‘It was pretty heroic what he did’
Penguins president/CEO David Morehouse saves KDKA cameraman amid violent Pittsburgh protests
While NHL hockey won’t return for a few months, Penguins president/CEO David Morehouse made a pretty incredible save Saturday as protests outside of PPG Paints Arena turned violent.
After witnessing a group of protesters beating up KDKA-TV cameraman Ian Smith — throwing him to the ground, stomping him in the head and smashing his camera to pieces — Mr. Morehouse emerged from the Highmark Gate along Centre Avenue, near the statue of team co-owner Mario Lemieux.
Mr. Morehouse located Mr. Smith and dragged him inside to safety before he was transported to Mercy Hospital,
with Mr. Smith tweeting a picture of himself giving a bloody thumbs-up from the back of the ambulance.
That tweet set off a chain reaction in the KDKA community, the nexus of those conversations becoming Larry Richert, a longtime anchor and reporter on the station and currently a morning show host on NewsRadio 1020 KDKA-AM.
“[Smith] posted that picture, and I called him,” Mr. Richert explained by phone late Saturday night. “He answered. He actually was on a stretcher at UPMC Mercy Hospital, waiting to get a CT scan. He said he was beat up and emotionally shaken by people saying they were going to kill him in the middle of a mob scene.
“I said, ‘Who saved you?’ He didn’t know. He said, ‘I wish I could find them. I want to thank them for saving my life because I felt my life was in danger. Like, real danger. I could have been killed.’ ”
Later, after some additional reporting, Mr. Richert figured out it was indeed Mr. Morehouse, a process that required a conversation with another veteran KDKA employee, Paul Martino.
Mr. Martino was with Mr. Smith, reporting on the demonstrations against police brutality after the death of George Floyd, though the aggressors appeared to have more interest in beating up Mr. Smith and destroying evidence.
Mr. Martino confirmed to Mr. Richert it was Mr. Morehouse making the save, and the Penguins later did as much to the Pittsburgh PostGazette.
Mr. Morehouse declined to comment through a team spokesman. Neither Mr. Martino nor Mr. Smith were permitted to comment, per company policy.
While sitting at home and watching the violence unfold, Mr. Richert later fired off a text to Mr. Morehouse, thanking the Beechview native and former boilermaker for saving Mr. Smith.
“I said half-jokingly, ‘I know it was the Beechview in you that did the right thing,’” Mr. Richert said. “His text back to me was, ‘I did what anybody I grew up with in Beechview would’ve done in the same situation,’ which is what you expect to hear from David.”
Mr. Martino posted about the incident on Facebook, saying he was having “severe chest pains” while Mr. Smith had a “bad head injury.” While Mr. Smith was released a couple of hours after he arrived at Mercy, Mr. Martino was still there as of 9 p.m. Saturday.
Mr. Morehouse has already bristled at the attention, Mr. Richert said, a predictable response for anyone who knows the Penguins CEO/president. Mr. Richert also doesn’t care.
As far as he sees it, Mr. Morehouse could’ve easily looked the other way and waited for someone else to handle it … and Mr. Smith, as a result, may no longer be alive.
“Knowing David as a Beechview guy, he’s a Pittsburgher,” Mr. Richert said. “It was a very volatile situation. You have a police car on fire. You’ve got all this stuff going on. He had the guts to come out and save him from a potentially very tragic ending.”