Saturday, October 04, 2003

By Jim McKinnon, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Relatives of a North Side man who was shot and killed in June by a police sniper questioned yesterday whether police did enough to defuse the confrontation peacefully.

Rodney Mathews, 24, was shot once in the head by Pittsburgh police Officer George Ciganik shortly after midnight June 13, less than an hour after a standoff at the home he shared with his mother on Woodland Avenue in the Marshall-Shadeland section.

Several police witnesses testified yesterday, the second day of an open inquest, that Ciganik acted on orders of two superiors. Other witnesses have testified that police ended the confrontation hastily and did not give relatives a chance to talk Mathews out of the deadly situation.

Rodney's uncle, Kenneth Mathews, who lives near the scene of the shooting, testified that police threatened him with arrest to keep him from interfering with them.

The victim's grandmother, Christine Mathews, contended that the victim was loving and respectful and not likely to fire on police, but acknowledged that he had mental and physical ailments.

Christine Mathews said the situation began when a neighbor told her that Rodney Mathews was standing on the back deck of his second-floor apartment firing a revolver.

Christine Mathews said she walked up the street, saw her grandson on the roof, and when she questioned him, he denied that he had been firing a weapon.

When she arrived home, Christine Mathews said she heard a barrage of gunfire and immediately called Rodney on his cell phone.

"Rodney! OK, that [does] it. They're going to call the cops," she said she told him. "Lock up the house and get down here."

She said that he responded, "Yes ma'am."

Even as she spoke, however, the first officers were arriving and shooing Kenneth Mathews away from the scene.

Kenneth Mathews said he ducked and ran because of the same burst of gunfire that his mother had heard. He said that he believed his nephew and police were exchanging gunfire.

During that exchange, Officer Michael Kirtley, who has since been furloughed as a casualty of the city's budget crunch, took a bullet in his boot. The bullet bruised his foot, but Kirtley was not seriously injured.

He testified that he fired a single shot in return.

"We had begged and begged and begged, 'Please let us talk to him,'" Christine Mathews testified. "All I could do is sit there and pray."

Vatrena Cherry, Rodney Mathews' neighbor, said there had been a lull in the standoff with no gunfire for several minutes -- for as long as 20 minutes by some accounts -- before Ciganik got the go-ahead to shoot Mathews.

Robert Levine, a ballistics expert and criminalist with the coroner's office, testified yesterday that three spent .40-caliber bullets, like those used in police issue pistols, were found at the scene, along with bullets and shell casings from Mathews revolver.

Levine said it could not be determined whether the .40-caliber slugs were fired by officers at the scene.

There also was a single shell casing recovered from the bullet fired by Ciganik, Levine testified.

Ciganik, a veteran city police officer, was part of the Special Weapons and Tactics team until he was reassigned in January to the Zone 1 station on the North Side. His colleagues called him one of the best officers in the Special Deployment Division.

Officer Stephen Mescan, one of Ciganik's SWAT team leaders, testified yesterday that Ciganik still was considered part of the unit, because all members of that squad were reassigned to the North Side station as part of the city's budget problems.

Mescan said Ciganik maintained possession of his high-powered rifle because his SWAT training continued even though the squad had been reassigned to include regular patrol duties among its responsibilities.

Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht will await and review findings and recommendations of the hearing examiner, David Pollock, before making recommendations of his own regarding any possible charges in Mathews' death.

The case also is being watched by the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board.

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