The man who was arrested Saturday after a fierce gunfight with two Pittsburgh police officers had been free on bond following a similar shooting incident involving one of the officers earlier this year.

KDKA-TV Keith Carter

Keith Carter, 19, of Wilkinsburg, was jailed Saturday on $200,000 straight bond and his hearing set for Thursday on attempted homicide, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and firearms charges.

The charges stem from a wild gunfight that police said began at 3:45 a.m. when he opened fire at undercover officers Philip Mercurio Jr. and Robert Kavals on Ferris Court in Homewood.

Mercurio and Kavals were not injured, but police said their unmarked patrol car was hit repeatedly by bullets, including one that pierced the windshield, passed through the driver's headrest where Mercurio had been sitting and ended up in the back seat, where a third officer often rides.

Police said more than 100 shots were fired during the battle, including more than 30 each at the two officers.

Carter was arrested shortly after 7 a.m. after hiding in an apartment at 1290 Ferris Court. He had been free on $5,000 straight bond posted after his arrest on charges that he fired an illegal machine gun toward five police officers on Jan. 1 -- again on Ferris Court.

Carter ran from police after that shooting, but was arrested April 8 in Lincoln-Lemington by Kavals and Mercurio, who is one of the officers that Carter is charged with firing at on Jan. 1.

The city's acting police chief yesterday said he was infuriated that Carter was freed after the January shooting on what he considered to be an inappropriately low bond. Carter was charged with reckless endangerment, possession of a prohibited offensive weapon and firearms violations and scheduled to appear at a hearing June 23 in that case.

"It's ridiculous," said Deputy Police Chief William Mullen, standing in while Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr. was away at a conference. "Not only do the bad guys have no regard for the lives of police officers, but apparently the people responsible for setting that low bond don't, either."

In the January incident, police said Mercurio and four other officers responded to the 1300 block of Ferris Court after seeing and hearing three men firing guns atop a flight of city steps. As they approached, they said, someone fired repeatedly in their direction, hitting shrubs and the ground around them.

Police said when they climbed the stairs, they saw the men put the guns into a champagne-colored Cadillac, then run. Mercurio recognized Carter, who had the machine gun, and the Cadillac as a car Carter had driven in previous encounters, police said.

Police recovered the machine gun, along with a rifle with a scope and a shotgun hidden in the car. But when police obtained an arrest warrant for Carter after that incident, they did not include aggravated assault or other serious charges.

Mullen said the officers did not believe they could argue that Carter and his companions, when they began shooting, had deliberately targeted or intended to hurt police. But he said he still believed a higher bond was warranted, given the number of shots fired after police arrived and the guns found in Carter's car.

"In our opinion, he's a threat," Mullen said. "I know bail is a right and is intended to guarantee [a suspect's] appearance, but have some common sense."

District Judge Eileen M. Conroy, who arraigned and set bond for Carter in the January case, said yesterday she didn't remember him and didn't have access to his file because it was not in her South Side office but in the Municipal Courts Building, Downtown.

"From the top of my head, without looking at the file, I'd just have to say we have bail agents who make recommendations and usually the recommendations are sound," she said. "I feel that at the time I was certain I set a just bail. It seems a fair bail for the type of charges and with a bail agency recommendation."

As the daughter of retired Pittsburgh police officer Bob Conroy of Oakland, "When someone shoots at police officers I take it very, very seriously," she said.

"But every defendant has the right under the Constitution to have a bail set for them and I'm sure I felt the bail was just at the time," she said.

Saturday's gunfire began after Mercurio and Kavals, who were investigating the shooting of a man on nearby Race Street, spotted Carter walking down the street carrying a semiautomatic pistol, Mullen said.

They dove out of their unmarked car when Carter pointed the gun at them and began firing, then crawled behind the car and returned fire until Carter hid in the nearby apartment building.

Mercurio and Kavals have been placed on administrative leave, a standard procedure, while police investigate. Police also were trying to determine if Carter was involved in the shooting that brought Mercurio and Kavals to Ferris Court.