Loved ones lament death of Upper St. Clair man killed by police

Yellow police tape fluttered last week like paper streamers from the trees along Lamar Road in Upper St. Clair, a grim reminder for Christopher Shepherd’s family and friends of his violent death at the hands of police.

Shepherd, who battled mental illness for more than 20 years, was gunned down Jan. 7 outside his home by a SWAT team trying to take him into custody while he was in the grip of a mental-health crisis.

It was a shocking end to a life that was by turns tender and tortured.

Shepherd’s sister and closest friends, who gathered Saturday at a Washington County church for his funeral, remembered the 48-year-old as a peaceful person and loving uncle. But he was also someone beset by what could be crippling mental illness.

His family involuntarily committed him for psychiatric treatment three times since November. On Sunday, as Shepherd was in the midst of what one friend called “a downward spiral,” they made their fourth attempt.

This time, it ended tragically.

Police said that Shepherd brandished a knife, prompting officers to open fire.

In the week following the shooting, authorities have disclosed few details about the encounter. And as Allegheny County Police Department detectives continue to investigate, Shepherd’s family is raising questions about the circumstances of the shooting and the need to resort to deadly force.

Trei Smith, Shepherd’s best friend since childhood, thinks about the crime scene and doesn’t want people remembering the man he called a “brother” this way.

“The news, the police tape around the house, the boarded-up windows? That’s not him,” said Smith, 48, a Sewickley native who works in an aluminum fabrication plant. “He was never that person. And the way he died, it was just horrific.”

‘Funny and quick-witted’

Shepherd was born in Pittsburgh on Jan. 28, 1975, the first and only child of Susan Shepherd, and the late John C. Shepherd. His parents separated when he was young. His father remarried twice and had two more children.

“My dad was big into sports — and Chris inherited the gene that I did not,” one of those children, Micki Kippelen, 37, of Upper St. Clair said with a laugh.

As a teenager in the early 1990s, Shepherd rooted hard for the Pittsburgh Pirates, staying loyal even as the team racked up a record number of consecutive losing seasons. He shared that love of sports with his nephew — Kippelen’s son, Roman, now 8 — whose Uncle Chris taught him to play soccer.

“He would just show up on our doorstep with toys — they were so close,” Kippelen said.

In high school, Shepherd focused on upping his golf game. After years of Little League baseball, he aimed to play shortstop for Quaker Valley High School’s team. He mostly rode the bench, though, according to Smith, who wasn’t sure if Shepherd had a single at-bat in his years on the team.

Lisa Todd Hart remembered hanging out in groups with Shepherd in high school. She joked that he and his friends could consume their weight in Diet Coke.

“Chris was always certainly one to make us laugh,” said Hart, 48, of Edgeworth, a bank employee who grew up in Sewickley. “He was funny and quick-witted, and he always had something to say.”

Smith said he and Shepherd had a running disagreement over when the two friends met.

Smith maintains it happened in junior high school, when he befriended the kid with the locker next to his that was always filled with candy.

“As a seventh-grader, I was drawn to him, you know, ‘Hello, Mr. 30-packs-of-Lemonheads,’ ” Smith said.

About three months ago, though, Shepherd told Smith that they’d crossed paths much earlier.

Shepherd remembered that Smith taught him to curse at age 5 as they hung out on a block in their native Sewickley.

As a kindergartner, Smith said, he had seen comedian Richard Pryor’s expletive-laced stand-up comedy routines on HBO.

“I must have taught him all the good words,” Smith said.

Shepherd and his cohort graduated from Quaker Valley in 1993. Shepherd and Smith then followed each other to Duquesne University, where Shepherd’s father worked as a technology and multimedia professor.

The friends lived together in a rowhouse near Duquesne’s campus in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood.

Early warning

In Shepherd’s early 20s, while at Duquesne, something shifted in him.

“He wasn’t making a lot of sense sometimes,” Smith said.

He was beginning to show signs of delusions and paranoia.

“It was shocking to me, when he began to exhibit the signs of the mental illness,” said Chad Shannon, 49, of Brookline, an attorney and Quaker Valley alumnus who would connect with Shepherd each summertime.

“It was tough to watch,” Shannon said. “We had lots of strange conversations some of those summers.”

Shepherd would act strangely or talk about stories or ideas that didn’t quite make sense. He started seeing a psychiatrist and went on medication. He was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, family and friends said.

Schizoaffective disorder is a mental health disorder marked by a combination of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations or delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression or mania, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Shepherd graduated from Duquesne University with a bachelor’s degree in finance.

Done with school, he sometimes struggled with work. Shepherd drove a taxi, Smith said. He also had a short-lived career making sandwiches at an area sub shop. Shepherd started volunteering with the Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania chapter in 2008 and served as an officer there.

Shepherd also made time to hang out with his friends. In a photo Smith captured on his cellphone, Shepherd can be seen smiling widely as the pair and two other friends tailgated at a gas station outside The Pavilion at Star Lake in Burgettstown. It was June 5, 2023 and the four had trekked to Washington County to catch the rock band Dead & Company.

Smith fondly recalled grabbing beers with Shepherd on the weekends. Their favorite haunt was Marroni’s Lounge in Leetsdale, a stone’s throw from Ohio River Boulevard.

Smith said that some regulars at the bar welcomed Shepherd as “Ralphie,” a longtime moniker due to his resemblance to the bespectacled lead character in the 1983 holiday classic film “A Christmas Story.”

As the designated driver, Shepherd limited himself to two beers at Marroni’s, Smith said. His friend was always concerned about getting pulled over.

For about 10 years, Shepherd took his medication regularly and didn’t experience “episodes,” his sister and Smith said.

By November, though, things had changed.

An unraveling

In recent years, Shepherd had complained of feeling dizzy and drowsy due to medication, those close to him said. His longtime psychiatrist shifted Shepherd’s medications during the covid-19 pandemic.

Shepherd also started acting differently, Kippelen said.

His paranoia sometimes spiked. When confronted, Smith said, Shepherd could become argumentative or block people’s access to his social media pages.

Those who knew Shepherd maintain that they never saw him get aggressive or act violently.

“He was not a threat to anybody but himself,” Smith said. “I’ve never even known him to get into a fight.”

Still, things continued to unravel.

On Nov. 4, Kippelen met with mental health workers from UPMC’s resolve Crisis Services to involuntarily commit Shepherd.

A few days after Shepherd was hospitalized, Kippelen attended a court session via Skype. A judge decided Shepherd could go home.

“I hung up on Skype, and I cried and I cried and I cried,” Kippelen said. “I was terrified for him and I was terrified of what this meant for him.”

Shepherd’s mother involuntarily committed him two more times after that. Each time, Shepherd was released within days from UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital in Oakland or St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon, Kippelen said.

On one occasion late last year, Upper St. Clair police shattered a window in Shepherd’s house trying to get him into a mental health facility. That led to the installation of plywood boards, which still covered the front of the three-bedroom, single-family ranch at 117 Lamar Road when police arrived Jan. 7 for their final encounter with Shepherd.

“The fourth time, we begged and pleaded for help for my brother, we begged and pleaded that this man just needed medication,” Kippelen said.

The incident that led to Shepherd’s death began around 3 p.m. when a call came into 911. Upper St. Clair police officers were dispatched that day in response to what police described as a “domestic incident,” though the exact circumstances remain unclear.

Officers arrived with a warrant to take Shepherd into custody against his will for a psychiatric evaluation after his family consulted with an Allegheny County mental health official.

Under state law, such involuntary commitments are authorized when a person poses a “clear and present danger” to himself or others.

Shepherd rebuffed the officers’ attempts, locking himself in his house. Officers claimed that he tried to cut them with a knife. So Upper St. Clair called in reinforcements — a South Hills regional SWAT team made up of officers from various police departments.

Shepherd’s mother wasn’t in the home they shared when police tried to coax her son out of the house. Instead, she sat inside a marked police cruiser near Lamar and Ivanhoe roads while events unfolded.

More than three hours after SWAT arrived, police said, Shepherd walked out of his garage and approached officers while brandishing a knife. He refused commands. Around 8:40 p.m., four SWAT officers shot him, violently ending Shepherd’s life — and his long struggle with mental illness.

Later that night, Smith said Shepherd’s mother sent him a note on Facebook Messenger.

“Chris,” she wrote, “has lost his struggle with life.”

In pursuit of answers

Kippelen’s nerves were extra frayed Thursday.

She planned to tell her 8-year-old son, whom she gave the middle name Christopher in honor of her brother, that his Uncle Chris was dead.

Despite her sadness, she still reveled in the little details of Shepherd’s life — in particular, the “family Sundays” she shared with him as they grew into adulthood.

Shortly before their father, who had been ailing, died in 2019, Shepherd and Kippelen went to one last movie-theater showing with him: “Ford v. Ferrari” at the AMC Theater in the Galleria of Mt. Lebanon mall.

Kippelen remembered how her brother’s “big, beautiful blue eyes” looked when talking with their father. Everyone knew it was a matter of days until the elder Shepherd was gone.

“I think it’s so important that Chris’ legacy be carried on,” she told TribLive, “as this great, kind, caring person that he was.”

Those memories are important for Kippelen. Though she works as a photographer, she has few pictures of her late brother. He hated being photographed.

Now, she is invested in her family’s pursuit of the details surrounding Shepherd’s death. Kippelen alleges that police used excessive force. She wonders whether he was heading toward or away from police when he was shot. The family intends to have an independent autopsy done to get answers.

For his part, Smith, thinks about the friend who consoled him when he lost his younger brother three years ago to a heart attack.

“He’d say, ‘You still have me. I’m another brother. I’ll always be there for you,’” Smith said. “This is hitting me real hard. It’s like I lost my other brother.”