District attorney says grand jury investigating taser death of Jim Rogers ends without indictments
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — More than a year has passed since a man experiencing homeless died in the custody of Pittsburgh police, and the investigation of the officers involved is still up in the air.
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala on Friday confirmed that a grand jury investigating the taser death of Jim Rogers ended without indictments. According to investigators, police tased Rogers at least eight times on a street in Bloomfield in the fall of 2021. He was then transported to UPMC Mercy Hospital, where he later died.
But Zappala said on Friday, after announcing a re-election bid, that another agency is now investigating the incident.
"I got a problem with the use of that taser," Zappala said. "The simplest thing about using a taser is you do not use it repeatedly, because you can hurt somebody and you can take a human life."
In the past year, eight officers were summoned before a county grand jury, where sources say each one invoked their 5th Amendment right and declined to testify. Zappala confirmed that the grand jury ended in October without issuing any indictments and said he would not be presenting the case to a new one.
"No, we got a lot of other issues that I want to put in front of this jury," Zappala said.
Though Zappala said he believes the officers should be charged criminally, he said another agency has taken over the case, preventing him from doing so. He wouldn't identify the agency, but the U.S. Attorney's Office would not comment and the state Attorney General's Office said the case has not been referred to it.
"There's another agency looking at that situation right now," Zappala said. "It would be inappropriate for me to do something, to take any action. There'd be all kinds of constitutional implications with that."
At the same time, Zappala took aim at the Gainey administration for the rise of crime in the city and the lack of enforcement by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, which he says had handcuffed its own officers from enforcing the law.
"They're pushing the police to the back," he said.
However, Mayor Ed Gainey on Friday defended the work of police, saying their work has been hampered by the lack of detention centers to place juvenile offenders, who — according to police — have been responsible for much of the surge in violent crime.
"We got to work together," Gainey said. "I'm not pointing the finger at anybody. The reality is, it's a system flaw, and the only way we're going to close that flaw is by working together."
In seeking re-election, Zappala said he will be working to strike a balance between responsible law enforcement and effective policing to take violent criminals off the street.
