E.L. Swiklinski has lived 10 years along Cleveland Avenue in Brackenridge, a quiet street tucked on a hillside overlooking the Allegheny River.
On Jan. 2, the maintenance worker had the day off from Trinity United Methodist Church and spent the afternoon pouring seed into his multiple bird feeders and offering peanuts to a cluster of squirrels that congregate in his backyard.
That day, he met Brackenridge police Chief Justin McIntire for the first time.
“I requested an officer to come up and talk (about people speeding on my street), and, wow, I couldn’t believe it when the chief pulled up,” Swiklinski said. “I lived here all this time and never knew him.”
It was 3 p.m.
About an hour later, McIntire was fatally shot along Third Avenue during a manhunt for a suspect.
“He was just at my house,” Swiklinski said. “All this was going on, and he took the time out to come here.
“We talked about feeding peanuts to the squirrels, and he told me his wife does the same thing.”
Swiklinski likely was the last resident to talk with McIntire before his killing.
According to Allegheny County 911, McIntire spotted the suspect at 4:15 p.m. in the 800 block of Third Avenue. A foot chase ensued. Shortly after, residents reported hearing multiple gunshots.
“I was listening to the scanner and praying, ‘Dear God, keep him safe,’ ” Swiklinski said. “Here he just was, and then we lost him.”
Bill Beale, who lives at the corner of Cleveland Avenue and Grant Street, said he was walking his dogs at the same time McIntire was visiting his neighbor. He noticed a heavy police presence on Ninth Avenue and Prospect Street. He later learned that the suspect ran through the neighborhood into the woods toward the railroad tracks.
“I could’ve just missed (him). Here he was running through our streets with all these guns,” Beale said.
Beale wouldn’t have thought twice about seeing McIntire at Swiklinski’s home because the chief was known to pull up and chat with residents.
“That’s the kind of kid he’s always been,” said Beale, a family friend since the 1980s when he served as borough mayor and when McIntire’s father, Lee, was a police officer. “He’s pretty much the same as an adult as he was then, a good, quiet kid.”
Beale said that as president of the Tar-Brack Little League Association, he shared coaching duties with the elder McIntire. Justin McIntire played ball for the Pioneer Hose-sponsored team. The Highlands graduate always planned to be a police officer, Beale said.
“I last talked to him over the holidays,” Beale said. “He pulled up, and I asked how everything was.
“ ‘Same old’ was his answer. He was hard to ruffle, and that’s how I knew things were OK.”
