The state trooper involved in a traffic stop shooting in the South Side generated controversy six years ago when he fatally shot an unarmed 12-year-old boy in Uniontown.
State police placed Trooper Samuel Nassan on desk duty after the fatal shooting early Sunday of Nicholas Haniotakis, 33, of the South Side. His partner during the DUI patrol, Pittsburgh police Sgt. Terry Donnelly, was placed on administrative leave.
Police said Haniotakis aimed his sport utility vehicle at them, narrowly missing one officer.
A police lawyer and a city councilman defended the officers' actions.
"When this investigation is complete, I believe the facts will show that these officers had no choice but to use deadly force," said attorney Eric Stoltenberg, legal counsel for the state troopers' collective bargaining unit. "He was using deadly force against the officers, and they acted appropriately."
City Councilman Bruce Kraus said he supports the officers' actions. He criticized the alcohol-fueled environment created by 124 liquor licenses in the South Side area.
"It is such a party central that it creates this atmosphere for anyone and everyone to come over there, challenge authority and think that it's Mardi Gras all the time," said Kraus, who represents the South Side.
Pittsburgh police detectives, state police and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.'s office are investigating.
In December 2002, Nassan fatally shot Michael Ellerbe, 12, after the boy jumped from a stolen vehicle. Nassan and his partner at the time, Cpl. Juan Curry, said they were chasing Ellerbe when Curry's gun accidentally discharged when he fell.
During a civil trial, Nassan testified he shot the unarmed child in the back because he thought Ellerbe shot Curry. Ellerbe family attorney Geoffrey Fieger portrayed Nassan, a burly ex-Marine, as rash and quick to fire without determining whether the fleeing youth was armed. He accused the trooper and his partner of concocting a story about the shooting to absolve themselves of responsibility.
A federal jury awarded the Ellerbe family $28 million for wrongful death. The state settled the suit for $12.5 million, a record at the time.
In November, Christopher Strothers of Penn Hills sued Nassan for civil rights violations. He alleges the trooper threw him to the ground, shattered his ankle, screamed racial epithets at him and cited him for disorderly conduct after an incident in the South Side last summer.
Strothers' attorney, George Kontos, said Nassan responded to a report of an argument outside Rumshakers Bar that Pittsburgh police had dealt with, and encountered Strothers with friends.
"My client wasn't involved in anything, and he was verbally and physically assaulted by a trooper who is clearly showing a pattern of using excessive force," Kontos said. The lawsuit is pending.
In December 2006, the state paid flight attendant Stephen Corey $7,500 to settle a federal civil rights suit he filed claiming Nassan gave him a traffic ticket in 2004 after he raised his middle finger to the trooper. Corey's attorney argued the gesture is protected speech.
Nassan declined comment to the Associated Press yesterday.
Donnelly, hired by the city in 1993, was named in a 1995 lawsuit filed by a man who said two other police officers beat him. That case joined dozens the city settled when it entered into a consent decree with the federal government to address a backlog of complaints against officers and issues of police misconduct.
Donnelly, who has received several commendations and awards, could not be reached.
Susan Pickman, who instructs on use-of-force issues at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said it would be wrong to draw conclusions because Nassan was involved in two fatal shootings in the line of duty.
"Each shooting is different," Pickman said. "You have to look at the particular of the specific incident. I never discharged my weapon, but I also know people who, if they hadn't discharged their weapons, they or someone else would have been killed. ... On any given day, the question is, what does the evidence support?"
In Sunday's incident, Donnelly and Nassan were looking for drunken drivers when they saw a 2000 Oldsmobile Bravada SUV with an Ohio license plate going the wrong way down 13th Street at about 1:32 a.m., police said. They chased the SUV with lights and sirens as it sped down 13th Street in reverse, smashed into a parked car and then backed up and hit the patrol car.
Both officers fired at the SUV, which sped away before crashing into a utility pole at Sarah and 22nd streets, police said.
Haniotakis died from multiple bullet wounds at UPMC Mercy.
A woman who answered the door at his address referred all questions to attorney James Ecker.
Ecker said he would wait until after the funeral to speak. He said he had represented Haniotakis in past criminal cases and "knows the family very well."
Court records show Haniotakis had a history of violent run-ins. In July 2005, he struck a Mt. Oliver police officer with a car and then led police on a chase in which another officer was injured. He pleaded guilty to assault and other charges and was sentenced to 11 to 23 months in jail, court records show.
Last week, Haniotakis received a protection from abuse order against the mother of his 2-year-old child. In the court records, he said she threw hot coffee on him, tried to run him over with a vehicle and in the past was arrested for hitting him in the face with a three-wick candle. In 2004, the woman obtained a PFA against Haniotakis, claiming he regularly punched, beat and verbally abused her.
Haniotakis is the fourth person to be fatally shot by police in Allegheny County this year. No charges were filed in any of the cases.
Since 2005, state police have fired their weapons 37 times in the line of duty, said Cpl. Linette Quinn, an agency spokeswoman. Officials could not immediately provide statistics on how many involved injuries or deaths.
