UNIONTOWN -- A Fayette County coroner's jury last night heard testimony in the death of a motorist who was shot by police after they said he refused orders to pull over, then rammed their cars and tried to run down officers in his path.
The jury of four men and four women heard testimony all day and into the evening during the inquest into the death May 5 of Kermith R. Sonnier Jr., 37, of Brownsville.
Sonnier was fatally shot at the end of a pursuit that began when Brownsville Officer Autumn Fike tried to pull him over while she was patrolling in a remote, wooded area where illegal dumping often occurred, police said. Toxicology tests showed cocaine in his bloodstream, according to the Fayette County coroner's office.
Fike and Redstone Capt. Dennis Field, who both told investigators they fired their weapons after Sonnier attempted to run them over, declined to testify yesterday, citing their right to avoid self-incrimination. Both officers attended the inquest, however, accompanied by their attorneys, Lee Rothman and Charles LoPresti.
But another Redstone officer and an officer from Centerville, Washington County, said they feared that Sonnier, who was driving a silver Ford pickup truck, would run them and other officers down after the officers' cruisers either got stuck or blocked on the rocky, dead-end trail.
They and other witnesses were questioned by Allegheny County First Assistant District Attorney Edward J. Borkowski, who was asked to step in by Fayette County officials who sought to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
Redstone Officer Joshua Mrosko, who was driving the car in which Field was riding, and Centerville Officer Mark Costello testified that they joined the chase shortly before 5 p.m. after hearing Fike radio for assistance in stopping Sonnier's truck as it wove in and out of Brownsville.
They said Sonnier sped up the hill, then turned around and fishtailed back down toward the officers, who had gotten out of their cars and were chasing his truck on foot.
"I recall seeing [Fike and Costello] flying through the air," testified Mrosko, who said the officers were forced to jump out of the way. "I just thought that he was going to kill me and I was going to get out of the way."
The truck then rammed two police cruisers, careened into other parked cars outside a trailer and narrowly missed hitting the trailer before stopping. Officers at the scene estimated the chase reached speeds up to 70 mph during the six-mile chase.
Fike, whose leg was injured by a log thrown up by the truck, later told state police she fired her .40-caliber handgun once at the truck.
Field, who believed the truck had hit Fike, told state police he fired his .45-caliber handgun twice as the truck passed, then fired a third shot into a tire after it stopped because he saw its reverse lights were still on and the driver ignored repeated orders to show his hands.
State police Cpl. Daniel Mamrose, a firearms expert, testified that the bullet that struck Sonnier came from a .45-caliber gun, but tests could not conclusively link it to Field's weapon.
Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht testified that Sonnier died of a gunshot wound that struck him in the back under the left shoulder and traveled to the right and slightly downward. Wecht also testified that numerous small scrapes on Sonnier's chest and legs did not appear to have been caused by a beating.
That drew skepticism from the dead man's father, Kermith Sonnier Sr., who with one of his attorneys, Robert Giroux of Southfield, Mich., questioned the police accounts. Giroux said he believed the younger Sonnier would have been sitting too high in his truck to have been killed by a bullet that traveled downward through his body.
"I believe he was murdered," said the elder Sonnier. "Wecht didn't give me [any] answers."
Sonnier plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation of the shooting. Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Elliott McLean attended yesterday's inquest as an observer.
First Published: October 1, 2004, 4:00 a.m.
