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Sunday, May 04, 2003

By Michael A. Fuoco, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A vague premonition washed over Pittsburgh Police Cmdr. Dom Costa as he reached for the cell phone.

	"This bullet's not going to kill me. I have a little boy to raise. I'm going to survive. I'm not leaving this world. You're OK, you're going to make it through this." -- Dom Costa with his son, Scott, 12. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

It was Feb. 20, 2002, and Costa was off duty and heading to his Stanton Heights home. A trained police negotiator, Costa wanted to be sure another of the department's negotiators was responding to a standoff in Homewood that he had been monitoring on the police radio, so he called Assistant Chief Nate Harper. One had been dispatched from the North Side but since Costa was closer, it was decided he should head to the scene, too.

Costa, commander of the Squirrel Hill station, ignored the nagging feeling that someone, something was tapping him on the shoulder, warning him not to get involved. He turned around and sped away from his home and toward his fate.

A short time later, as he talked on a roof with the man, Cecil Brookins, he again sensed that something bad was going to happen. It wasn't anything Brookins said or did that caused the feeling to resurrect. It was just there.

Costa didn't have time to dwell. He had to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to the three-hour standoff and for a moment it appeared he had succeeded. Brookins left a gun on the chimney and agreed to surrender.

But in a supercharged second inside the house, the dynamic turned violent. Brookins pulled out a hidden gun and opened fire. Two rounds hit a SWAT team member in his bulletproof vest. One whizzed by Costa's head as he dove for cover. And then one slammed into his shoulder. Brookins likewise was wounded by police returning fire.

As he lay on the floor, willing himself to live by thinking of his young son, Costa thought of the forewarnings.

Fourteen months later, with a bullet still lodged in his brain, with numb fingers, often intense pain and the possibility he may never return to a profession he loves, Costa wishes he had listened to that voice.

Twice ignored, it daily haunts him.

Costa, 52, comes from a family of plumbers -- his father and four brothers -- so it made sense when he entered the trade, eventually becoming a master plumber, business owner and plumbing teacher.

Nevertheless, from the time he was a child, he had dreamed of being a police officer. The largest influence was his family's friendship with the late Mayer DeRoy, a Pittsburgh police officer who rose to become police chief. DeRoy would visit Costa's parents and talk about the job and would let the young, wide-eyed boy sit in his police car. The seeds of a career were sown.

Costa applied to several police agencies but had his sights set on the Pittsburgh department. He got his wish in November 1979. Ten years later, during his days a plainclothes officer on the North Side, his career as a police negotiator began by chance.

Two officers who had responded to a report of a domestic disturbance on the second floor of an apartment building were surprised by a man at the top of the stairs with a rifle trained on them. Costa arrived and, using gut instincts, stuck his head in and said "Jeff. Jeff. How you doin' man, it's me, Dom." The man bought the ruse that he knew Costa and agreed to let the police officers go and then released his wife and two children. Eventually, he surrendered.

Supervisors, impressed with his success, offered him formal training as a negotiator. Having experienced an adrenaline high from resolving a critical incident without violence, he jumped at the chance.

He had much success talking people out of killing themselves or harming others but about three-fourths of the way through 150 such incidents he "lost one" when a man wanted for killing his girlfriend fatally shot himself.

For weeks Costa wondered if he had done something wrong, whether he could have done something differently. Eventually, he came back to the simple truth negotiators are taught: The hostage-taker, the barricaded person, controls whether a situation ends peacefully or violently.

At the standoff in Homewood, Costa went to the third-floor living room where detectives were talking through an open window to Brookins, then 46, who fled to the roof when narcotics detectives showed up to arrest him. Earlier in the standoff, Brookins had pulled a 9 mm pistol but had since put it on the chimney. Still, he was argumentative.

A plan was concocted to introduce Costa as a social worker because Brookins, who had numerous run-ins with the law since 1975, didn't trust officers. After about 10 minutes of conversation, Costa identified himself as a police officer.

"Things aren't that bleak, Cecil. You don't have to do this," he told him.

He persuaded Brookins into moving to a lower part of the roof because it had begun raining and he was afraid he would fall. They were about 10 feet apart -- Costa on one roof and Brookins on another, separated by an alleyway. Brookins said he wanted to get his word out about violence and black-on-black crime and Costa told him that once he was in custody, he could speak to the media.

It was raining harder. He asked that police be removed from the house. Costa told him he couldn't do that but would have the third floor cleared and communicated that order. He later learned it had been countermanded.

The negotiator and the suspect shook hands. Brookins entered the house through the window but still was skittish, fearing police were around the corner of the deep window well in which he stood. He asked for a mirror to see around the corner. Costa found one but on his way back to the window well was shocked when he caught sight of officers in an adjacent room.

Costa used the mirror, careful not to point it where he had seen the officers, and Brookins came inside the room. And then Brookins looked outside and saw SWAT members on the roof.

"I guess you got me," he said.

"No, if you want to go back out on the roof you're perfectly welcome to. You came in here as a gentleman on your own, did you or did you not? Costa told him. "You know you're under arrest and this has to end soon. Have I lied to you."

"No," Brookins said. Again, they shook hands.

Suddenly, Brookins countenance dramatically changed. He was startled. Out of the corner of his eye, Costa saw two SWAT team members had entered the tiny room. They were the arrest team but Costa hadn't yet explained to Brookins how the arrest would take place. He had to ad-lib.

"Listen, Cecil, these guys are going to pat you down. Call me tomorrow when you get settled."

He moved out of the way of the officers and turned around to pick up a submachine gun that had been left there earlier by the SWAT team. And then gunfire erupted. Brookins had pulled a hidden .38-caliber gun from his waistband and began firing.

For Costa, everything was happening so fast but seemed so slow. He thought about drawing his weapon and returning fire but thought better of it because the SWAT officers were between him and Brookins. He decided to dive through an open doorway.

Pfffftttt!!!! A bullet whizzed past his right ear, so close he could feel the heat.

Man, that was close, Costa thought. But before he hit the floor he felt as if someone had slammed him from behind in the right shoulder. There was a tremendous burning sensation. He had been shot.

He hit the ground, spun around and reached for his gun.

"He's down, boss," an officer told him. Costa looked into the room. There he saw Brookins on the floor, wounded, a handgun by his side.

Frantically, officers radioed for help.

"Get the medics! Get the medics! Unit 316 is hit! A SWAT guy is hit!"

Costa looked into the living room. Officer Thomas Huerbin, shot twice in his bulletproof vest, gave him the thumbs up sign.

Suddenly, and for only a moment, the room became quiet. It was then Costa remembered the premonitions.

There was tremendous pain in his shoulder and across his back. It felt as 500 pounds were on his shoulders. His hands began to get numb. Costa tried to calm himself, remembering that having the right mindset could be the difference between life and death.

His mind focused on Scott, 12, his son from his second marriage.

"This bullet's not going to kill me," he thought. "I have a little boy to raise. I'm going to survive. I'm not leaving this world. You're OK, you're going to make it through this."

He thought of his wife, his two grown daughters from his first marriage, his two grandchildren, other family members.

"It's not my time to go yet. No way." He hung on.

Outside, in an ambulance, a medic took his blood pressure and told him he was doing fine. Costa asked to call his wife, Darlene, a retired Pittsburgh police officer, and chuckled to himself when he got the answering machine.

"Do me a favor, when you're done, call me back," he said, not wanting to alarm her.

Shortly thereafter, she returned the call.

"What's up?" Darlene said.

"Listen, I just wanted to let you know I got shot, but I'm OK."

"Where?" she asked.

"In Homewood."

"No, not the location. Where on your body."

"Oh, in the back," he said, laughing through his pain.

At UPMC Presbyterian, a CAT scan showed the slug had hit him in the back in the right shoulder, broken a bone, traveled to the left, went under his spine and traveled through the back of the neck, into the base of his skull and into the left side of his brain.

"Fortunately, it's in an inactive part of his brain," a doctor told them.

"Could you narrow that down for us a little bit?" Darlene joked.

Today, Costa looks well, feels lucky to be alive and is humbled by the outpouring of sympathy he's received from the public.

He's on the mend but some trauma from that ill-fated day 14 months ago still exists.

The bullet remains in his brain. Neurosurgeons feel it is more dangerous to try to remove it than to leave it there. They hope it adheres to the base of the skull. It's monitored every few months and hasn't moved thus far.

He still has numbness in the pinkie and ring fingers of both hands. He's lost some hearing in his left ear. He often has headaches and tightness in his back and neck along the bullet's trajectory. He cannot sleep for more than a few hours at a time. He tires easily.

Doctors aren't optimistic that he'll be able to return to work as a police officer. He appreciates that they allow him to hope he will do so.

Even with the pain and uncertainty, he holds no contempt for Brookins, who was convicted last month on 12 charges, including attempted homicide of Costa, Huerbin and Officer Patrick Knepp, the SWAT officer who shot Brookins.

"I don't have any ill feelings toward Mr. Brookins, no matter what anyone may think," Costa said, while holding Scott's hand in their home last week. "I don't hate him for what he did. I wish he wouldn't have done it, but he did.

"I wish he would have chosen the peaceful way. Again, he's the one who chose the way it ended."