‘AMBUSHED AND MURDERED’
DA recounts Brackenridge chief’s final moments
Content warning: This story contains graphic details about gun violence.
As Justin McIntire tracked Aaron Lamont Swan Jr. between houses in the chief’s hometown of Brackenridge on a dreary post-holiday Monday, his intent never was to kill.
Even though the 28-year-old had eluded law enforcement in the area for more than a day at that point, Chief McIntire had drawn his Taser as he moved among homes and yards on Third Avenue. He didn’t draw his service weapon. That never left his belt.
“He had no intention of taking life,” Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said Friday. “That’s why everybody in the community loved him.”
Those and other particulars emerged during an hourlong presentation of facts in the case by the District Attorney’s Office, which revealed in painstaking detail the last minutes of the small-town police chief’s life and the desperate search for the man who had gone from suspicion of fleeing police to a likely capital offense.
Mr. Zappala said that despite the fact Swan is dead and there is no case to be made against him, it was important that all of the facts see the light of day.
“You have the death of somebody in one of the most revered positions in this community,” he said. “There was a lot of misinformation about criminal histories and those types of things, and that’s absolutely unfair to people like Mrs. McIntire and her family and everybody else.”
He said that Swan’s mother, too, deserves to know what happened. She lost a son that day, he noted — a son that she loved.
“How she raised her child, that’s between her and her child
and God,” Mr. Zappala said. “But she didn’t commit any crimes, so she’s entitled to know exactly what I’m telling you guys today.”
Beyond that, he said, it should serve as a warning.
“There’s too much violence in the community. If you’re going to direct violence at a police officer — these are ladies and gentlemen who’ve been trained to return deadly force with deadly force,” he said. “I’m just afraid that with the escalation of violence and directing it toward the police — this stuff has to stop, because these guys are prepared to address it. And I hate to see any tragedy.”
Chief McIntire’s decision to draw his Taser rather than his service weapon ended up immortalizing the horrifying last moments of the chief’s life: The Tasers used by Brackenridge officers automatically begin recording video when they’re drawn.
The two still photos taken from that footage that were presented by Mr. Zappala show first two hands sticking out from behind the corner of a white clapboard house. The hands are wrapped around a black gun in firing position.
Swan had taken cover just behind that corner of the house, about the same time as Chief McIntire was starting down the small passthrough between houses. It was about 4:13 p.m.
The second photo, presented in the form of a PowerPoint slideshow, shows Swan emerging from his hiding spot behind the corner, either about to open fire or in the process of firing.
“This is the last thing that Chief McIntire sees,” Mr. Zappala said.
He said Swan fired five times, hitting Chief McIntire with four of the shots. The first hit his hand and face, causing him to spin. The second hit him in the rear. The third and fourth shots, Mr. Zappala said, were fired from about 15 to 18 inches away from the back of the chief’s head as he lay on the ground.
The presentation also offered the perspective of Tarentum police Officer Jordan Schrecengost, who was shot in the leg while pursing Swan. Footage from his body-worn camera shows him running down the street, shouting out “gun, gun, gun!” along with his location as he chases after him.
“He’s on the corner of this house right here at Brackenridge Avenue,” Officer Schrecengost says. There’s a loud bang, as he yells, “Shots fired, shots fired.”
He runs to a nearby garage where, it was later determined, Swan and a man in his driveway struggled over Swan’s gun as he tried to carjack the man’s work van. The man, unaware Swan had multiple weapons, told Officer Schrecengost he’d wrestled the gun away from Swan, who was now in the man’s garage.
Swan opens fire. The body camera captures the Tarentum officer falling backward to the ground as he calls out that shots have been fired and he’s been hit.
Swan made his way to Pacific Avenue, where he went through an open door and carjacked the woman inside, telling her that if she didn’t give him a 10-minute head start before she called police, he would come back and kill her.
He took off in her silver Subaru Legacy, making his way south on Route 28, across the Highland Park Bridge and into the city’s Homewood section before ultimately crashing the car. Police, who had already saturated the area while looking for him, then spotted him.
In the Heart Court apartment complex, police bodyworn camera video shows, he ran through a parking lot and toward a fenced-in area behind one of the buildings. Two Pittsburgh police officers follow, ordering Swan to drop his weapon.
The next sound is a burst of automatic gunfire — 21 rounds in all, Mr. Zappala said. The officers returned fire. In all, the gunbattle lasted 18 seconds. Nearly 70 rounds were fired between the officers and Swan.
Swan was pronounced dead at the scene.
“I don’t think there’s any question as to what happened that day. Chief McIntire was ambushed and murdered,” Mr. Zappala said.
“There’s overwhelming evidence of justification for the [Pittsburgh] officers to do what they did,” Mr. Zappala continued. “I think just from the ShotSpotter alone, you can see the first 21 shots, at least, came from Mr. Swan’s weapon. And they came at a time when both officers are not in cover positions, but they were moving.”
Chief McIntire’s wife, Ashley, attended Mr. Zappala’s briefing, as did several officers from Brackenridge and Tarentum. The district attorney read a statement on Ms. McIntire’s behalf.
“Some say I chose to marry this life, but actually, I chose to marry him, not for his job but for the man he was,” she wrote in part. “I chose him because he was so selfless and caring. He put not only me first but everyone else before him.”
Mr. Zappala’s voice cracked as he read on.
“I will never forget watching the officers walk up my sidewalk with tears running down their faces and that feeling of disbelief that overcame me,” she wrote. “As my heart broke into a million pieces, I begged them to tell me it wasn’t true because the last thing I wanted to do was walk back through that front door and tell our children that their dad wasn’t ever coming home.
“Justin wasn’t ready to die,” Mr. Zappala read. “We had plans for tomorrow, next week, next month and for the next 50+ years, but those plans were taken from us. They were taken from us because of a coward.”
“He was a coward,” Mr. Zappala interjected.
The search for Swan had begun late in the morning on Jan. 1 when a state trooper spotted a black Honda speeding south on Route 28 near Cheswick. The trooper ultimately cut short the chase in the interest of public safety but took note of the Honda’s license plate information. He later tracked it back to Swan, along with the three outstanding warrants for his arrest.
License plate readers show Swan spent a lot of his time in Harrison, and police found him at a Sheetz on Freeport Road the next day. Swan took off and eventually abandoned the Honda Civic to proceed on foot. Later, Swan and another man were spotted near where the Honda was recovered in Brackenridge.
At that point, multiple police departments began searching for Swan. Mr. Zappala said they were searching for him in connection with the outstanding warrants and his high-speed trip down 28 the day prior.
He said the warrants would have been for petty theft and the theft of guns from a vehicle a year prior, although it’s unclear when the local police might have become aware that one of the warrants involved stolen guns.