By Dennis B. Roddy and Sadie Gurman
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper said a SWAT marksman was justified when he fatally shot a man who barricaded himself inside a North Point Breeze apartment, where he threatened to shoot officers while holding guns in both hands.
The lone shot into the man’s upper torso put an end to a 9-hour standoff that triggered angry protests from the family and raised questions about the use of deadly force
Lamar Smith, 29, died when, police rushed the apartment in the 200 block of North Homewood Avenue about noon yesterday, and tried to persuade him to surrender. Instead, Chief Harper said, Mr. Smith walked toward the officers with guns in both hands.
“The actions were justified because the suspect did approach the officers with weapons in both hands after a 9 1/2-hour ordeal,” Chief Harper said.
“It was an unfortunate incident that occurred,” Chief Harper said. “Our condolences go out to the suspect’s family.”
The standoff grew from a curbside argument among Mr. Smith, his girlfriend, and her father, and escalated into a siege that emptied parts of the neighborhood as negotiators tried to persuade the suspect to surrender.
About 2 a.m., police said, they went to the front door of the apartment to check on Mr. Smith’s girlfriend, at the request of her father, and saw Mr. Smith sitting at the end of the hall, clad only in boxer shots and holding a gun in each hand.
They ordered Mr. Smith to drop the guns, but instead he ran upstairs. At that point, police evacuated the remaining residents from the building and called for back-up.
SWAT officers and a three-member negotiation team were called to urge Mr. Smith to surrender.
During the standoff, Mr. Smith would crank up his music and pace furiously around the apartment, sticking his head out the window at times. Police said he threatened “not to be taken alive” and told negotiators where he wanted to be buried.
He also fired one shot inside the apartment. When he tried to jump out a window while holding the guns, police said, SWAT officers fired “less-than-lethal, beanbag rounds” at him, striking him and forcing him back inside. They also launched pepper spray into the apartment.
Mr. Smith spoke on a cell phone with his relatives throughout the standoff and agreed to surrender at least twice, but “changed his mind at the last minute,” assistant chief William Bochter said.
Police again tried to negotiate, and Mr. Smith fired at the officers, who again launched pepper spray into the apartment.
SWAT officers stormed the apartment building when Mr. Smith ceased communicating, Chief Bochter said.
With a remote camera, the officers saw Mr. Smith lying on the floor, still holding guns in both hands. Again, the officers tried to convince him to surrender. Instead, holding the guns, he walked toward them.
At that point, a SWAT marksman, armed with a rifle and positioned in the window of an adjacent building, fired a shot that struck Mr. Smith in the chest. He ran to a bedroom and collapsed.
The officer who fired the fatal shot and an officer who fired beanbag rounds at Mr. Smith were placed on paid administrative leave.
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office will investigate whether the shooting was justified.
Distraught relatives were quick to blame police.
A brother and an uncle said they had been in contact with him throughout much of the morning.
“They wouldn’t let us in to talk to him, to end it peacefully,” yelled a man who said he was Mr. Smith’s uncle. “The police killed him because of a domestic dispute, because of nothing.”
A younger brother of Mr. Smith, who declined to give his name, described him as a family man, a loving father to two daughters, ages 6 and 9, and a more responsible member of their family.
“He’s the one who always keeps us together,” his younger brother said.
Mr. Smith had a lengthy criminal record that included convictions for drugs, assault, robbery and firearms violations and had served a sentence at the SCI Graterford after one conviction. Between 1998 and yesterday, he had been held in the Allegheny County Jail eight times, including one complaint of intimidating a witness. At the time of yesterday’s standoff, he was being sought by Penn Hills police on an outstanding warrant related to drunken driving.
A neighbor of Mr. Smith, Jeff Minzey, said he was awakened around 2 a.m., by the sounds of an argument on the sidewalk outside the apartment building.
“His girlfriend was out there,” Mr. Minzey said. “He just kept telling her to get the [expletive] away from him, to leave him alone.”
About 90 minutes later, Mr. Minzey said, he was awakened by his wife, Kristin, who told him a police SWAT team was on their back porch and using an upstairs window to monitor a standoff with Mr. Smith.
Mrs. Minzey said she turned on her porch light around 3:30 a.m. and police frantically knocked on the door and told her to turn it off and retreat to an interior room.
Shortly afterward, she said, Mr. Smith tried to flee his building through an open window.
“He got one leg out the window and that’s when he started shooting at them and that’s when I heard cops on our back porch say ‘Our position’s been compromised -- go, go, go,’” Mrs. Minzey said.
She said Mr. Smith fired at police on five different occasions, always from an upstairs window.
Police, she said, returned fire with bean bag rounds and tear gas.
Throughout the standoff, Mrs. Minzey said Mr. Smith leaned out a window, sometimes cursing at officers.
“At one point he stuck his head out the window and screamed, ‘I’m gonna’ die, I’m gonna’ die,’” she said.
At another point, she said, she smelled what she thought was marijuana smoke wafting from the apartment.
James Ecker, a prominent Pittsburgh attorney, said he had been called to the scene by the family in hopes of persuading the suspect to surrender.
“To hear he is dead is beyond me,” said Mr. Ecker, a defense lawyer who 22 years ago was called in by county police to negotiate the surrender of a gunman during a daylong standoff in Homestead.
Mr. Ecker said he was contacted by James Jones, who identified himself as Mr. Smith’s brother, and asked to come to the scene to speak to the suspect.
“He said ‘My brother is tied up. He specifically asked that you go out there.’ He told me that he put his face out in the window and somebody shot at him.”
In all likelihood, those were bean bag rounds, which are fired from a shotgun and designed to momentarily stun a suspect without killing him.
After a phone call to Chief Nate Harper, Mr. Ecker said he drove to the scene where he was told he would not be able to speak with Mr. Smith.
“They said ‘You can’t do this. It’s dangerous,’” Mr. Ecker said.
“It’s protocol,” Chief Bochter said at last night’s news conference, explaining why Mr. Ecker was not allowed to enter the apartment building. “You never know what’s going to anger someone in that state.”
One of the leading experts on police use of deadly force last night said Pittsburgh police appeared to follow the rules that dictate barricade and hostage situations.
David Klinger, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, and a former Los Angeles police officer, said a third-party civilian should not be sent into a room with an armed gunman.
“The notion of letting somebody go into a place where an armed individual is barricaded, to negotiate face-to-face, is absolutely contrary to all tactical doctrine that’s taught all around the country,” Mr. Klinger said. “There is no crisis negotiator who will tell you that’s the way to go.”
Sending Mr. Ecker, or any other party into the room with an armed suspect, he said, amounts to “placing the life of the criminal suspect over the life of an innocent civilian. Even if the innocent civilian is willing to do that, it’s inappropriate.”
Copyright 2009 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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