State College Borough Council, Administration Support Investigation of New Allegations in Osagie Case

State College Borough Council members and borough administration on Monday said they support District Attorney Bernie Cantorna’s call for further investigation of new allegations about the former State College police officer who fatally shot Osaze Osagie in 2019.

All seven council members, in a joint statement read during Monday night’s council meeting by President Jesse Barlow, said that, like Cantorna, they were previously unaware of the claims, contained in an amended complaint filed last week in the Osagie family’s federal lawsuit.

The complaint alleges former officer M. Jordan Pieniazek was “mentally unstable and violent” and had a history of “excessive drinking and domestic abuse.” It claims he had just returned to work from a rehab facility days before the shooting and was acting erratically.

“In response to the new allegations raised in the amended complaint regarding the shooting death of Osaze Osagie, the members of the State College Borough Council and the borough administration join DA Bernie Cantorna in calling for further independent investigation,” the statement said. “Members of the Borough Council were not made aware of these new allegations prior to the filing of the amended complaint.

“We understand that our residents must have full confidence in our municipal government institutions and will work to make sure that confidence is earned.”

Cantorna said on Friday that he had forwarded the amended complaint to state police at Rockview for further review and investigation.

Several members of the 3/20 Coalition, the advocacy group formed following Osagie’s death, spoke during Monday’s meeting and said they questioned whether the initial state police investigation was conducted appropriately and if a new one would be truly independent.

“Are we to believe that the police investigating the police is an independent investigation that the DA has called for?” coalition member Geoffrey Landers-Nolan said. “Which is it: was the first investigation into Osaze Osagie’s death proper and there was no information hidden or obfuscated, or is this information brand new and requires an entirely new investigation from the exact same source?”

Last week, Mayor Ron Filippelli and Borough Manager Tom Fountaine issued a statement in response to the new allegations, saying the original and amended complaints contain “false claims, and half-truths, while also leaving out critical facts and context to understanding the incident, the background and the persons involved.”

The three coalition members who spoke Monday night criticized the statement. Landers-Nolan said it called the Osagies “liars” and that the borough owed the family an apology “at minimum.” Coalition secretary Melanie Morrison said it was “not only unbelievably disrespectful to the Osagie family but utterly unnecessary.” Ray Najjar said it was “insensitive,” and provided nothing to back up its denials.

Filippelli said the allegations will be answered when the borough and officers file their response. He also said he “resent[s]” the characterization of the statement as an attack on Osagie’s parents, with whom he said he sympathizes and who were longtime colleagues of his at Penn State.

“I will also assure you that the statement I made — and I will not speak for the manager (Fountaine) but I am sure he would say the same thing — the statement I made is something I believe to be true with the information that I have,” he said. “But it’s information that I cannot make public because we are in litigation, but it will be made public.”

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.

Cantorna cleared the three officers of wrongdoing following a state police investigation in May 2019, saying they were in a “life-or-death situation,” and attempting to back away. The state police Heritage Affairs Section also found racial bias did not play a role in the shooting of Osagie, who was Black.

The amended complaint alleges Pieniazek had been drinking again in the days before the shooting. According to a motion filed by the borough on Friday seeking to quash part of a subpoena, Pieniazek was tested for alcohol and drugs following the shooting as part of standard protocol and he was not intoxicated. That motion argues records sought by the Osagies’ attorneys about past allegations of misconduct, alcohol abuse or domestic violence are irrelevant to whether the use of deadly force was “objectively reasonable.”

The complaint also alleges that now-retired Captain Chris Fishel, who later chaired the internal department review that cleared the officers involved, had been aware of a report to the department about Pieniazek’s alleged drinking and domestic violence and “continued to receive troubling information from an eyewitness relating to Pieniazek’s mental state while he was in rehab,” the lawsuit claims.

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.

Morrison said the allegations about Fishel are an example of why another state police investigation is not sufficient.

“The police cannot investigate themselves, as demonstrated by Captain Fishel, who was warned of Officer Pienezak’s concerning behavior and hid it from the SCPD’s internal investigation, [and] also demonstrated by DA Cantorna who has now admitted he went off the testimony of the officers and the police department…,” she said. “None of these investigations have been independent.”

Morrison and Landers-Nolan both said the community police oversight board, which the borough plans to form this year, needs to have investigatory powers for cases such as this.

The oversight board, Morrison said, should have the “fullest power possible” to ensure transparency of the police department “and ensure officers are held accountable for any failures to the community.”

She added, “If we cannot have truthful investigatory abilities, policy will not change and history will repeat itself.”

Borough council will have further discussion about the oversight board during its meeting at 7 p.m. on Feb. 8.

Cantorna said on Friday that after the state police review and investigate the new allegations, he will issue a public report.