Update Jan. 27, 2021: This story has been updated with comments from Osagie family attorneys Andrew Shubin and Kathleen Yurchak.
In their most direct comments on the lawsuit to date, State College Mayor Ron Filippelli and Borough Manager Tom Fountaine on Wednesday derided what they called “false claims and half-truths” in the Osagie family’s civil complaint over the fatal police shooting of their son in 2019.
They added that the borough has “not withheld any information,” about the shooting.
On Monday, attorneys for Sylvester and Iyun Osagie filed an amended complaint in the federal lawsuit that alleged the former officer who shot Osaze Osagie, M. Jordan Pieniazek, was “mentally unstable and violent,” and “unfit for duty.” It also claimed a now retired captain had received information about Pieniazek’s alleged “excessive drinking and domestic abuse” but did not take steps to ensure Pieniazek was fit for duty in the days leading up to the shooting.
“This amended complaint, like the original complaint before, contains false claims, and half-truths, while also leaving out critical facts and context to understanding the incident, the background and the persons involved,” Filippelli and Fountaine said in a joint statement.
Osagie family attorneys Andrew Shubin and Kathleen Yurchak said on Wednesday afternoon that they stand by the veracity of the claims and look forward to pressing them in court.
“The borough’s response is pure political gaslighting,” Yurchak said. “It accuses the complaint of leaving out critical facts and context to understanding the incident when they hid these facts during every part of the investigation.”
Pieniazek, along with Sgt. Christopher Hill and Lt. Keith Robb, went to the 29-year-old Osagie’s Old Boalsburg Road apartment on March 20, 2019 to serve a mental health warrant. When Osagie charged at them with a knife in the narrow basement hallway outside his apartment, Hill deployed a Taser but it was ineffective. Pieniazek then fatally shot Osagie while retreating backwards.
All three officers were cleared of wrongdoing by District Attorney Bernie Cantorna following a state police investigation, saying the officers were in a “life-or-death situation,” and attempting to back away when Osagie charged at them with a knife. The state police Heritage Affairs Section found racial bias did not play a role in the shooting of Osagie, who was Black.
The Osagies have claimed the borough’s crisis intervention training model left officers ill-prepared and that Pieniazek in particular had not been given critical background information about Osaze Osagie’s situation. The borough has denied both of those claims in a response to the original complaint.
The amended complaint claims that a family friend notified State College police in January 2019 about Pieniazek’s alleged drinking and domestic violence and Pieniazek entered rehab.
Capt. Chris Fishel, who later chaired the internal department review that cleared the officers involved, “continued to receive troubling information from an eyewitness relating to Pieniazek’s mental state while he was in rehab,” the lawsuit claims.
The complaint alleges Pieniazek had returned to work just days before the shooting and that he had been drinking again and acting erratically.
“We have not at any time placed any officer on duty, including those who were involved in the Osaze Osagie incident, who was not fit to provide the highest level of police services and professionalism in which the State College Police Department prides itself,” Filippelli and Fountaine said.
After the shooting, a witness contacted Fishel to express “concern regarding… Pieniazek’s increasingly dangerous behavior,” according to the amended complaint. Fishel allegedly told the witness not to take any action, because it would “complicate things.”
The internal review board’s report, which was written by Fishel, contained no witness information related to Pieniazek. The report documents one use-of-force complaint against Pieniazek that did not involve injury and was deemed unfounded.
“The Borough of State College and its leadership have not withheld any information and have been transparent in addressing this incident,” Filippelli and Fountaine said. “We will continue this practice moving forward.
“The borough had outside agencies conduct the investigation of the incident, held post-incident meetings open to the public, answered questions, and made available on its website many reports and resources for all to see.”
Shubin and Yurchak said borough and police officials has not been forthcoming, noting that it took nearly two years and a lawsuit for them to reveal the names of the officers involved.
“For almost two years the State College Police Department and the borough have consistently refused to release the officers’ names despite repeated requests from the family and community members to do so,” Yurchak said. “Only after the family filed the federal court complaint was the borough required to do so by the court process.”
“Now we know why the borough didn’t want to release Officer Pienzenak’s name… The Osagie family and the community deserve to know the whole story,” Shubin added. “It’s something the borough has been unwilling to share and we’re going to force them to do it.”
Filippelli and Fountaine said the borough and the officers will respond “in detail to the inaccuracies contained in the amended complaint,” when they file an answer in the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania.
Pieniazek, who had been a borough police officer since 2008, left the department when he made a disability claim a few months after the shooting, according to the amended complaint.
Fishel retired in September 2020 after 29 years with the department.
Pieniazek, Fishel, Hill, Robb and the borough are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
The 3/20 Coalition, the advocacy group formed following Osagie’s death, said the claims in the amended complaint reinforce the call for justice and “actionable measures” by local government to ensure such an incident does not happen again.
“For nearly two years they insisted that all policy was followed, insisted that our calls for transparency and accountability were cruel and unfounded, insisted that they had provided us multiple independent investigations and we were just unreasonable to assert otherwise,” coalition secretary Melanie Morrison said during a protest Tuesday evening at the Allen Street Gates.
“With each new piece of information we receive, there is a communal ache. For some the ache is betrayal that those you have trusted have violated that trust. For some, the ache is knowing that being right in this moment does nothing to prevent it happening again.”
