Mar 24, 2006 By Patty Yauger 5 min read

A Dawson man ridding the downtown Pittsburgh company where he works of pigeons will, at most, be cited for shooting the birds out of doors, according to a police department public affairs officer. Tammy Ewin, Pittsburgh Bureau of Police spokeswoman, said Thursday that Richard Wills, no age given, an employee of the Pittsburgh Allegheny County Thermal plant, will not be charged with any crime in connection with the Wednesday incident that brought businesses and vehicular traffic to a halt when it was believed a sniper was lurking on a rooftop in the downtown area.

“(Wills) has been interviewed and (police) Chief (Dominic J. Costa) is waiting for a report from the detectives involved,” said Ewin. “It needs to be determined if he fired the pellet gun, outside and we don’t have confirmation that it was actually was fired out of doors.

“If he did, he could be cited for discharging a weapon within the city limits.”

The offense would be in violation of a city ordinance and not a criminal matter, said Mike Manko, spokesman for the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office.

“Anything that is a summary (offense) of a municipal or city ordinance, we don’t prosecute,” he said Thursday. “That is handled at the magistrate level.”

Allegheny County Magisterial District Judge Rick King said if a citation is issued, Wills would have the option of having the matter heard in a Pittsburgh Municipal Court or foregoing the hearing and paying the assessed fine that could be levied by police or the judge hearing the matter.

According to the county municipal code, if found guilty, the maximum fine for the summary offense is $1,000.

“I know everyone is upset, but we have to use common sense,” said King. “I don’t think there was any malice and apparently this was something (Wills) routinely did.”

The incident began shortly after 1 p.m. when a caller to Allegheny County 911 reported seeing a man carrying a rifle with a scope into a downtown office building, said Ewin.

After several additional calls, giving a similar description of the man and the circumstances, police responded.

“The streets were cleared of people that were possibly in harm’s way, given the fact that it could have been a high-powered rifle with a scope,” said Ewin.

Initially, the area around Penn Avenue, Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Liberty Avenue were closed off, with traffic rerouted and pedestrians told to find an office building or restaurant to stay in while police searched the area.

Once the area was cleared, said Ewin, the city’s Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) was activated and conducted a sweep of the Penn Avenue location of the thermal plant where it was determined the unidentified man was seen entering.

“We then received confirmation from a supervisor inside that building who said that one of his employees would often have a pellet rifle in the building and use it to shoot at pigeons,” she said.

After the information was verified, the business district again was opened to vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

Allegheny County Port Authority Police were on the scene throughout the nearly two-hour incident, in addition to SERT and local police, state police, Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office and Pittsburgh School Police.

Ewin said that the swift response and actions taken were required given the information that was being relayed to emergency responders.

“We don’t know in advance what we’re dealing with,” she said. “We have to prepare for the worst.

“We had callers into 911 all giving similar reports with very accurate descriptions of not only the weapon, but of the person.

“Obviously, we had confirmation of a potential situation that could have been very, very dangerous, so we took the appropriate precautions based on the information that we had, the heavy populated area where it was occurring.”

No one was injured during the incident.

Robert Fazio, Pittsburgh Allegheny County Thermal plant president, declined to comment Thursday about the incident or discuss the protocol undertaken by the company to rid the building of pigeons.

According to an Associated Press story, during an interview Wednesday Fazio said that it was common practice for Wills to use the pellet gun to shoot the birds that could be found in and around the upper floors of the plant.

Alex Marra, owner of Marra’s Mountaineer Sporting Goods store in North Union Township, said Thursday that it would be difficult to distinguish a pellet gun with a scope from a high-powered rifle with a scope. A pellet rifle is unlikely to cause major damage, while a high-powered rifle has the potential of maiming or killing a target from a distance, Marra added.

“Some of the pellet guns they make today are replicas of high-powered rifles,” he said. “With a scope on it, (a pellet gun) could very well look like a high-powered rifle, especially if you weren’t familiar with guns and it was at a distance.”

A message left at Wills Dawson home seeking comment was not returned by press time Thursday.