This could be very interesting. I wonder of Steve has a brother named Joe?
Wecht: Mt. Oliver cops should be charged with homicide
By Glenn May
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, July 21, 2003
Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht ruled this morning that Mt. Oliver cops should be charged with homicide after an Altoona man they subdued suffocated.
"The circumstances were not such as to have warranted this kind of response from the police officers," Wecht said.
Wecht recommended that District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. determine which police officers were involved in the Dec. 23 death of Charles Dixon, 43, at the Mt. Oliver fire hall and criminally prosecute those officers.
While Wecht said he could not finger which individual officers were responsible for Dixon's death, he blasted the Mt. Oliver department for a lack of training and said Dixon committed no crime meriting his arrest.
James Perich, the solicitor for Mt. Oliver, declined to comment, saying he first wanted to review the written ruling.
Dixon died after police tried to arrest him during a fracas that broke out during a Dec. 21 birthday party for a Braddock woman. At an inquest earlier this year, witnesses testified that Dixon's brother had caused a disturbance in a buffet line, and that Dixon tried to pull his brother from the fight.
Mt. Oliver police responding to the disturbance said they tried to arrest Dixon when he interfered with his brother's arrest, but Dixon resisted.
Witnesses at the March inquest differed on what happened next.
Partygoers said as many as a dozen cops piled on top of the 330-pound Dixon, leaving him face-down and unable to breathe. Officers denied piling on, and said only reasonable force was used.
Wecht said today it is dangerous for obese people to be placed faced down, but said Dixon would not have died without significant pressure being placed on his back.
Wecht and hearing officer William Manifesto, a criminal defense lawyer, said discrepancies in evidence make it impossible for his office to name which officers killed Dixon, but urged a fuller probe by Zappala to determine who should be prosecuted.
Assistant District Attorney Stephie Kapourales said Wecht's report will be forwarded to Zappala, but declined further comment.
Dixon's son, Charles Dixon Jr., 18, a student at Penn State, said he was happy with the ruling.
"My dad was killed wrongly," Charles Dixon Jr. said.
Give me the youth, and Germany will rule the world.
--Hitler
