In February 2022, Pittsburgh police shot and killed Ashton Porter after he refused to leave his hotel room. Video: Lawyers for the People.
(KRON) — A federal lawsuit was filed against the city of Pittsburgh on Tuesday, alleging that city police used unreasonable force against a man who barricaded himself in a hotel room during a mental breakdown.
On February 24, 2022, Pittsburgh police used pepper spray, tear gas twice, and shots on Ashton Porter, a father of six with a history of mental illness, at the Hampton Inn on California Avenue in Pittsburgh.
According to the lawsuit, Porter was having a psychotic episode. It doesn’t say what mental illness Porter suffers from specifically. Porter believed someone was out to get him. Hotel employees then called 911 to report that Porter hadn’t come out of his room. When police arrived, Porter told them he was scared and needed time, the lawsuit states.
Police made a “prolonged effort” to get Porter out of the scene, according to the lawsuit. Porter’s wife, Gianna, flew in at the last minute from her home in Georgia to speak with him, but after a few minutes she was told to go downstairs, according to the lawsuit. Contra Costa County’s mental health team and mobile emergency response team also arrived on the scene within hours.
Despite his efforts, police “declined” his peaceful intervention for unknown reasons, according to the lawsuit. Lt. Hatcher of the Pittsburgh Police Department then took over communications with him and “aggressively” intervened. [forcing] “Mr Porter, please leave the room.”
According to the lawsuit, police used a battering ram to slam on Porter’s hotel room door and “instilled in him a fear that he was under attack,” before firing four canisters of pepper spray into Porter’s room, followed by six canisters of tear gas.
According to the lawsuit, Hatcher then ordered two SWAT teams to prepare to enter the room and spray “hot gas” at Porter, making it even harder for him to breathe and forcing him out of the room.
Porter left the room, but at least one SWAT officer opened the door and fired two rubber bullets at him. Porter responded by flailing his arms, but less than two seconds later Officer Ernesto Mejia Orozco fired more rubber bullets, knocking Porter to the ground and then dragging him into an elevator and taking him to the hotel lobby.
“Instead of continuing [sic] “Police removed the mental health counselors from the scene in an attempt to encourage dialogue and resolve the situation without the use of force, drilled holes in the walls of the hotel room and began firing pepper spray and tear gas,” said Adante Poynter, Porter’s civil rights attorney.
Porter managed to survive despite being shot multiple times, but sustained serious injuries, according to the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Mejia Orozco was in charge of the operation’s use of lethal force. He was also the officer who choked Humberto Martinez to death in 2016, resulting in Pittsburgh settling the case for $7.3 million in 2020. He was also one of the Pittsburgh police officers arrested by the FBI in 2023 on suspicion of wire fraud.
The day after the Hampton Inn shooting, Porter was indicted on multiple felony charges, including assaulting a police officer, but all charges were later dropped on May 6.
