Melvin Hubbard El calmly asked the erratic woman wielding a knife to drop her weapon.
Then, a concerned passer-by stopped to help, and the woman stabbed her. Hubbard El fired his service weapon, but it was too late.
“You can better understand the split-second decisions police make with each situation every day,” said Hubbard El, who was participating in a virtual firearms simulation Tuesday conducted by Zone 5 city police. “Things can go south in a minute.”
The training took place at the Pittsburgh Police & Fire Training Academy near Zone 5 headquarters in Highland Park, and a second session is scheduled for Thursday night. Residents went through firearms training using the department's firearms training simulator, which puts individuals in a virtual-reality situation in which they must use force.
The group — called the Commander's Cabinet — consists of about 35 Zone 5 residents and 10 youths, and it meets every other month to discuss police-community issues.
John Lubawski, a range master with the training academy, said the exercise gives officers judgment training — they make a decision that mirrors real life under real time constraints. Civilians, he said, have the opportunity to make the same split-second judgements.
“To see the situation from a layman's standpoint, it's a tough job,” Hubbard El said.
Zone 5 officials opened the training session to the group because “use of force is always a topic of question from the public,” said Public Safety spokeswoman Sonya Toler.
Police use of deadly force has remained under a microscope since the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, sparking riots and protests across the country. Police killings of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Eric Garner in New York and Tamir Rice in Cleveland have resulted in unrest, though after police here shot and killed three suspects last year, according to data from the Department of Public Safety, Pittsburgh remained calm.
A city police officer working a security detail at First Niagara Bank in Mt. Washington shot would-be robber Raymone Davis on Dec. 4 after he pointed a gun at her. He died several hours later.
Tyronne Harris Jr. led police on a chase into the South Hills on June 22 after a carjacking and brief shooting spree. He got stuck in traffic on busy Route 51 and died in a gunbattle with four city officers and one Port Authority officer.
On Jan. 16, rape suspect Leslie Sapp III, 47, jumped in front of a county and state fugitive task force serving a warrant on his Knoxville home. Sapp was wielding what was later found to be a toy pellet gun and took a “shooting stance,” according to investigators. He was hit seven times by two officers and died of multiple gunshots to the torso.
“The responsibility is daunting,” said Monica Watts, president of the highland Park Community Council. “Any decision you make can take a life.”
Zone 5 neighborhoods —which include Homewood, East Liberty and the East Hills — had the most violent crime in 2015, with one-third of the city's 60 homicides. Activists questioned police use of force in several high-profile cases.
In November 2012, officers in Highland Park pulled over a silver Infiniti driven by black teenager Leon Ford Jr. Police, believing he was a different man who was wanted, tried to drag Ford out of the car. Police shot him when he attempted to flee; Ford survived but is paralyzed from the waist down.
Ford is suing the three officers in federal court on a number of claims, including excessive force.
Megan Guza is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 412-380-8519 or mguza@tribweb.com.
