. Even though he's been working as the chief of Frederick, Maryland, he says he knows that those two areas need immediate attention.  

"Residents, police officers, over the summer, just asking questions, those are the two areas that have come up and so those will be our two big priorities," Lando said. 

A Pittsburgh native, Lando attended the Tree of Life Synagogue growing up and directed operations there on Oct. 27, 2018, when a gunman took the lives of 11 innocent worshippers in the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history. Four police officers were seriously wounded in confronting and subduing the gunman.

Lando had been a finalist to succeed Scott Schubert as chief, but Mayor Ed Gainey selected Larry Scirotto instead. Scirotto left the job last year after only 18 months. Pittsburgh has since had two acting chiefs: Christopher Ragland and Marty Devine.

Lando alluded to the high turnover of recent police chiefs, saying, "Pittsburgh's my home and I'm coming back and I'm in it for the long haul. So you have my word that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon." 

He'll need to be approved by city council, but he had the support of several council members when his name was floated two years ago.