Pittsburgh to fire 5 cops after death of man hit by stun gun

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PITTSBURGH (AP) — Five Pittsburgh police officers will be fired following an internal investigation into their interaction with a 54-year-old man, who died a day after police shocked him multiple times with a stun gun, officials said Wednesday.

The names of the officers or details of the investigation were not released by Lee Schmidt, the city’s public safety director, per the police department's collective bargaining agreement. The agreement affords each officer the opportunity to use arbitration to challenge the discipline imposed.

Schmidt said three other officers who were involved in the episode will keep their jobs.

All eight officers were suspended with pay and faced disciplinary hearings after the death of Jim Rogers in October. Police shocked him with a stun gun multiple times in connection with an alleged bicycle theft in the Bloomfield neighborhood.

The medical examiner in January ruled the death accidental and resulting from a lack of oxygen to the brain.

Mayor Ed Gainey said Rogers “deserved to live a life of joy; he deserved to live a long one. And he didn't deserve to lose his life at the hands of police officers."

“What his life could have been will stay with me as long as I am the mayor of this city," Gainey said, calling the death “a historic reminder of the work we have in front of us to make our city the safest city in America."