Woman's hit-and-run death raises questions about Pittsburgh police policy

Twelve minutes before a car struck and killed Faye McCoy on the West End Bridge last month, she was talking to Pittsburgh police officers nearby.

It was almost 3 a.m. on Jan. 27, and police had just arrested McCoy’s friend for drunken driving after the car they were in struck a median in the West End Circle.

Police said that McCoy, 44, of Homestead, smelled of alcohol. But as the passenger, she wasn’t under arrest. Officers spent “more than half an hour” trying to coax her to come with them to a safe location, according to police. But, they said, she repeatedly refused.

The officers left. Minutes later, McCoy ended up walking along the West End Bridge, where police say a dark-colored sedan hit her and drove off. The collision knocked McCoy over a railing. Her body wasn’t discovered until the next morning in a parking lot under the bridge.

The circumstances surrounding McCoy’s death have raised questions about Pittsburgh police policies and the duty of care that officers have in such situations.

“If they assessed her to be impaired and 12 minutes later, she’s hit by a car, should they have left her there?” asked Elizabeth Pittinger, executive director of Pittsburgh’s Citizen Police Review Board. “We can say, ‘Oh, no policy was violated.’ But I think the people of Pittsburgh need their police to keep them safe.”

McCoy’s unsolved death has commanded attention at the highest levels of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police.

Chief Larry Scirotto personally reviewed his officers’ body camera footage from the Jan. 27 incident to assess their conduct.

“Because of Ms. McCoy’s death, we have a responsibility to review the circumstances of her encounter with us,” Scirotto said.

Police refused to release the footage that Scirotto viewed or any evidence to independently corroborate Scirotto’s account of the incident.

Scirotto told TribLive that he found no fault with his officers’ actions and that they followed bureau rules.

Pittsburgh police policy states that only officers, prisoners or people authorized to participate in a “ride along” can ride in bureau vehicles. But there are exceptions: transporting victims, witnesses or a person “who may be lost, stranded or needs assistance.”

Scirotto said his officers could have insisted that McCoy accompany them only if she were a danger to herself. Such people must be “so incoherent that they can’t speak, recite their name or say where they live.”

“Ms. McCoy was not at that level,” Scirotto said. “Our officers did what they thought was appropriate in the moment.”

Pittsburgh police Officer Zacariah Norman wrote in a criminal complaint that he smelled alcohol on McCoy but left her on a West Carson Street sidewalk near the bridge after he took driver Nakila Crawford-Creighton, 43, of Homestead, into custody for the DUI.

Officers stayed with McCoy after her friend was arrested and “made multiple attempts to assist her and convince her to accept a courtesy ride to a safe location,” Cara Cruz, a police spokeswoman said.

Experts contacted by TribLive about the incident said officers must walk a fine line during such encounters.

John Bandler, an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said Pittsburgh police “were in a tough spot.”

“They do want to look after somebody’s safety,” said Bandler, a former prosecutor and New York state trooper.

On the other hand, Bandler stressed, the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment bars police from seizing an individual against their will without criminal charges.

“Based on these facts, it sounds like they tried and made a reasonable decision,” Bandler said. “This turned out to be a tragedy, but I’m not sure you can blame the cops.”

Three city officers were dispatched at 1:38 a.m. to the West End Circle for a vehicle that had crashed into a median. The car had crossed the nearby West End Bridge and turned the wrong way into the circle, taking a left onto West Carson Street, Scirotto said.

When police initially arrived, Crawford-Creighton was sitting in the driver’s seat, the keys still in the ignition, the complaint said. McCoy was standing outside.

In addition to Norman, the other officers on scene were identified in police paperwork only by their last names, Shields and Sokolowski. Police refused to provide their first names.

Crawford-Creighton started arguing with police, the complaint said. After smelling alcohol on both women, an officer conducted a field sobriety test on Crawford-Creighton. Police found that her driver’s license had been suspended, according to the complaint.

Medics with Pittsburgh Emergency Medical Services, as well as their supervisor, came to the scene to assess Crawford-Creighton and McCoy, police said. Both women declined medical treatment.

A crisis response team that operates under a pilot program was not dispatched to the incident. The program operates during daylight shifts only in Zone 1 on the North Side and Zone 2 in the Hill District, police said. The DUI arrest took place in Zone 6, which covers the West End.

At one point during the arrest, Crawford-Creighton seemed skeptical that police would ensure that the women got get home, according to the complaint.

After being placed in handcuffs, Crawford-Creighton fought with the officers, the complaint said. She “escaped one of her handcuffs,” according to the complaint, and two officers tackled her. McCoy approached, and police told her stay back.

The complaint doesn’t specify if a Zone 6 supervisor was involved in the decision to leave McCoy on West Carson Street.

A police spokeswoman on Wednesday didn’t respond to questions about the name or role of the Zone 6 supervisor working that night.

“I believe they met their constitutional burden by offering her a ride to a place of safety,” said Ashley Heiberger, a retired Bethlehem police captain who has advised the federal Department of Justice on policy matters. “I don’t think they had any legal authority to detain her.”

One “murky” area in the law, though, is the degree of McCoy’s intoxication, Heiberger said.

“If she was so intoxicated that she was a danger to herself, it could be problematic if they left her there,” he said.

Scirotto said McCoy provided her name, address, date of birth and Social Security number to police but refused offers of assistance “a multitude of times” due to “fear for her safety from us.”

“We don’t and cannot detain or seize people for public drunkenness,” Scirotto said. “It’s why we don’t have ‘drunk tanks’ … We’re just not permitted to do that.”

Brandi Fisher, founder and president of the Pittsburgh group Alliance for Police Accountability, said she’s spoken with McCoy’s family since the Homestead woman’s death. She feels that the officers’ decision about whether to give McCoy a ride that night “is just about human decency,” not police policy.

“It’s about making sure people are safe,” Fisher told TribLive. “Did they even know how she was going to get home, drunk, at 3 a.m.?”

Pittinger, who leads the police review board, said when the officers departed, McCoy was in “a terrible traffic area.”

“They left her stranded, basically,” Pittinger said. “And it’s their position that she stayed there of her own volition.”

Pittinger believes Scirotto’s move to personally view his officers’ body camera footage reflects concern over how things were handled that night.

“You look because there’s something questionable about it,” she said.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner has not yet released the cause or manner of McCoy’s death.

Neither McCoy’s family nor Crawford-Creighton returned multiple calls for comment.

Pittsburgh police continue to seek the driver of the car that hit McCoy, which they believe is a dark-colored sedan with silver wheels, possibly a Honda or Hyundai. Anyone with information is asked to call 911 or contact the Pittsburgh police Collision Investigation Unit at 412-432-4776.