Breaking News - Pittsburgh City Streets Blocked off

[tomboudreau]

PITTSBURGH -- Police have closed off a section of Penn Avenue and blocked highway exits to downtown Pittsburgh while they investigate a reported security concern.

The closure is affecting the 500 block of Penn near the intersection with Cecil Way, between Heinz Hall and Stanwix Street.

The nature of the police activity centers around a building that is currently used by the Pittsburgh Culinary School and was once a Horne's department store.

Police have not confirmed the nature of the security concern.

A witness told WTAE Channel 4 Action News reporter Gus Rosendale that a police officer told him an armed man may have been spotted in the building.

Officers from several departments are on the scene, including Pittsburgh police, Port Authority police and the Allegheny County Sheriff's Department.

State police said no parkway traffic is being allowed to enter the city.

Refresh this page later for updates.

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/8188403/detail.html

[Skywatch_NC]

Pittsburgh Police Search For Reported Gunman Downtown

POSTED: 2:28 pm EST March 22, 2006

PITTSBURGH -- Dozens of Pittsburgh police officers were searching downtown buildings near the theater district for a man who reportedly has a rifle with a scope or lighted sighting device on it.

There are no reports of shots being fired, let alone any injuries, and police said they have not confirmed the reports that a bearded man wearing camouflage was seen with the gun.

Police have released no official comment, but officers at the scene said they have several witnesses who claimed to have seen the man.

They are now searching a five-story building on Penn Avenue where one witness told police the man might have been on the roof.

A SWAT team has also been summoned.

http://www.wral.com/news/8189546/detail.html

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.

[therock1811]

Reports now indicating this was a man with a pellet gun shooting pigeons.

[SouthFloridawx]

I used to live in pittsburgh that is going to cause some huge traffic concerns for the ride home from work. There are tons of pigeons in pittsburgh also. I used to have lots of friends that go to that culinary school. I have been to many steelers games there and used to go to school in downtown pittsburgh. Interesting story thanks tomboudreau.

[therock1811]

Stand corrected, it was an air rifle, not a pellet gun. Either way, things are returning to normal in downtown Pittsburgh at this time.

[Skywatch_NC]

Glad that things are returning to normal now. Folks shouldn't be shooting in an urban area like that anyway...no matter what kind of gun...as there are safer ways to try get rid of birds for peeps who don't like them.

Eric

[therock1811]

Glad that things are returning to normal now. Folks shouldn't be shooting in an urban area like that anyway...no matter what kind of gun...as there are safer ways to try get rid of birds for peeps who don't like them.

Eric

Yep. Can't be too careful. In this case, Pittsburgh PD did the right thing, shutting down the downtown area and not letting anyone in. I for one applaud their work in that situation.

[Skywatch_NC]

Glad that things are returning to normal now. Folks shouldn't be shooting in an urban area like that anyway...no matter what kind of gun...as there are safer ways to try get rid of birds for peeps who don't like them.

Eric

Yep. Can't be too careful. In this case, Pittsburgh PD did the right thing, shutting down the downtown area and not letting anyone in. I for one applaud their work in that situation.

I do, too.

Hope they confiscated that gun from the guy, also.

[therock1811]

He was reported to be in custody, so they would have.

[SouthFloridawx]

good picture of pittsburgh at night

[ohiostorm]

I was working at the airport at the time of the incident. I couldn't get any other news at the time. I got a text message saying it was a man with a pellet gun shooting pigeons. I applaud the PD for their excellent work. This couldve been a whole lot worse.

[alicia-w]

maybe he was hungry

[Pburgh]

Ohiostorm I heard there is no law against what he did and the man walked

[alicia-w]

This doesnt make any mention of the man being arrested.

Downtown 'sniper' turns out to be a pigeon-shooter
Thursday, March 23, 2006

By Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette
Mayor Bob O'Connor is hustled across Penn Avenue shielded by his bodyguard, Officer Joseph Ryczaj, to check on his wife, Judy.
Click photo for larger image.

Map


Downtown buildings, streets affected by search for possible sniper


Related story


Shooting pigeons illegal and inefficient


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Heavily armed shock troops took to the streets of Downtown, police officers barked at pedestrians to take cover and Pittsburgh's mayor donned a bulletproof vest yesterday afternoon as reports of a sniper in the heart of the business district triggered a massive police response and paralyzed both commerce and traffic.

Several nervous callers to 911 had described a man with a bushy beard carrying a rifle with a scope and pointing it out the windows of a building in the 500 block of Penn Avenue.

Police closed off streets. Inbound lanes of the Fort Pitt Bridge were closed to traffic, as were ramps leading to Downtown from the Fort Duquesne Bridge. A Port Authority Police officer armed with an AR-15 rifle stood guard at Penn Avenue and Stanwix Street.

It was a surreal incident, a surreal response and, fittingly, a surreal ending.

There was no sniper after all, only a maintenance man at the Pittsburgh Allegheny County Thermal plant shooting at pigeons inside the 10-story facility with a pellet rifle.

Police declined to identify the man. But PACT president Robert Fazio said he was Richard Wills, an "excellent" longtime employee who has worked single-handedly for several years to eradicate the plant's pigeon problem after poison and plastic owls proved unsuccessful. PACT provides steam heat for buildings throughout Downtown.

When police discovered that tidbit of information, they also learned another. Despite the rapid response and overwhelming police presence, the worker, a Fayette County resident, had quietly left, possibly oblivious to the uproar he had caused.

A police sharpshooter moves into position following reports yesterday of a man carrying a rifle at the Downtown steam plant.

Mr. Wills could not be reached for comment last night.

Police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin said it was unlikely the man would be arrested. The only charge likely to stem from the incident could be a citation if it were determined he fired the gun illegally inside the city limits, Ms. Ewin said.

Chief Dominic J. Costa, who was Downtown along with Mayor Bob O'Connor and other top local officials, said merely carrying a pellet rifle Downtown might not be against the law. However, he added, it flew in the face of common sense.

"Look at the alarm he caused. Look at all the inconvenience he caused," Chief Costa said.

Until police determined roughly two hours into the incident that there was no imminent danger, they took no chances.

The event began around 1:05 p.m., apparently after a witness saw a man with a rifle inside a building on Penn Avenue. Then a police dispatcher broadcast information about a gunman with a rifle and a scope on the fourth floor of a building at Penn and Cecil Way, an alley running from Penn to Fort Duquesne Boulevard. Another dispatch had the man wearing some type of light strapped to his shoulder.

Officers shut Penn Avenue, Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Liberty Avenue from Stanwix to Sixth streets and posted officers at the intersections.

"Folks, you need to either move to the right or the left," bellowed one motorcycle officer to a group of pedestrians on Stanwix Street. "This guy has a high-powered rifle."

About 100 Highmark Life and Casualty employees were told to keep clear of the windows of their floor in 515 Penn Ave., which faced the building at 525 Penn Ave., where the incident was taking place.

They remained in the building for two hours, tracking the unfolding events on the Internet, television and phone calls from the outside, said staffer Carol Hunter.

The shutdown paralyzed some businesses both inside and outside the taped-off police perimeter. One exception was the Sixth Penn bistro, where the five-person kitchen crew remained busy hustling out orders of meatloaf, crabcake and Reuben sandwiches all afternoon.

"Customers were enjoying hanging out," said fry cook Chris Eggleton, 32. "People took it as an extended lunch at the expense of a sniper."

At the Fifth Avenue Beanery coffee shop, customers presumably were "just sitting at the tables or walking back and forth, talking on their cell phones," said Manager Mary Ann Keating. "People were more frustrated about what was going on. They wanted out and they weren't allowed out."

For a time, police had trouble locating the right building. Adding to the confusion were later dispatches that the suspect might be walking away carrying a duffel bag or a backpack.

Eventually, police focused on the PACT complex, two buildings along Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Cecil Way that share a common wall.

As surveillance continued, police swarmed Downtown in droves. Unmarked cars pulled up, one after the other, as members of the Special Emergency Response Team exited, donned body armor and unloaded heavy weapons. Snipers took up positions.

A state police helicopter whirred overhead. The bomb squad arrived. Allegheny County Sheriff Peter R. DeFazio and Chief Executive Dan Onorato showed up.

And Mr. O'Connor, whose wife, Judy, was at work in the hot zone, ran across Penn Avenue shielded by his bodyguard, Officer Joseph Ryczaj, to check on her.

Authorities established a command post in the lobby of Fifth Avenue Place, where a police robot rolled over the lobby floor.

"It's kind of crazy," said Tara Bingaman, 28, of North Huntingdon, a student at Point Park University who wandered over to Stanwix Street to witness the hubbub.

Around 2:20 p.m., SERT officers marched out of Fifth Avenue Place. Mr. O'Connor, whose white hair stood in contrast to the officers' black outfits, stood at the end of their line. The officers made their way around the corner onto Penn and down Cecil Way.

Eventually, they entered the PACT building shortly before 3 p.m. and found a foreman who told them the description of the man with a gun matched that of an employee who shoots pigeons with a pellet rifle and a scope.

Mr. Fazio said Mr. Wills used his own pellet rifle -- which he stores at the plant -- to clear out pigeons who roost in the building's rafters and rain droppings down on the machinery.

"We do have an internal building pigeon problem. The pigeons come into our building and from time to time one of our employees has used a pellet rifle to get rid of pigeons inside our building only," Mr. Fazio said.

Patrons at Caffe Amante, a restaurant on the second floor of Fifth Avenue Place, had been finishing lunches or heading back to work when police poured into the area and ordered the building shut down. So they headed back to the restaurant, which overlooks Penn Avenue and Stanwix Street, to cluster around the television and watch news reports about the situation unfolding on the streets around them.

"It was confusing and more than a little aggravating," manager Debbie Doucette said. "Now that it turns out to be a pellet gun, I'm really aggravated. We were all held up for two hours for pigeons and pellet guns."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06082/675181.stm

[brunota2003]

come on...My friends and I carry pellet guns here in Havelock, a small city, all the time...we even do patrols on my street with them...people are so freaked out since 9/11...bet had it been in the 80's early 90's no one would of even questioned him...the local police officers here said that as long as we dont point the pellet guns at other people outside our group it is fine...maybe it has to do with me living next to the world's largest Marine Corps Air Station, MCAS Cherry Point, and you see MP's with M-16's on their shoulders everyday...

[alicia-w]

a pellet gun isnt exactly considered a firearm, right? still, it's good to know that nothing happened, that the guy was merely doing his job....

[Pburgh]

This pellet gun had a scope on it and the guy was in fatigues. He was atop a building in downtown. Even in the 80's prior to 9/11 people would have questioned his motives.

[ohiostorm]

Yeah it did have a scope. From afar I'm sure it wouldv'e looked a little crazy. Everyone did what was needed. Let this be a little drill. I guess this man has done this before. His company owns an abandoned building or something and pigeons fly into holes in broken windows and create problems. This man should walk with no charge.

[Skywatch_NC]

come on...My friends and I carry pellet guns here in Havelock, a small city, all the time...we even do patrols on my street with them...people are so freaked out since 9/11...bet had it been in the 80's early 90's no one would of even questioned him...the local police officers here said that as long as we dont point the pellet guns at other people outside our group it is fine...maybe it has to do with me living next to the world's largest Marine Corps Air Station, MCAS Cherry Point, and you see MP's with M-16's on their shoulders everyday...

You do patrols on your street with them

[GalvestonDuck]

Was he really wearing BDU's or was that not verified. If so, why? They're pigeons for crying out loud, not deer.