DA's office says Pittsburgh activist should be jailed over social media posts after police chief's killing

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office said a Pittsburgh activist should be jailed and resentenced after she posted messages on Facebook about the shooting death of Brackenridge police Chief Justin McIntire.

Prosecutors filed a motion to detain Nicky Jo Dawson on Jan. 6 and supplemented that with an additional 20-page brief on the matter Thursday.

They have not filed any additional charges against Dawson, although they alluded to doing so in their initial filing.

Allegheny County Judge Kelly Bigley has the case and has not scheduled a violation hearing.

After McIntire was shot and killed Jan. 2, Dawson posted on Facebook: “A pig died tonight. They want us to cry over it. They will use this to exterminate us and call it ‘looking for a suspect.’ ”

She also wrote “Off the pigs.”

Chief Deputy Trial District Attorney William Petulla wrote in his initial motion that the DA’s office was investigating the social media posts.

In the new document filed Thursday, he does not say whether any new charges will be filed.

Petulla wrote that his office is justified in requesting to detain Dawson based on her “violence-inciting postings,” which have “served to vitiate her initial sentence in spreading violent directives.”

“Revocation and resentencing are warranted when, in the face of a new criminal act or violation of a condition of probation, the court finds that probation is no longer achieving its desired goals,” Petulla wrote.

He is asking for a probation violation hearing based both on the social media messages and Dawson’s failure to pay the costs for electronic monitoring, which she will complete Feb. 1.

Dawson pleaded guilty to attempted arson for trying to set fire to two separate pizza shops on the night of Oct. 29, 2019. Bigley ordered her to serve three years of probation, including the first six months on house arrest.

Petulla wrote in his brief that Dawson attempted to kill 75 people “to exact revenge on a not-present pizza employee,” and that act “lay bare her violent, unreasonable and illogical temperament.”

As for her social media posts in the wake of McIntire’s killing, Petulla said Dawson “saw fit to insert her posts to further execute law enforcement just moments after Chief McIntire was assassinated only yards from his mother’s home and Officer (Jordan) Schrecengost lay wounded by gunfire.”

Petulla, describing Dawson as a “prominent” and “well-known” activist, said the sway she has over her audience is concerning.

While he said such posts may draw little notice from a “nonviolent, less prominent and less impulsive probationer, her words cannot be summarily dismissed.”