State trooper justified in fatal Mount Pleasant Township shooting, DA says

Washington County’s top prosecutor on Friday said a Pennsylvania State Trooper was justified when he opened fire and killed a passenger during a May traffic stop in Mount Pleasant Township.

The trooper, who authorities have not identified, will not face criminal charges.

The shooting, which stemmed from the stop of the suspected getaway vehicle in a theft earlier that night, killed 25-year-old Dennis Fonoimoana.

The incident began with the theft of a chainsaw from the Rural King at the Washington Crown Center in North Franklin. A state trooper who was on patrol in full uniform in an unmarked police vehicle spotted a car that matched the one the theft suspects took off in, said District Attorney Jason Walsh.

The trooper stopped the car using lights and sirens, Walsh said. The driver could not produce a valid ID, he said, and he was put into the backseat of the unmarked police vehicle. Walsh said the driver told the trooper he didn’t know if there were any weapons in the car.

As the trooper approached the passenger, Fonoimoana, he noted Fonomioana “had his elbows his knees and his hands underneath of the passenger-side seat,” Walsh said.

He said the trooper repeatedly ordered Fonoimoana to show his hands, an order with which Fonomioana did not comply. Fonomioana produced a gun, according to Walsh, and began to turn toward the trooper. The trooper fired seven times, hitting Fonomioana five times.

Walsh said the trooper repeatedly ordered Fonoimoana to drop the weapon.

He said the officer’s telling of what transpired was corroborated by a witness who was in his yard near the traffic stop and by the driver of the car who’d been placed in the trooper’s backseat.

The driver, Walsh said, told police two had been at Rural King, took a chainsaw, and “the trooper did ask to see (Fonoimoana’s) hands multiple times and did tell him to drop the weapon.”

Authorities have also not identified the driver who was initially detained before the shooting, noting that he will not be charged.

State troopers are not equipped with body-worn cameras. A dashboard camera in the trooper’s vehicle captured the incident, but there is no audio.

Walsh said the gun found on Fonoimoana had been reported stolen and there was a round in the chamber. The safety was off.

“This investigation unequivocally shows that the trooper was reasonable in his belief that his life was in danger or that he would be serious injured and that deadly force was necessary,” Walsh said. “Circumstances left him with no alternatives.”