Determining whether or not the death of an on-duty law enforcement officer is the result of a criminal act is not as straightforward as it might seem. Such a determination might be made on the basis of the conduct alleged to have caused the death, whether or not charges were filed or a conviction was obtained; the type of charges filed; or the type of conviction obtained. Complicating matters further are those cases in which the alleged killer is also killed, and therefore never charged or tried.
Herein, a law enforcement officer is deemed to have been killed by a criminal act if a felony conviction was obtained against a defendant after that death or likely would have been were the defendant apprehended or still alive.
Determining whether or not an officer is on duty at the time of his (all of the officers killed on duty in Allegheny County have been men) killing is also not so straightforward. In the present research, an officer is deemed to be on duty if he is killed while discharging his duties or acting in an official capacity, whether or not he was formally on the job at that time.
On that basis, and in chronological order, these law enforcement officers have been feloniously killed in the line of duty in Allegheny County.[i] Allegheny County officers killed outside the county are not included. Officers from outside the county killed within the county are included.
Italicized and bolded names indicate that the officer’s killing resulted in a death sentence.
Name of Officer Law Enforcement Agency Date of Crime*
- Daniel McMullen Pittsburgh Police Department July 27, 1867
- John Stacks Pittsburgh Police Department April 23, 1872
- John A. Weimar Pittsburgh Police Department August 24, 1874
- Samuel Norman Tarentum Police Department July 26, 1877
- Thomas Lyons Pittsburgh Police Department July 3, 1878
- John Wiggins Allegheny City Police Department November 9, 1880
- Edward O’Dwyer Pittsburgh Police Department June 30, 1881
- John F. “Benjamin” Evans Pittsburgh Police Department August 4, 1885
- Charles Metzgar Pittsburgh Police Department May 1, 1898
- James McKeag Turtle Creek Police Department April 9, 1901
- Patrick Edward Fitzgerald Pittsburgh Police Department April 12, 1901
- James H. Sheehy Pittsburgh Police Department May 18, 1901
- Andrew J. Kelly Pittsburgh Police Department October 3, 1903
- William Shields Pennsylvania State Constable October 16, 1903
- Bruce A. Patton Coraopolis Police Department December 10, 1905
- Thomas J. Sullivan Pennsylvania State Constable July 12, 1907
- Harry H. Exley Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office August 22, 1909
- John L. Williams Pennsylvania State Police August 22, 1909
- John Curtis “Jack” Smith Pennsylvania State Police August 22, 1909
- Martin F. Windt Pennsylvania State Constable December 29, 1913
- George H. Shearer Pittsburgh Police Department May 12, 1914
- John E. Clifford McKeesport Police Department December 15, 1915
- Thomas Pugh Pennsylvania State Constable June 15, 1916
- Charles LeRoy Edinger Pittsburgh Police Department June 6, 1917
- Michael J. Lebedda Munhall Police Department November 17, 1917
- Harry Meyers Harrison Township Police Dept. December 21, 1917
- William C. Lucas, Sr. Harrison Township Police Dept. December 21, 1917
- Thomas Patrick Farrell Pittsburgh Police Department March 2, 1918
- John L. Wilson Homestead Police Department September 6, 1918
- Robert McLean Hamilton Turtle Creek Police Department April 4, 1919
- Louis Henry Hufnagel Crafton Police Department September 8, 1919
- George Hoffman Pittsburgh Police Department October 22, 1919
- William Frank Smith Homestead Police Department October 6, 1920
- Peter K. Tsorvas Pittsburgh Police Department October 30, 1920
- Joseph Allen Coghill Dormont Police Department December 25, 1921
- Edward George Couch Pittsburgh Police Department October 30, 1922
- Daniel J. Conley Pittsburgh Police Department December 30, 1922
- Casper Thomas Schmotzer Pittsburgh Police Department January 23, 1923
- Albert Schnittker Pittsburgh and Lake Erie RR Police March 28, 1923
- Frank X. Mooney Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office May 2, 1923
- John August Pieper Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections February 11, 1924
- John Taylor Coax Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections February 11, 1924
- Max Lefkowitz McKeesport Police Department May 14, 1924
- Joseph Jovanovic Pittsburgh Police Department July 7, 1924
- John Mancos Pennsylvania State Constable July 22, 1925
- George L. MacPhee Rankin Police Department April 9, 1926
- James F. Farrell Pittsburgh Police Department July 6, 1927
- John J. Downey Pennsylvania State Police August 22, 1927
- James E. Hughes Pittsburgh Police Department December 27, 1929
- Grover Wolf McKees Rocks Police Department November 14, 1930
- Vernon Porter Moses Ross Township Police Department May 3, 1932
- Herbert P. Brantlinger Pennsylvania State Highway Patrol September 3, 1933
- Martin Pluter Pennsylvania State Constable April 16, 1934
- Roy William Freiss Pittsburgh Police Department February 3, 1935
- Robert Leo Kosmal Pittsburgh Police Department August 16, 1935
- Andrew Joseph Conroy Pennsylvania State Constable January 21, 1938
- Edward M. Conway Pittsburgh Police Department June 27, 1939
- Tobias J. Brown Pittsburgh Police Department August 23, 1941
- Albert Theodore Lorch Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office October 1, 1943
- Louis G. Spencer Pittsburgh Police Department December 24, 1946
- Joseph Chmelynski Bethel Park Police Department March 5, 1948
- Charles McKinley Verona Police Department February 4, 1954
- William H. Heagy Pittsburgh Police Department March 25, 1954
- Edward Mackiw Pennsylvania State Police May 31, 1958
- James R. Lauer Northumberland County Sheriff May 27, 1959
- Coleman Regis McDonough Pittsburgh Police Department July 6, 1965
- Clifford Joseph Grogan, Sr. Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections November 12, 1965
- Joseph Francis Gaetano Pittsburgh Police Department June 10, 1966
- Joseph Paul Zanella Verona Police Department September 19, 1969
- William J. Otis Pittsburgh Police Department March 3, 1971
- Albert William Devlin McCandless Police Department January 8, 1973
- Walter Lee Peterson Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections December 10, 1973
- Patrick J. Wallace, Jr. Pittsburgh Police Department July 3, 1974
- Norman Alexander Stewart Pittsburgh Police Department September 16, 1983
- Joseph John Grill Pittsburgh Police Department March 6, 1991
- Thomas Lawrence Herron Pittsburgh Police Department March 6, 1991
- Frank Albert Miller, Jr. McKeesport Police Department November 10, 1993
- James Henry “Rip” Taylor, Jr. Pittsburgh Police Department September 22, 1995
- Joseph Raymond Pokorny, Jr. Pennsylvania State Police December 12, 2005
- Eric Guy Kelly Pittsburgh Police Department April 4, 2009
- Stephen James Mayhle Pittsburgh Police Department April 4, 2009
- Paul John Sciullo, II Pittsburgh Police Department April 4, 2009
- Michael James Crawshaw Penn Hills Police Department December 6, 2009
[i] The Pittsburgh Police Department and the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Department do not maintain publicly available lists of officers killed on duty. A searchable database of police officers killed in the line of duty is available at the Officer Down Memorial Page, https://www.odmp.org/. At least with respect to Allegheny County officers, this listing omits some of the cases listed above and contains numerous factual inaccuracies regarding other cases.
* In many cases, date of death differs from the date of the underlying assault.