Westmoreland County coroner scheduled to announce ruling in fatal 2013 police standoff

Westmoreland County Coroner Ken Bacha on Tuesday will announce his ruling on whether the 2013 fatal shooting of a Latrobe man during a 17-hour standoff with police was justified.

Testimony during a daylong coroner's inquest Feb. 19 revealed that Scott M. Murphy, 49, died from a shot fired by state police who were trying to end the standoff July 19, 2013.

According to testimony from 10 witnesses during the inquest, six members of the state police Special Emergency Response Team broke through a second-floor bathroom door when the gunfire began. Within minutes, one state trooper was shot in the eye and blinded, and Murphy, who had held police at bay with a handgun and a rifle, was fatally shot in the head.

An autopsy disclosed Murphy had four gunshots in an arm.

Police fired as many as 82 rounds through doors, windows and walls, according to the testimony.

Police said Murphy was holed up in his mother's Lloyd Avenue home, having stolen pain medication from a nearby pharmacy a day before the shootout.

Latrobe police Officer Robert Rummel said that early in the standoff, he spotted Murphy, unarmed, emerge from a crawl space under a stairway in the home, move a piece of furniture and run upstairs.

As the standoff progressed, police evacuated the neighborhood, cut the power, lobbed tear gas into the home and used a remote-controlled robot to do reconnaissance of the first floor.

Trooper Brian King, a member of the SERT unit, was shot in the eye. The bullet traveled through his face shield.

A member of the SERT team, Trooper Matthew Pierotti, testified during the inquest that police kicked out an air conditioning unit, then fired suppressing rounds through a wall toward the bathroom as they jumped out of the window to safety.

During the inquest, District Attorney John Peck asked Pierotti if he felt justified in firing at Murphy.

“Absolutely,” Pierotti testified. “He had already hit one of my teammates. We had to get out of this building, and I thought he was shooting at us.”