The Penn Hills police officer who fatally shot a 20-year-old man in July acted within the law, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. announced Thursday.
Footage from Officer Jared Rothert’s body-worn camera — played for the media during a news conference at the Allegheny County Courthouse — clearly shows that Onaje Dickinson, 20, was hiding in a closet when he fired three shots at the officer, who stumbled back and returned fire, killing Dickinson.
The incident occurred in the basement of a home at 9207 Frankstown Road on July 14 as officers investigated a homicide across the street. Officers knew four young men who were believed to be either witnesses or suspects ran into the house after the homicide.
Three of the young men came out voluntarily; Dickinson refused, and instead hid in a cubby hole inside a closet in the basement of the home, Mr. Zappala said.
Officer Rothert’s body-worn camera footage shows him moving through the home with his gun drawn, calling out, “Come on out, police!” He descends into the basement of the home with several other officers, and approaches a closet door. He opens the door to find a small closet filled with bags and bins of stuff on the ground.
He steps over the bags and opens a second door -- the door to the cubby where Dikinson was hiding -- discovers the 20-year-old and says, “Hey! Show your hands!”
Dickinson immediately starts firing.
On the video, Officer Rothert steps back, stumbles on the junk on the floor, and falls. The 20-year-old continued toward the officer and kept pulling the trigger, Mr. Zappala said, but the gun was empty after three shots.
Office Rothert fired three return shots, killing Dickinson.
Mr. Zappala said the officer’s body-worn camera footage was critical to his ruling that the officer’s actions were justified.
“We’re talking about transparency,” he said Thursday. “I don’t have to explain what happened, you guys can see it.”
Mr. Zappala released about 90 seconds of the body-worn camera footage and blurred the faces of those involved. He said Officer Rothert’s life may have been saved when he stumbled on the bags of junk, because the shots fired by Dickinson went over him and hit a wall at a height of about three feet.
“We’re lucky we didn’t lose certainly one police officer that day,” he said.
Aside from the revolver that Dickinson fired at police, investigators also found a 9mm gun in the basement of the home and used ballistic testing to determine it was the weapon used in the homicide across the street.
Allegheny County police believe Dickinson and 15-year-old Myzle Ford -- one of the young men who surrendered voluntarily from the house when police closed in -- lured Joshua Antonio Makhanda-Lopez, 30, to the Sharon Court apartment complex, at Frankstown Road and Graham Boulevard in order to rob him.
It’s a scheme police believe Dickinson carried out several times, Mr. Zappala said. Dickinson would use another person’s social media to arrange to buy drugs -- usually marijuana -- from a dealer, but when the dealer arrived to make the sale, Dickinson would rob the dealer, Mr. Zappala said.
In this case, Mr. Makhanda-Lopez was shot three times in the head and once in the torso. Myzle, who is charged with homicide, conspiracy and robbery in Mr. Makhanda-Lopez’s death, told detectives that Dickinson fired the fatal shots.
The 9mm gun used in that killing was also used in an attempted homicide on July 2 in Spring Hill and a killing in Baldwin Borough on May 8, Mr. Zappala said.
On July 2, Pittsburgh police believe Dickinson conspired with Shayla Johnson, 17, of Brighton Heights, to rob Julian Carpenter, age unknown, inside a home in the 2100 block of Rhine Street, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday.
Text messages between Dickinson and Shayla on July 2 include details about what Mr. Carpenter looked like, what he was wearing and how much money he carried, according to the complaint.
Mr. Carpenter arrived at the home expecting to find Shayla alone, but was shot three times after he arrived, according to the complaint. He remained hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday.
An unnamed witness told police that the night before the shooting, Dickinson told the witness that Shayla had a “lick” for them -- a common street term for a robbery. The same witness said Shayla later confessed to setting Mr. Carpenter up for the robbery. She was charged Wednesday with conspiracy and using her cell phone for criminal purposes.
Casings collected at the shooting scene matched the 9mm gun officers found in the basement on Frankstown Road after Dickinson was killed, according to the complaint.
That same gun was also used on May 8 in the killing of Tre Valorie, 26, who was killed in the parking lot of Rumerz Sports Bar & Grill on Woods Run Avenue in Brighton Heights, Mr. Zappala said.
In that case, investigators believe two shooters opened fire with two guns. Police believe one shooter to be Matthew Lambert, 22, and believe he targeted Mr. Valorie because Mr. Valorie was dating Mr. Lambert’s ex-girlfriend.
Mr. Lambert sent his girlfriend numerous threatening text messages before the killing, according to police. The second shooter has not been identified or charged, although Mr. Zappala said Thursday that ballistics testing proves the same 9mm gun found with Dickinson was used in the attack.
In all, that 9mm gun was used in two homicides and an attempted homicide, Mr. Zappala said. The weapon was stolen from a home in Brookline, he said, and had been purchased legally.
Mr. Zappala said “a lot” of guns that are purchased lawfully are later used in crimes, and said he supports measures to create criminal penalties for gun owners who fail to report their guns missing or stolen.
Gov. Tom Wolf last week signed an executive order aimed at reducing gun violence in Pennsylvania, and state lawmakers are considering several gun-control bills, including measures that would mandate the reporting of lost or stolen guns.
The city of Pittsburgh already has an ordinance in place requiring owners to report missing firearms within 24 hours, but enforcing that ordinance does not fall within the purview of the district attorney because it is not a criminal offense.
Shelly Bradbury: 412-263-1999, sbradbury@post-gazette.com or follow @ShellyBradbury on Twitter.
First Published: August 22, 2019, 4:59 p.m.
Updated: August 22, 2019, 6:48 p.m.
