What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.A man fatally shot himself on Thursday afternoon when Pittsburgh police knocked on the door of his Observatory Hill home to retrieve his weapons, authorities said.
A judge ordered Brian McHale, 38, to appear in court at 1 p.m. yesterday to turn in his weapons because of a domestic violence charge, police Cmdr. RaShall Brackney said. When McHale did not appear, police went to check his home, Brackney said.
Officers arrived at the duplex on Baytree Street about 1:15 p.m., knocked and announced themselves, then heard a single gunshot, Brackney said.
"It sounded like a cannon," said Doug Smith, who lives in the apartment below McHale's. "It's not something that happens every day."
Police called in a SWAT team and a negotiator, Brackney said. After two hours of unsuccessfully trying to reach him via text messages and phone calls, officers fired gas into the home and entered. They found McHale alone, dead from what appeared to be a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound, Brackney said.
Shaler police on Sunday had charged McHale with harassment and terroristic threats. He had a hearing yesterday morning before District Judge Robert Dzvonick, court records show.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
In Pittsburgh One Week Before the Convention
Here's the story. A gun owner just couldn't bear to be separated from his precious guns. Over his dead body would he allow them to be taken.
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You are ignorant. It had nothing to do with his guns. He was a very ill person, who chose to end his life. He was a father of 3 young children. Someone's brother, someone's son. Hopefully half as many people care about whether you live or die as cared about him.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting case. I thought it kind of was funny until I read your compassionate comment, Anonymous. So we can all agree that this struggling young father would have been a lot better off had there been no guns in the house. I'm sure he didn't like the option of the police department taking away his guns. So he took all of his own options away in one cowardly action.
ReplyDeleteThe contemporary wisdom, Anonymous, is to try to prevent suicide. Not just wring our hands and cry when it happens.
Dear Anonymous, How does what I posted make me ignorant? Is it because I was mistaken to think it had something to do with his guns? It sure sounded like that in the story, and it sure was one of his priecious guns he used to do himself in.
ReplyDelete"It sure sounded like that in the story." That is what makes you ignorant, believing in what you read as fact. As well as thinking his guns were precious to him. This story has at least 10 factual inaccuracies in it. Yet it went out on the wire, and the AP regurgitated it all around the country, including USA Today. And these facts were obviously never checked. Dare not believe everything you read in the press.
ReplyDeleteHe hunted as a hobby, that is all guns meant to him.
Flying Junior, you are correct. He would have been a lot better off without these guns in the house. His options to end his pain were ending with the confiscation of his guns.