‘Pit Boss’ star speaks to police cadets about bias training
Drew Volchko has an exercise for new cadets at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Police Academy.
He’ll give them a few background facts about a suspect – troubled childhood, runaway who settled in Oakland, convict who spent 10 years in Folsom State Prison for attempted murder.
Then he’ll ask them to write down a description of the suspect
Invariably, it comes back as some mix of tall and Black.
Once the cadets have finished writing, Volchko spills a first name: Luigi. And students ask for their paper back.
Then, in walks the person himself — who as it turns out, is neither tall, Black, nor a Mafia don.
“Well, well, well,” Luigi will tell them, tossing on more colorful language at the end.
The education in implicit bias, as they soon learn, comes from Luigi “Shorty” Rossi, a person with dwarfism. Some of the cadets might recognize him from his former Animal Planet show “Pit Boss,” which focused on his animal rescue advocacy.
“If you saw me walking down the street, you would never think (I was an ex-convict),” he said Saturday while visiting cadets during their class at the Washington County Courthouse.
Rossi, a longtime friend of Volchko, has been coming to the area for the past 15 years, participating in events with Volchko’s Washington Police Benevolent Association to raise money for the families of officers who have been injured or killed. For the past couple of years, Rossi’s also helped present to cadets.
“The first thing we’re showing them is, don’t categorize and don’t judge a book by its cover,” Volchko said. “Be open to whatever it may be, because if that’s what you’re looking for, that’s all you’re going to see. You may walk right past him.”
After Rossi introduces himself, he tells his story to the cadets, fleshing out the summary Volchko gave.
At a young age, Rossi ran away from a middle-class family, where he said his father would frequently beat him. He settled in Nickerson Gardens, a public housing project in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles Rossi described as one of the most violent west of the Mississippi.
He fell in with a bad crowd, he said, eventually going to work for a drug lord.
The same assumptions Volchko is trying to drum out of his cadets worked to Rossi’s advantage.
In one instance, he was the target of a large police search for a little person dressed in red.
“Because it was a predominantly Black area, he said, officers would ignore him even when he otherwise fit the description. In one case, they were looking for a little person wearing all red.”
“There was Shorty, walking down the street, in all red, by the crime scene — but I’m white,” he said.
He was convicted on his third trial for attempted murder, serving 10 years, 10 months and 10 days at Folsom.
Even while incarcerated, he said, he was beginning to use his street smarts for something more productive.
Finding it hard to find a job once released, he got a job at Universal Studios as part of the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” stage show. From that foothold in the entertainment industry, he founded Shortywood Productions, a talent agency for little people.
While he first pitched a reality show about the agency, his introduction to TV audiences would come from another passion, animal advocacy. He formed Shorty’s Pit Bull Rescue, a business that places abandoned pit bulls in new homes.
Rossi credits his first pit bull rescue with changing his life.
“It was like it was all about not saving yourself, it was about doing something else for someone else,” he said.
Volchko and Rossi first met when he was trying to put together an event to highlight service dogs. When Rossi came to Pittsburgh for Tony Dorsett’s fundraiser for McGuire Memorial, the two hit it off.
They’ve stayed close, forging a friendship Rossi compared to the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito movie “Twins.” Rossi is godfather to Volchko’s grandson.
“It’s two different backgrounds, and we get along so great,” Rossi said.
Rossi volunteered his time for the class, flying out from his ranch in Mexico. He uses his experience to teach cadets about the value of perseverance.
“You’re going to fail, then you’re going to succeed,” he said. “But if you fail and don’t go back at it again, then you’re going to fail your life.”
The group Rossi spoke to will be the first graduating class of IEP’s satellite campus at CNX Southpointe. Unlike a regular five-month academy, the program is designed to accommodate cadets working at other jobs who want to pursue a career in law enforcement. Volchko modeled the part-time program on the one he graduated from in Beaver County 30 years ago.
Besides Rossi, he’s also bringing in officers to share their experiences on the job, such as participating in anti-human trafficking operations.
“We’re trying to give them more than just ‘Here’s the laws, here’s what you have to do,'” he said. “We’re bringing practical learning experiences in the flesh.”