‘THE CITY REMEMBERS’
15 years after an ambush in Stanton Heights, Pittsburgh remembers its fallen ocers
The heaviest of the drizzle held off Thursday morning just long enough for the small group gathered outside the Zone 5 police station to finish the Lord’s Prayer.
“It’s always nice to remember this day,” said Bill Garrison, cousin of slain officer Paul J. Sciullo II.
Well, he said, not “nice,” per say. But he and his family do hold on to the good memories, the happy ones — the ones before April 4, 2009. And so remembering that day in itself isn’t necessarily nice, he said, but it is something they mark year after year.
The solemn day is usually marked by a short but public tribute to the three Pittsburgh officers killed in the line of duty on April 4, 2009: Sciullo, Eric G. Kelly, and Stephen J. Mayhle.
Sciullo, 37, and Mayhle, 29, were ambushed as they responded to a domestic violence call on Fairfield Street in Stanton Heights. A mother wanted her 22-yearold son out of the house. He ambushed the two officers with an AK-47 rifle as they walked into the home. Kelly, 41, was on his way home after his overnight shift. He lived just blocks away and when he heard the radio call for help, he went to back up his fellow officers. He was shot as he tried to reach Sciullo and Mayhle. The gunman is on death row in a Pennsylvania prison.
As time passes, it changes things — people, emotions, circumstance. The immediate families of the officers decided against the usual 7 a.m. ceremony in front of the Zone 5 station, Chief Larry Scirotto said.
And they will respect that, he said, as they are the ones that bear the heaviest share of the burden.
Mr. Garrison and Wayne Withrow, another of Sciullo’s cousins, didn’t realize there would be no public tribute this year, and they pulled up to the Zone 5 station on Washington Boulevard shortly before 7 a.m., just as a mist was starting to fall. An empty police cruiser was parked outside, just under the mural honoring the fallen officers, lights flashing.
Lt. Anthony Cunningham brought the men and women still at the station — many just starting or just ending their shift — outside for a moment of silence. They greeted the two men with hugs.
“They made the ultimate sacrifice,” Lt. Cunningham said.
He led a moment of silence. Mr. Garrison led the dozen or so men and women in the Lord’s Prayer.
“Not many people can do what you do,” Mr. Garrison told the officers. “Paul loved doing what you do.”
The mist turned to drizzle. “I think the city remembers,” he said, “and the people of Pittsburgh remember.” They do.
“May the memory of these officers continue to be a blessing to our city, Pittsburgh police, and all who knew them,” Mayor Ed Gainey wrote on social media.
Porch lights still burn blue throughout Stanton Heights in a nod to the officers. Fields, parks, benches, and plaques across the city still bear the officers’ names. Tributes poured in across social media from police departments across the region.
“I still remember it all,” Chief Scirotto said. “I remember from the time I got the call to the time I was standing in the coroner’s office with them at the end.”
He said he made sure the officers in his bureau — many of whom were also there 15 years ago — knew that the absence of a ceremony did not mean an absence of honor or respect.
“That’s what we tried to impress upon the organization. For those that don’t see the visibility of a ceremony, it’s not that we have forgotten,” he said. “For certain I have not, and I’m certain there are many like me.”
In a bureau-wide email sent at 7:03 a.m. — the time the ambush on Fairfield Street started — Chief Scirotto asked officers to pause and to remember.
“As we reflect,” he wrote, “let us also remember their families, who have borne the weight of their loss with grace and strength. We offer our deepest gratitude for their sacrifice and assure them that their loved ones will never be forgotten.”