Area man hospitalized; officer suspended
A Luzerne Township man remains hospitalized after being run over by a police vehicle during a sweep by the Fayette County District Attorney’s Drug Task Force Tuesday, and the officer who ran him over has been suspended from the task force. Charles Richard Opel, 41, of Tower Hill 2 is in fair condition at UPMC, where he was taken by emergency medical helicopter Tuesday morning immediately after the incident. Fairchance Borough police officer Ken Bittinger, who was using the borough’s four-wheel-drive vehicle while working for the drug task force, now faces suspension from the task force, according to District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon.
“The injuries are extensive,” Opel said from his hospital bed. “I have broken ribs, broken shoulder, broken collarbone and a broken hip. I’m in so much pain right now, I really can’t talk.”
Opel asked his sister, Krystal Maiolo, to serve as his spokesman while he is hospitalized. Maiolo said there had been a warrant for her brother and when he saw police entering Tower Hill on the upper road, he started out of town on the lower road. Maiolo said her brother turned his vehicle into Booker Alley, where it stalled, so he got out and started to run.
“He was wrong. He never should have run from them, but he didn’t murder somebody to be run down like a dog,” Maiolo said.
Fairchance Mayor Samuel Glisan said he learned about the incident involving the borough’s police car Tuesday evening from Bittinger.
“He said he was on the drug task force and this guy started to run and the state police and he were chasing him. The man fell on the ice. The car slid on some ice and Bittinger said he knew if he hit him with the wheels locked up, it would cut him in two, so he let off the brake and the front wheel ran over him,” Glisan said. “When I talked to the officer, I was under the impression the man wasn’t injured.”
Vernon said Bittinger also told her that the man did not appear to be injured.
“I did question why he was (flown) to Presby, and they said for observation,” Vernon said. “Bittinger told me that when he stood up and asked for a cigarette, he didn’t appear to be in any significant pain.”
Vernon said she was not aware of Opel’s injuries until being contacted by the Herald-Standard.
According to Fayette County 9-1-1 records, the dispatch center received a cellular telephone call at 8:51 a.m. Tuesday asking for an ambulance to be sent to Tower Hill 2. Fayette and Hiller EMS were dispatched to the scene, along with the Tower Hill 2 Volunteer Fire Department, to set up a landing zone for an emergency medical helicopter.
Fayette Emergency Medical Services Inc. director Rick Adobato said the responding ambulance crew initially was told that the man wasn’t injured.
“Our paramedics on the scene had difficulties initially gaining access to the patient. Our people had to be persistent and the man had to be flown to a trauma center,” Adobato said.
According to 9-1-1 shift supervisor Rob Means, no police were dispatched to the scene to investigate the accident. Means said the Luzerne Township police were not on duty at the time and the state police in Belle Vernon, who cover the township when the township officers are not working, had no record of a call to Tower Hill 2. The state police dispatcher in Uniontown also said there were no calls to Tower Hill 2 Tuesday morning.
State police Sgt. David Heckman, who heads the crime unit and was working with the drug task force Tuesday, said he spoke with Bittinger after the incident, with Bittinger telling him he was a part-time officer in Luzerne.
“Officer Bittinger advised that they were handling the investigation out there,” Heckman said.
Luzerne Township Police Chief Roy Mehalik said Bittinger once worked as a part-time code enforcement officer in the township, but has never been a police officer there, and to date, he has not been notified of the incident.
“The only thing I know is what I’ve heard on the street. I was never even notified by any official anywhere of this incident. Bittinger is not employed by Luzerne Township in any capacity,” Mehalik said.
Vernon said she had been under the impression the day the incident occurred that the state police were going to handle the investigation.
“I referred it to the state police. Sgt. Heckman told me he was referring it to Belle Vernon, but they weren’t excited about taking it because the vehicles had been moved,” Vernon said. “It should not be done by the department involved.”
Vernon said she was unaware that the state police had not launched an investigation, as initially requested. Vernon said she contacted Heckman again Friday afternoon, letting him know that if the state police at Belle Vernon wouldn’t investigate the incident, she would ask the state attorney general’s office to investigate. Vernon said the state police agreed to handle the case.
“I said, ‘You have to talk to the neighbors and the officers that were behind him (Bittinger) and the ambulance personnel,'” Vernon said.
Vernon said she wanted a full investigation into the incident.
“Certainly it should have been investigated as any other accident, and not to do so was not proper. All steps will be taken to investigate this by the appropriate agencies and not by the agency that was involved,” Vernon said.
She said she was attempting to contact Bittinger Friday afternoon to let him know of the suspension and to get more information, including why he told the state police that he worked for the Luzerne Township Police Department.
“I’ll suspend him from the task force until this is resolved,” Vernon said.
The outstanding warrant for Opel on file at Magisterial District Judge Mike Defino’s office shows that Opel was wanted on a charge of possession of a controlled or counterfeit controlled substance stemming from a traffic stop last March 4 in Cardale.
Bittinger, who worked for the Redstone Township Police Department at the time, made the stop. Opel was cited for driving under suspension and driving without a license, registration or insurance.
When Bittinger searched Opel, he allegedly found several small pieces of crack cocaine in his rear pocket that later tested positive for the presence of cocaine. The charges against Opel were filed at Defino’s office in October.