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Man with pellet gun killed by police
Karen Roebuck can be reached at or .
Deputy Chief William Mullen said it was too early to determine if the man, 55, was trying to commit "suicide by cop," a phenomena in which a suicidal person threatens an officer in order to force the lawman to use deadly force.
Mullen declined to identify the officer or the victim.
Dispatchers sent the officer and a recruit in training to a house in the 100 block of William Street about 6:10 p.m. to investigate a report of a suicide attempt by hanging. While on their way to the address, they were notified that a gun was involved, Mullen said. As the two officers headed up the long driveway surrounded by woods, they saw a man and woman struggling over a gun, which was behind the man's back, he said.
The man "took a combat stance -- two-handed grip" and aimed what was later determined to be a pellet gun at the officer, Mullen said. The officer fired twice from about 30 feet away, striking the man in the chest with both shots, he said. The officers administered first aid, but paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.
"They didn't have enough time to determine it wasn't a real firearm," Mullen said. "...They had to make a split-second decision."
Because the investigation is ongoing, Mullen said it was too early to say whether the shooting was justified. However, police are allowed to fire their weapons if they feel their or someone else's lives are in danger, he said.
Mullen said a noose was found in the man's car. The victim also had knocked down a retaining wall from the property to William Street and had threatened to drive off the cliff, he said. He did not know if the woman, who he described as the victim's common-law wife, had stopped the two suicide attempts.
The officer and the recruit, who has been in field training for only two weeks, will be on paid leave. The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office is supervising the investigation of the shooting.
Mullen said the officer has been with the Pittsburgh Police Department since October 2000, and the recruit entered the police academy in January.
The officer and the recruit were interviewed last night by homicide supervisors and were to meet with a police psychologist last night and again today, Mullen said.
On May 27, Pittsburgh police killed Vincent S. Napper, of the Hill District, with a volley of 20 bullets after he ran a stop sign in Lincoln-Lemington and shot at officers. Police said Napper, an ex-convict, wore a bulletproof vest and opened fire on police with a stolen 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun after a car chase. He narrowly missed a bystander, police said.
Pittsburgh Police Chief Robert McNeilly defended the officers' action, although Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr., whose office is investigating, has not yet ruled whether it was justified.
Sandra Wilkins, the nearest neighbor to the man shot yesterday, said she has lived there since 1984 but never met her neighbors up the hill. She was not at home when the shooting took place, she said.
"It's a shame when it happens to anybody," Wilkins said.
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