McIntire memorial items sold as fundraiser for fallen chief's family in Tarentum

By the time Zach Meso arrived Saturday at noon at the Tarentum Borough Building to buy items memorializing fallen Brackenridge police Chief Justin McIntire, the T-shirts were long sold out and the Sunday sale was cancelled due to a lack of available merchandise.

Meso didn’t seem bothered.

The Natrona Heights resident and Harrison Hills volunteer firefighter pre-ordered three T-shirts and picked up a decal to pay his respects to the man who often sat beside him, swapping stories, at the Oregon Hunting & Fishing Club in Brackenridge.

“He was as personable as personable can be,” said Meso, as he stood in the building’s borough council chambers after picking up his gear. “It’s a shock, obviously. You don’t think something like that could happen around here.”

The sale of McIntire merchandise at the borough building started at 9 a.m. Saturday — with a waiting line of well-wishers snaking around the building and down Second Avenue, its trees wrapped with blue ribbons.

Within an hour, all of the T-shirts were spoken for; another 3,000 already were pre-ordered, according to volunteer Shasta Meixelsberger.

“We’ll have additional shirts, plus the pre-orders, ready within the week,” Meixelsberger said. “I’m seeing lots of residents from the surrounding communities — there were some people who drove an hour to get here. There were even state police on the way to their shifts.

“We are overwhelmed by the show of support.”

Most who stopped to talk with the dozen volunteers manning cash drawers Saturday had their own story about the police chief, 46, who was gunned down Jan. 2 of off Third Avenue in Brackenridge after a days-long manhunt for suspect Aaron Lamont Swan Jr., 28, of Duquesne. Swan was later shot and killed by police in Pittsburgh’s Homewood-Brushton neighborhood.

Jim O’Donnell, Jr., recalled playing baseball with McIntire when the two were just 10 or 11, as he picked up a Brackenridge Police shield decal for his car.

“He was a great guy,” said O’Donnell, of Harmarville. “It’s very sad — something like that shouldn’t have happened. He was a good guy. I’m in shock. It happens to the best people.”

Don Wagner was the exception to the rule.

“I don’t have one (McIntire story),” the Natrona Heights resident and volunteer firefighter quipped. “I just came out to support him and his family.”

In addition to T-shirts and decals, volunteers were selling wristbands, blue light bulbs and police blue-line American flags — all for $5 each. The decals ran $10.

All proceeds from the sale are going directly to benefit the McIntire family, which includes McIntire’s wife and four children, volunteers said.