Man killed by Pittsburgh police urged officers to shoot him months earlier

A Hill District man whose February death at the hands of Pittsburgh police remains under investigation had urged officers repeatedly to shoot him during an encounter months earlier, according to a TribLive review of court records.

Police shot and killed Maurice Jones, 33, in the Hill District on Feb. 5. Investigators said he threatened both a security guard and officers with a gun while refusing commands to drop the weapon, so police opened fire.

Nearly seven months earlier, on July 10, city police found Jones prowling around front porches and “not making any sense” in the Hill District, according to a criminal complaint. During a scuffle, he grabbed an officer’s duty belt, the complaint said.

“Shoot me, shoot me,” Jones shouted, according to the police account.

Police subdued Jones and arrested him, charging him as a John Doe. That case was supposed to go to trial Thursday.

On Tuesday, prosecutors withdrew the case.

Jones’ death is under review by the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office following an investigation by Allegheny County Police.

District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. will decide if the shooting by police was justified.

Little public information is available about Jones. The Allegheny County Public Defender’s Office, which represented Jones, did not make anyone available for an interview about him. Jones’ ex-wife declined comment.

No ID on cop

Police have provided only basic information about the February shooting. Authorities have not revealed whether Jones was pointing a gun a police when he was shot, how far he was from officers at the time, who killed him or whether he was known to police as someone with mental health or other troubles.

The incident began at 5:07 p.m., when a security guard on patrol found Jones armed with a gun in the stairwell of a Hill District apartment building, county police said.

Jones reportedly pointed the gun at the guard and took off.

Pittsburgh police said officers later found Jones near the intersection of Bentley and Devilliers streets, about a mile away from the apartment building.

They chased him down Bentley and across Centre Avenue toward a Family Dollar store on the other side of the street from the city’s Zone 2 police station.

At 5:22 pm, Jones emerged from behind a dumpster near the Family Dollar with a gun, county police said. About a dozen police officers were at the scene at that time of the shooting, according to Jim Madalinsky, a county police spokesperson.

“There were repeated commands by multiple officers to drop the weapon,” Madalinsky previously told TribLive.

Jones ignored them and approached police, according to Madalinsky.

One officer opened fire, shooting multiple times, Madalinsky said. It is unclear how many times he hit Jones.

First responders rushed Jones to the hospital, where he died less than a half hour later at 5:51 p.m., the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said.

No officers were injured. Police recovered a handgun at the scene.

Authorities have refused to identify the officer who shot Jones, a law enforcement practice that is not uncommon.

Pittsburgh police have declined to say if the officer who shot Jones had used lethal force previously.

The officer, who has worked for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police for eight years, is back on the job after being cleared for duty, Cara Cruz, a bureau spokesperson, said Wednesday.

Last month, the district attorney’s office denied a TribLive request to view officers’ body-worn camera footage from the shooting.

‘Shoot me, shoot me’

In the July 10 encounter, two Pittsburgh police officers found Jones around 11 p.m. prowling on the front porches of multiple Webster Avenue homes, a criminal complaint said.

Jones “was making erratic movements, reaching under his sweatshirt and grabbing his abdomen area. He was mumbling and not making any sense. He then took his sweatshirt off and began walking away from us,” police wrote in a complaint.

When officers stopped Jones, he said he didn’t have ID and gave his middle name and a fake last name, according to the complaint. They said Jones resisted arrest and had to take him to the ground in order to subdue him.

Jones continually shouted, “Shoot me, shoot me,” even after officers placed him in the back of their cruiser, police said.

Police charged Jones with loitering and prowling at night, providing false ID to law enforcement and resisting arrest. The latter two charges were later withdrawn by prosecutors.

A nonjury trial was scheduled for Thursday in front of Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Randal B. Todd.

Jones had at least one other encounter with Pittsburgh police, court records show.

In 2014, he pleaded guilty to simple assault for kneeing a police officer in the face on Fifth Avenue in the Hill District.

A judge sentenced Jones to 18 months of probation and required him to take random drug tests.