Rosfeld was known as a ‘reserved’ student of criminal justice
picture emerged from family and friends of a teenager with promise and college ambition, even as he wrestled with worries as expressed in an honors English class poem he wrote about being black in America, titled, “I AM NOT WHATYOU THINK!”
But less is known about Officer Rosfeld, 30, of Penn Hills, a white law enforcement officer and high school athlete who — in the time it took to draw his service weapon June 19 and fire it — went from just another patrolman on duty to someone now charged with criminal homicide.
A woman who answered the door of his parents’ home in Oakmont last week slammed it shut on a reporter who had gone there seeking to learn more about his life and what moved him to pursue law enforcement.
His attorney, Patrick Thomassey, has not returned phone calls or email messages. Most calls to those who knew Officer Rosfeld as far back as high school have not been returned, either.
Even so, glimpses of the man have emerged.
On the day charges were announced, Mr. Thomassey said his client believed he saw a gun on the teen and that Officer Rosfeld acted justifiably, given that the car Antwon was in had been involved in an attempted homicide minutes earlier.
Mr. Thomassey said previously that his client sobbed through his first interview with him, and cried throughout his interview with county homicide detectives. “He legitimately feels horrible,” Mr. Thomassey said. “The kid was 17.”
The attorney added, “Mike kept saying, ‘I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe that kid didn’t have a gun in his hand.’ “
But District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said the officer gave conflicting statements about whether he saw a gun and that video and witness accounts suggest Antwon showed the officer that his hands were empty before he ran away.
“You do not shoot somebody in the back when they are not a threat to you,” Mr. Zappala said at a June 25 news conference announcing the homicide charge against Officer Rosfeld. “I find that Rosfeld’s actions were intentional, and they certainly brought about the result he was looking to accomplish.”
The fateful street encounter between two strangers that night left one dead and another with a life potentially changed forever.
Officer Rosfeld grew up in Oakmont, a suburb of 6,400 that hugs the Allegheny River, 14 miles by car northeast from Downtown Pittsburgh.
He attended the Riverview School District, whose mostly white enrollment of 1,000 students comes from Oakmont and Verona. Its Junior-Senior High School houses grades seven through 12. Officer Rosfeld graduated from there in 2006, one of 111 classmates.
In a section of the school’s yearbook filled with throwback photos of graduating seniors as small children, Officer Rosfeld flashes a playful smile as he stands in front of his family’s fireplace in a turtleneck sweater matching his blond hair.
Officer Rosfeld, or “Mikey” as he was known back then, was a 6-foot, 210pound lineman on the school’s football team. He wore No. 52 his senior year for the black-and-gold Raiders, who went 5-5 that year, according to the high school sports web site Maxpreps.
He was a ski club member all six years, and in a group photo taken in the school’s gymnasium, he sits in the front row wearing faded jeans and a black T-shirt, one of 28 members.
In another photo, he grins as he stands, in a suit with a carnation, next to his prom date.
Officer Rosfeld had grades good enough for college, and scored 1100 out of 1600 on his SAT, according to a Post-Gazette story that profiled him and other scholarship winners from area school districts that year. He took advanced placement courses in U.S. history and calculus and in the article had some advice about navigating the college-going process.
“Play a sport,” he said. “They like that.”
A quote beside his senior year credits seemed to suggest a young man with ambitions other than law enforcement.
“I plan to attend Penn State New Kensington and major in Accounting,” he wrote. “Then I will make lots of money counting other people’s money.”
But something apparently changed by that fall.
He enrolled as a freshman studying crime, justice and law at Penn State New Kensington before transferring to the university’s Altoona campus. He graduated from there in 2010 with a degree in criminal justice, said Penn State spokesman Ben Manning.
Michael Arter, an associate professor of criminal justice at Penn State Altoona, remembers Officer Rosfeld as being neither at the top nor the bottom academically, but rather somewhere in the top quarter.
“He was more reserved than some,” he said. Just the same, Mr. Arter added, “He was attentive in class. He participated.”
While he couldn’t recall more specifics about Officer Rosfeld, Mr. Arter said that in general, the overwhelming majority of students entering law enforcement, especially the younger ones, have an altruistic bent. He knows because he often asks them why they want to be a police officer.
“The majority of them are lookingfor the service aspect, to protect the weak. They want to give back,” he said. “I know it sounds corny, but that’s what they say.’’
A small percentage, he added, maybe 5 percent to 7 percent, are motivated by the authority, the attention or the power.
“Those guys usually don’t last long in the field,” he said.
Officer Rosfeld enrolled in 2010 at the Allegheny County Police Training Academy and graduatedin December of that year, said Amie Downs, a countyspokeswoman.
From there, he worked at departments in Harmar and Oakmont, beginning in 2011. The Oakmont borough manager told the Post-Gazette that Officer Rosfeld was a part-time officer in the department from April 2011 to 2013.
She did not have an ending date for his employment, but said he left to take a fulltime position elsewhere.
Joseph Miksch, a University of Pittsburgh spokesman, said Officer Rosfeld worked for the school between October 2012 and Jan. 18 of this year.
He left the campus force after authorities discovered discrepancies between the officer’s sworn statement and evidence in an arrest, the Post-Gazette reported last month.
He then was hired by East Pittsburgh police in midMay. He was on patrol for about three weeks but was officially sworn in on June 19, hours before the fatal shooting.
In the Pitt case, Officer Rosfeld responded to the Garage Door Saloon on Atwood Street in Oakland about 10:30 p.m. Dec. 9. A fellow officer had sought assistance, according to a criminal complaint written by Officer Rosfeld.
When Officer Rosfeld arrived, he wrote, the other officer had three men, Timothy Riley, 24, Jacob Schilling, 24, and Daniel Humphrey, 26, up against a wall.
The complaint said the men smelled of alcohol and were “extremely belligerent yelling” at the officer, the business owner and an employee.
The owner, Mark Welshonse, told Officer Rosfeld that the three men and another man had been thrown out of the bar for trying to fight other customers. The fourth man allegedly kicked a glass side door, causing it to crack, and ran.
The other three men were charged with simple assault, defiant trespass, disorderly conductand public drunkenness. All the charges were withdrawn Dec. 21.
The Post-Gazette reported last month that two sources familiar with the situation said the charges were dropped because Officer Rosfeld’s affidavit did not match collected evidence.
Mr. Miksch, the Pitt spokesman, confirmed the university turned over Officer Rosfeld’s personnel file to the district attorney. He and the university declined to say whether the officer resigned or was fired.
On July 2, two of those arrested in that case — Mr. Riley and Mr. Schilling — filed a lawsuit asserting that their civil rights were infringed and that they were unjustly detained.
They claim in their lawsuit that Officer Rosfeld made a sworn statement that he had watched the surveillance video of the suspects’ behavior, when in fact he had not.
Mr. Humphrey did not join the lawsuit. His mother is Kathy Humphrey, Pitt senior vice chancellor for engagement and secretary to the board of trustees.
On June 19, the night Antwon was killed, Officer Rosfeld pulled over a gold Chevy Cruze because he suspected it had been involved in a drive-by shooting in North Braddock 13 minutes earlier, according to investigators.
Antwon was a passenger in the car during the driveby shooting, Mr. Zappala said. But he fired no shots.
“By all accounts, Mr. Rose never did anything in furtherance of the crimes in North Braddock,” Mr. Zappala said at the June 25 news conference.
Officer Rosfeld had been to the scene of the drive-by shooting, where he saw a man bleeding on the ground. That, said his attorney, placed him on elevated alert during the later traffic stop.
Officer Rosfeld told investigators he believed there were three people in the car but couldn’t clearly see their hands, according to a criminal complaint. He planned to order all three people out of the car and have them lie on the ground until backup officers arrived.
He drew his weapon and started to give orders to the jitney driver who was at the wheel, according to the complaint. The driver said Officer Rosfeld told him to turn off the car and toss the keys out the window, which he did. Officer Rosfeld then ordered him to get on the ground, which he did.
Then, the jitney driver said, he heard Officer Rosfeld give “commands to the passengers.” He said he saw the teenagers’ feet as they exited the car, and saw their feet turn to run. He then heard gunshots.