diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index e880a3269b..12a169adcc 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -71,6 +71,9 @@ Changed
   This functionality should never be used in production, but only in development environments or
   similar when debugging code. #5199
 
+* Silence pylint about dev/debugging utility (tools/direct_queue_publisher.py) that uses pika because kombu
+  doesn't support what it does. If anyone uses that utility, they have to install pika manually. #5380
+
 Fixed
 ~~~~~
 
diff --git a/tools/direct_queue_publisher.py b/tools/direct_queue_publisher.py
index 0da7dd0b08..aae5bae74d 100755
--- a/tools/direct_queue_publisher.py
+++ b/tools/direct_queue_publisher.py
@@ -18,7 +18,12 @@
 from __future__ import absolute_import
 import argparse
 
-import pika
+try:
+    import pika  # pylint disable=import-error
+except ImportError:
+    raise ImportError(
+        "Pika is not installed with StackStorm. Install it manually to use this tool."
+    )
 
 
 def main(queue, payload):