Lawsuit accuses Pittsburgh cops of 'abandoning' drunk woman killed by driver on West End Bridge

The estate of a Homestead woman fatally struck by a vehicle that knocked her off Pittsburgh’s West End Bridge in January is suing Pittsburgh police, three of its officers and a city bar for what the complaint claims are their roles in her death.

The seven-count civil rights lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Pittsburgh, alleges that the defendants were negligent and at fault for the wrongful death of Faye McCoy, 44, on Jan. 27.

It accuses the officers of violating McCoy’s constitutional rights by “abandoning” her and not escorting her to safety although she was intoxicated, on foot and alone in a desolate area in the middle of the night.

McCoy was a passenger in a car driven by her friend, who was drunk. Police arrested the friend and left McCoy on her own around 3 a.m. in the West End Circle.

A dark-colored sedan hit McCoy while she was walking on the bridge 12 minutes after officers left her. Once hit, she fell off the bridge to a concrete-paved parking lot below and died.

The case, which remains unsolved, raised questions about police conduct and officers’ duties of care.

“The officers left Ms. McCoy in a situation that was more dangerous than the one in which they found her,” lawyer Todd Hollis wrote in the complaint. “The area in which the officers abandoned Ms. McCoy was exceedingly dangerous for a pedestrian. The temperature, time of night, darkness, distance from any business establishments, the decedent’s dark clothing, the speeds of passing vehicles, and her intoxication made the roadway a place of great danger for her.”

Investigators are still looking for the car and its driver.

The lawsuit names as defendants the City of Pittsburgh; police officers Zacariah Norman, Emily Shields and Michael Sokolowski; Art’s Tavern; and the unidentified driver of the car that struck McCoy.

Cara Cruz, a police spokeswoman, declined comment Friday.

“Obviously, the investigation into her death is still ongoing. And, other than that, there’s nothing we can say about litigation,” Cruz said.

Olga George, a spokeswoman for Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, said Friday, “The city is not aware of that lawsuit. When we receive it, we will review it.”

The other defendants could not be reached for comment.

Hollis filed suit on behalf of estate planning attorney Michael Nahas, who on Friday confirmed to TribLive that McCoy’s family appointed him as the executor of the woman’s estate.

Nahas said he is not related to McCoy and declined further comment.

A ‘desolate’ area

The lawsuit described McCoy drinking “excessive amounts” of alcohol on Jan. 26 at Art’s Tavern, a Penn Avenue bar in the Strip District owned by Arthur Jeffrey Inc.

McCoy was so “visibly intoxicated” that a second bar would not serve McCoy alcohol that night, according to the complaint.

Police said McCoy’s friend, Nakila Crawford-Creighten, was driving McCoy’s car when she crashed into a median in the West End Circle around 1:38 a.m.

Norman, one of the police officers being sued, wrote in a criminal complaint that he smelled alcohol on McCoy.

Officers spent “more than half an hour” trying to coax McCoy, who was not under arrest, to come with them to a safe location, according to police.

They “made multiple attempts to assist her and convince her to accept a courtesy ride to a safe location,” Cara Cruz, a police spokeswoman, told TribLive in February.

But, police said, McCoy repeatedly refused.

Police took Crawford-Creighten, 33, of Homestead, into custody for DUI. Eventually, officers cleared the scene and left McCoy alone in the middle of a January night to get home from a “desolate” area and a dangerous intersection, according to the lawsuit.

Hollis, the lawyer, described McCoy as a “scantily dressed, intoxicated single woman” who was drunk “to a point at which she was unfit to safely care for herself.”

“The City and its officers were deliberately indifferent to Ms. McCoy’s impaired condition when, after taking her into custody, they abandoned her at or near the West End Circle,” Hollis wrote in the complaint. “[McCoy] was not dressed for the weather and was miles from home … and she was faced with walking in an unsafe area for pedestrians.”

The lawsuit said officers who impounded McCoy’s car and failed to take her to a police station, her home, or a friend’s home, showed a “willful disregard” for her safety. “[Officers] acted with a degree of culpability that shocks the conscience.”

Hollis on Friday declined to make any additional comments.

Duty of care

A TribLive report revealed McCoy’s unsolved death had commanded attention at the highest levels of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, and questions were raised about whether officers had a duty of care under their policies to escort McCoy to safety.

In the lawsuit, Hollis cited city police policy as stating: “If the person is released, police shall ensure that the person is released at a safe location and is not otherwise placed at risk as a result of the incident. If necessary, police should provide transportation for the released person to a safe location.”

Pittsburgh police Chief Larry Scirotto personally reviewed his officers’ body camera footage from the incident to assess their conduct.

Scirotto in February said police “have a responsibility to review the circumstances of her encounter with us.”

Scirotto told TribLive earlier this year that he found no fault with his officers’ actions that night and that they followed bureau rules.

“We don’t and cannot detain or seize people for public drunkenness,” Scirotto told TribLive in February. “It’s why we don’t have ‘drunk tanks’ … We’re just not permitted to do that.”

Scirotto declined comment Friday on the lawsuit.

Police refused to release the footage that Scirotto viewed or any evidence to independently corroborate Scirotto’s account of the incident.

Crawford-Creighten has not spoken publicly about the events of Jan. 27. Most recently, she declined to speak with a TribLive reporter after a March hearing about the eight charges Pittsburgh police filed against her, including DUI.

The trial on those charges is scheduled to begin Sept. 30 in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

McCoy’s family also has not responded to numerous phone calls seeking comment.

No discipline

Robert Swartzwelder, head of the police union, said Friday that none of the three officers named in the lawsuit was disciplined in connection with the incident.

“This case was fully investigated by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police and they were cleared of any wrongdoing,” said Swartzwelder, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1, which represents Pittsburgh police’s rank-and-file officers.

Nahas, the plaintiff, is seeking compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of McCoy’s child, who is identified only by initials. He is seeking a jury trial.

In addition to the wrongful death count, the suit alleges a violation of McCoy’s due process rights. Hollis wrote “an officer may be held liable for failing to protect an individual where the state has placed that individual in danger through its affirmative conduct.”

The complaint accuses the city of municipal liability; the officers of negligent infliction of emotional distress; the bar of serving McCoy and negligence.

McCoy’s blood alcohol concentration at the time of her death was 0.242%, according to the lawsuit — more than three times the legal limit for driving.

The lawsuit claims that McCoy’s fall — not the strike by the sedan — killed her.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office on March 1 said McCoy’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, neck, trunk and pelvis. Her case synopsis read “struck by vehicle.”