April 4, 2024
Episode 2: Today we remember the loss of three City of Pittsburgh Police Officers. One of them a dear friend.
On this day, 15 years ago, our dear friend Paul Sciullo, and two other City of Pittsburgh Police Officers were ambushed and killed by a coward.
This is his story.
Chapters
00:02 - Remembering a Dedicated Police Officer
11:03 - Tragic Events Unfold in Neighborhood
27:50 - Honoring a Hero With CrossFit
32:52 - Support for Police in Pittsburgh
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Good afternoon.
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It's been a minute but I wasn't going to miss today for anything.
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Today is 15 years to the day that we lost a dear friend in the line of duty.
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Three City of Pittsburgh police officers were lost On April 4th.
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2009 was a Saturday morning.
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I remember it like it was yesterday.
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I'll give you a little bit of a background on this, as it pertains to us more directly.
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As it pertains to us more directly.
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So one of our first members was a great guy.
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Great guy.
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He worked IT for Bayer Corporation.
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Central Catholic.
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Class of 92, duquesne University was as good as they get.
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I mean, when you say he's a good guy, this is by definition.
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This was Paul Shulow and I graduated from Central Catholic in 1981, so I didn't consider myself that old.
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But he comes to our gym and he lays it down that he's been accepted to the City of Pittsburgh Police Academy, where he'll be starting, you know, shortly after joining us and he was.
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He grew up, you know, as an athlete.
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I mean, this guy was in great shape, ready to go, but he wanted to make sure that, when he arrived at the academy, that there was no doubt about his performance.
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So he found us at our first location came and joined us and trained with us regularly.
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Regularly, I mean a very, very, very good athlete and, um, of course it was.
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It was kind of fun, funny, I don't know, but uh, he would usually come to the 9 am class and when I was home between deployments I was there throughout the day, but you, nine o'clock would have been definite for me and largely, that class was always a heavily female dominated class and, needless to say, they love him.
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I mean, you know, he was just charismatic, he was a good person and he was very good-looking, to say the least.
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All right, so that class, I mean, I don't recall him ever getting harassed, but I will tell you this, the energy level intensified when he showed up for class.
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You know, he was very well regarded by everyone.
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I don't know anybody who's ever met him who didn't have great things to say, but anyway, so he comes and he was talking to me about this and I mean you want to talk about just uncanny understanding.
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He had a great job and, you know, with a promising future and in his own words, as he told it to me, he had decided that he wanted to do something more.
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He wanted to do something impactful right.
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That would be a benefit to serve others.
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That would be a benefit to serve others.
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And that was his motivation for leaving his job and that was his motivation for getting in with the city of Pittsburgh.
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His long-term goal that he had shared with me was that eventually he might play that into a federal law enforcement FBI, something like that.
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But he was accepted into the city of Pittsburgh Police Academy and he just, you know, he worked as hard there as he did everywhere else and he was honor graduate in his class, you know, first in physical fitness, first in academics, and he just really set the mark and you know he did great, he really did, and I just have some notes here so I don't get my dates wrong and I won't, I don't forget a detail about this.
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But, and I remember when we had that conversation how he said, you know that I guess friends and family had asked him like, why in the world would you give up such a great career path that you have now, you know, to be a police officer?
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And I remember okay, this is not funny, but it's a I guess it's a feature that I never noticed on this camera setup that whenever you wave your hand in a motion and it looks anything like a thumbs up, that you'll get a thumbs up icon on the screen, which is a little bit annoying.
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Pretty sure there's an easy way to disable that, but regardless, if anybody deserves thumbs up, it's Paul.
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So I'm going to leave that alone for today.
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But in that conversation, when he told me that you know, friends and family were, you know why would you give up what you've got, you know, to be a police officer?
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And the only thing I could share with him in that regard was a conversation I had with my father, when I dropped it on him that I would not be attending law school after undergrad at the University of Pittsburgh, that instead I had joined the Navy.
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So and he had this smile he had this smile that, no matter what the mood was at the time, if something struck him and he flashed that smile, he'd light up the room with it.
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And I remember when I said that you know, when I informed my father I would not be attending law school because I joined the Navy, you know the look on his face he was like I get it, I get it.
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So you know, that was just one more thing that we had in common that we would kind of, you know, commiserate over the years.
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So he is his training with us slowed down a bit, cut back a bit during his time in the academy, because the way the city of Pittsburgh runs it, it's, it's, it's an all day affair and it is challenging and it is hard.
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And he did it.
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He did it like he did everything else.
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You know he he did great and, you know, came back and started training with us regularly again when he was a probationary officer and he was assigned to Zone 5, city of Pittsburgh's Zone 5, which, just as kind of a side note, when my father was a police officer, he was at Zone 5, also the fighting fifth was a police officer.
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He was at zone five, also the fighting fifth, and, um, so that was, that was you know, and zone five was geographically, um, that was a zone where, um, where he grew up, right, so that was, that was, uh, that was awesome, okay.
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So anyway, we saw each other quite a bit.
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He was a regular at our gym, he was the best.
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I mean, that's all I can say about that.
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So fast forward a little bit.
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I had come home from deployment.
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I was in Afghanistan at the time I had come home from deployment and I had about, as I recall I think I had about two weeks, maybe three, until I had to go back right head back to Afghanistan, and he hadn't been around for about four weeks or so.
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And you know we're texting back and forth and he had this A bit of a flu, I guess it was, but it was enough to keep him out of the gym and, as you all know, I mean, if you've ever been down that road, nothing sidelines your training like the flu.
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So he had taken some weeks off and I remember it was Friday and it was April 3rd, april 3rd and it was nice, mild, the weather was not too too bad, but it was a little bit warmer than one would have expected for early April and our original location was an old automotive garage.
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So I got in early, had the overhead doors open in the front and the back of the of the box and you know I'm getting a workout up on the board and it just so happened.
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You know I'm getting a workout up on the board and it just so happened.
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You know things that you never forget, those little nuances.
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The workout for that day was a CrossFit benchmark workout called the filthy 50.
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And, uh, it's, it's long and it's challenging, but um, it's not not the workout that I would want to tackle, coming back after having been out for weeks with something like the flu, right?
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So who's the first one that walks through the door?
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But Paul.
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So he walks in and I turn and I'm facing the board like so, and the door is to my left, and he walks through the door and I turn and see him.
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He just flashes that big smile, right, and he said he's like hey, he's like I'm glad I finally got to see you.
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I said, yeah, so am I, because he knew I'd be going back to Afghanistan fairly shortly.
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Anyway, we're making small talk and as he's walking toward me he looks at the board and he just kind of goes huh, doesn't change the smile Now.
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Then he just looks at that workout.
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He's like huh, and that's when I realized I was like well, it's been a minute, you know it's been some weeks since.
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I was like, wow, buddy, I said you sure picked a, you sure picked the day to come back.
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And you know we had a little bit of a laugh over that and, you know, did well through the workout and, and the next day, saturday, my rugby club was hosting a clinic for three college teams that would be coming into Founders Field here in Pittsburgh, home of the Pittsburgh Harlequin Rugby Football Club, right?
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So the three college teams would be coming in for a clinic that we were hosting.
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The next day.
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After the clinic, two of the games would play one another.
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The third college team would play us, and we always had a real good turnout at our home field.
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And, you know, oftentimes a lot of our friends from the gym would would show up at the games.
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So, you know, I had asked him of our friends from the gym would would show up at the games.
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So you know, I had asked him, um, and he told me he was like he was working the next day.
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But, um, you know, the clinic I don't remember how long that was supposed to be and then the first game.
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So our game wouldn't be until much later and he said, yeah, you know what he's like, I'll, uh, I'd like to get there, right.
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So that was the plan.
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It was a loose plan, but you know, uh, maybe he'd see us at the game.
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So that was always fun.
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So the next day rolls around, I'm at the pitch bright and early and we're getting set up for the clinic, with these boys, and you know, doing a great job.
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And when the clinic slowed down, a couple of us went to prepare the goalposts and, you know, get the pitch ready, the field ready for the game, and just so happened to be, you know, not tied up with the clinic crossed over to get the equipment and the goalposts and everything in order.
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And I'm near my—see See that.
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Okay, I'm near my see see that.
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Okay, I'm gonna anyway.
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The point being the only reason that's important is, had I not been done with the clinic crossing over to the field to help get things in order, I would have never been near my phone.
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So my phone rings and it's another dear friend of ours from the gym, a mutual friend, and he calls me up and this was Mike, was one of the guys that would normally come to the rugby games, so it was not unusual that he's calling me.
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Right, I'm thinking that he's confirming the time.
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You know, see you later.
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You know, can I bring anything?
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You know that type of thing.
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And he calls me up and I said, hey, brother, what's going on?
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And I just I hear by the tone of his voice and all he could manage to say was Paul's gone.
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And I remember I was a little bit like gone, gone where?
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And as we're talking and he's telling me what's happening, I get a call coming in from my mom and I said you know what, mike, let me call you right back so I hang up with him.
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I get my mom on the phone.
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I grew up in Stanton Heights, right.
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I grew up about a block over from where this, this atrocity, occurred.
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So my parents are home.
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It's saturday morning.
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My mom's like, oh, you know, are you?
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Are you listening to the news?
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Are you aware of what's going on?
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So she told me what was happening in the meanwhile.
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They're watching it on the news, but they're hearing it live out the out the front door as well.
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So so yeah, that was just, I don't have the words.
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I really don't have the words, but, as it played out for those of you who don't know, it was about 7 am Saturday morning there's a 911 call, and it was the mother of the shooter that called 911, have officers come to the house to get her son out?
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Okay, and Paul was one of the first officers.
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I believe he was the first officer to arrive At the same time, officer Stephen Maley.
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He showed up as well, so the two of them approached the front door.
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Now, I'm not going to drag this out anymore, it's already been dissected and this and this.
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I don't point fingers or anything like that, not now, all right, but the crazy part of it, I think, and I always will the mother answers the door.
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She answers the door and she says get him out of here, motioning back over her shoulder.
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Now, her son had already put on body armor, stacked magazines all around the house, right, had multiple weapons.
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He was ready, he was ready to do harm, all right, whether or not his mother called 911, now, allegedly, she called 911 and said that he was armed.
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You know, are there weapons in the home?
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Said that he was armed, are there weapons in the home?
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Allegedly, she said yes.
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Also allegedly and I hate that word.
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I do, because typically I think people use it when they're trying to.
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I don't know, I don't care right now it's off the subject, but are there weapons in the house?
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Yes, but supposedly that information was never relayed to the officers.
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Knowing Paul and I didn't know.
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I didn't know, officer Maley, but the city of Pittsburgh Police Academy does not train amateurs, all right, they don't.
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So I know these men were prepared and I do believe that their, their procedures were solid.
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I do believe that.
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But I don't think that, you know, when you arrive on scene things it's dynamic, it's a dynamic environment and in my opinion, if I were and I put myself in that position, I have.
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So you know, I respond first.
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Let's say, you know there's a boom, boom, boom.
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You know police Woman opens the door, apparently, by all accounts, you know, agitated because of having to make the call.
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But at no point did she give any demeanor like and this is what was reported She'd open the door and run for her life.
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She opened the door, said would you get him out of here?
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And there he is waiting on the other side of the room, you know, fully kitted out, like you know, ready for an assault.
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So both Paul and Officer Maley were hit instantly Hearing the call go out.
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There's another officer, senior officer of the three officer, eric Kelly, a resident also of Stanton Heights, and this officer was was Done with night shift and he was on his way home.
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He's on his way home to his wife and three children and In true, in True Zone 5 fashion.
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He heard the call and he answered the call.
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He rolls up on the scene and well, now the shooter is doing what he intended to do and he's moving from window to window and as he heard that vehicle roll up, he opened fire on Officer Kelly and shot him.
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Fire on Officer Kelly and shot him.
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There was a fourth officer that arrived and this is straight from the news, it's open source Officer Timothy McManaway.
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I hope I'm pronouncing that right.
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Officer Timothy McManaway arrived on scene and he was attempting to bring Officer Kelly out of harm's way when he was hit and, as you can imagine, as this is unfolding, officers are responding to the scene.
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It wasn't too long after that that more officers SWAT team members, state county, you know, they got it locked down, got it locked down and, uh, about four hours later they were able to um, subdue the shooter and uh and bring him in.
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But uh, you know, like I said, I mean it was, it was unbelievable would be an understatement.
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All right, unbelievable would be an understatement, all right, unbelievable would be an understatement.
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I mean, and I remember it in my mind at that time I remember thinking you know, I'm listening to this happening, I'm listening to it on the news.
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I'm seeing everything I can see.
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And uh, um, I had a really I had a very active uh deployment schedule after 9-11 and um spent a lot of time overseas, a lot of time overseas, and I was not I was not a support guy, all right, I spent a lot of time overseas and never in a million years, ever, would I have expected this type of ambush at home, not only at home here in the States, but at home for me, in my backyard, right In a block away from where I grew up as a kid, diagonally across the street from where one of my best friends grew up, um, and and during all of that, you know the loss of of three lives right, the loss of three lives, and one of them, you know, a dear friend of ours, and you know what's.
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What's wild about it is when something like that happens, and I don't know, I guess this is human nature, but as, uh, digesting it and comprehending it, and you think back and you just the things that you'll never forget.
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You know he had such a magnetism, paul had such a, uh, an inner strength, for lack of a better word.
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I mean, I'm kind of kind of stumbling now, but uh, he just, he just had this way about him.
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You know, and I'll never forget, um 15 years ago, our son, michael, at that time, was, uh, was four, was four years old.
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At three and a half Right was four, he was four years old.
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Well, three and a half right.
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And my son, at three and a half, was a force of nature, he was like, he was like a little tornado, and I think one of the funniest things is again, you know, during that time, largely I was away, so when I would get home it was like a vacation.
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You know not, obviously you know I'm home from deployment, so but I mean the mood around our house, the vibe, if you will.
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If the kids were in school, they would still go to school and they would do it.
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They were little, you know, they were little, but if they weren't, if it was summertime, it was off the hook, it was just dad's home, it's vacation, we're having fun.
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Now my daughters angels, both of them angels.
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I remember the first time coming back home from my first deployment and we went out for lunch and they're little, you know they're little, but my wife did a fantastic job with them.
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And so the waitress comes over and she says and what can I get you to drink?
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And Alexandra, my oldest, she has her hands folded and she looks up at the waitress with these big brown eyes and she says may I please have a Sprite?
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And she looks at Emily, next the waitress, and Emily says you know, may I please have a Sprite?
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And I'm like, oh my gosh, like these are like little small adults, you know, with well-spoken, well-mannered.
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Same restaurant, different time.
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I wasn't there.
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I missed this one Same restaurant on another occasion.
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Michael is the little one now and the girls are as polite as can be.
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And my son decides to stand up on the seat on the bench of the booth, I guess you could call it and he drops his shorts and he moons the people at the booth beside them and, you know, then he starts to say I guess it was on the Disney channel, mickey Mouse and Friends, something like that.
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But I guess Donald Duck, because he never wore pants, if you think about that.
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That's a fact.
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All right, of all the cartoon characters, donald never wear pants.
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But I guess he did this song and he would sing Shake your Peanut while he would shake his butt.
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So my son thought it would be funny to drop his pants and moon the people in the next booth.
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And so I remember sharing this story with Paul and I wasn't complaining, it was an observation, but I was like, oh my God, and Paul knew the kids because they spent a lot of time at the gym.
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They would spend a lot of time at the gym and, uh, you know, of course it would have very it's crossfit.
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So it's very, very family oriented, very community, uh, oriented.
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So you know, paul knew the kids and and they loved him.
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And you know, there I am, I wasn't, wasn't really by no means complaining about my son, but I was just like you're not going to believe this.
00:23:33.433 --> 00:23:51.972
And I told him that story and again, just in his fashion, in his way, he flashes that big smile, he looks at me and he's like, brother, I was the baby in my family, I know exactly what you're talking about and all I could do was laugh.
00:23:51.972 --> 00:24:06.834
You know, I was just like I get that, I understand that, but you know, to say that he's missed is a gross understatement.
00:24:06.834 --> 00:24:10.440
All right, I don't, I don't have anything to add over that.
00:24:11.326 --> 00:24:19.839
And, uh, as part of our part of our CrossFit journey, um, after things had settled down a bit.
00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:36.741
And after things had settled down a bit, I remember, um, not knowing exactly how to proceed, not knowing exactly how to proceed, but I contacted CrossFit headquarters and I remember it as if it were yesterday, not 15 years ago.
00:24:36.741 --> 00:24:40.109
I remembered if it were yesterday.
00:24:40.109 --> 00:24:45.175
I wrote to CrossFit headquarters, I sent them an email and I said, you know I started off.
00:24:45.175 --> 00:24:48.673
And I said, you know, good morning, this is Mike at CrossFit Pittsburgh.
00:24:48.673 --> 00:24:54.990
And I said this is an email that I never thought I would write.
00:24:56.373 --> 00:25:11.375
And I said we recently lost one of our members city of Pittsburgh police officer, lost in the line of duty, and I believe he is well deserving of having a hero workout named after him.
00:25:11.375 --> 00:25:16.537
So I said I just if you'd please tell me how to proceed, I would appreciate it.
00:25:16.537 --> 00:25:24.790
And in true CrossFit headquarters fashion, they got back to me right away.
00:25:24.790 --> 00:25:48.931
Their reply was what I would have imagined it would be, and you know the deepest sympathies and you know heartfelt, heartfelt communication in return and I was very impressed with this.
00:25:48.931 --> 00:25:53.960
All right, the requirements to actually get a hero workout.
00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:57.911
And I mean those of you who know me, and I'm going to be honest with you right now.
00:25:57.911 --> 00:26:08.670
I have no goddamn intention of apologizing for anything I'm about to say, not today, all right, I don't mean to offend anybody, I don't mean it like that.
00:26:08.785 --> 00:26:13.989
I think when you suffer a loss at a community level, you know it is what it is.
00:26:13.989 --> 00:26:22.496
It is a heartfelt loss, but I've noticed throughout the community there are memorial workouts that people put out.
00:26:22.496 --> 00:26:26.859
And we did, we did the same thing, you know, for Paul.
00:26:26.859 --> 00:26:29.923
We created our own memorial workout, all right.
00:26:29.923 --> 00:26:54.116
For for Paul, we created our own memorial workout, all right, and uh, in true hero WOD fashion, we took, uh, some of the movements that we knew, some of the workout elements that we knew he, he preferred that that there were, there were his, you know his, go-to, and we created, uh, named one, uh, we named it after his, uh, his, after his badge number, which was, you know.
00:26:54.116 --> 00:27:00.413
I mean, we put our heads together and we thought you know, what would he like?
00:27:00.413 --> 00:27:03.511
What could we do to make something memorable?
00:27:03.511 --> 00:27:21.136
So we did, and we called that one badge number four, one, seven, nine, we, you know, and again, accordingly, the elements were four of this, one of this, seven, of this, nine of this hundred meter sprint, and you repeat that for nine rounds and so forth.
00:27:21.136 --> 00:27:26.474
So that was quick, that was immediate and that was at the at the box level.
00:27:26.474 --> 00:27:38.311
All right, the box level right, and what I say, this is that's great and that's our community acknowledging the loss of one of our own.
00:27:38.311 --> 00:27:49.855
But my motivation was here's a man who is fully deserving of community-wide recognition, not just our local box recognition, right.
00:27:50.476 --> 00:27:54.381
So contacted CrossFit headquarters and the process fascinated me.
00:27:54.381 --> 00:28:04.915
But just one more thing that I appreciated very much about headquarters was you know, this is serious and it's taken serious.
00:28:04.915 --> 00:28:19.087
So the things that they wrote back to me and they were like well, we need three things from you in order to do that One, we need permission from his family.
00:28:19.087 --> 00:28:20.790
And I thought that was completely understood, completely appropriate.
00:28:20.790 --> 00:28:27.328
Um, you know, he's a dear friend of ours but, good Lord, with this thumbs up thing Now it's getting annoying.
00:28:27.328 --> 00:28:39.605
Anyway, I'm assuming you all can see that on your end as well, because if you can't, it might even be funnier if you can't see what I'm talking about.
00:28:39.605 --> 00:28:48.971
But anyway, you know I appreciated that part of the process was you know, we're not going to do this without approval and permission from his family.
00:28:48.971 --> 00:28:51.857
So I said okay and I made a note of that.
00:28:52.384 --> 00:28:58.736
Second, and again very, very logical, we had to get the approval of his command unit.
00:28:58.736 --> 00:29:18.301
Understanding that, excuse me, which was already given, was that, um, we, as the hosting CrossFit, you know, as his home box, we would have to essentially nominate him for it, which you know they.
00:29:18.301 --> 00:29:27.991
They put in their email like we will take this, um, this, uh, you know your email here as your as your nomination, uh, for him to have a hero award.
00:29:27.991 --> 00:29:28.794
You're sponsoring it.
00:29:28.794 --> 00:29:30.417
So okay, great.
00:29:30.417 --> 00:29:33.086
Nomination for him to have a Hero Award.
00:29:33.086 --> 00:29:34.190
You're sponsoring it.
00:29:34.190 --> 00:29:34.951
So okay, great.
00:29:34.951 --> 00:29:37.715
So over the next days I sent out email to the city of Pittsburgh.
00:29:37.715 --> 00:29:41.548
The police department asked for their approval.
00:29:41.548 --> 00:29:48.790
I spoke with his parents, asked for their approval and shortly after that, the Hero Workout Paul was created.
00:29:48.790 --> 00:29:54.059
So, needless to say, this morning we put it out there for our group.
00:29:54.059 --> 00:30:00.017
We put both workouts on our website so that it's user's choice.
00:30:00.017 --> 00:30:06.730
You can do one or the other or both, but it's the least we can do, you know, the least we could do for him.
00:30:07.326 --> 00:30:17.594
And one thing I do remember also, and I'll never forget very, very dear friend met him in person for the first time.
00:30:17.594 --> 00:30:37.148
I want to say it was 2005, maybe I think, I think it was 2005 at CrossFit Boston and, uh, our, our first, um first t-shirts that we had made for the box we had.
00:30:37.148 --> 00:30:39.013
It was a Navy blue, very, very simple.
00:30:39.013 --> 00:31:01.080
I'm not even sure we had a logo at the time, but there are Navy blue t-shirts, uh, CrossFit Pittsburgh, you know, on the on the left, uh chest, and then on the back, in quotation marks, uh, it said just a little kick in the nuts, right, crossfit Pittsburgh, just a little kick in the nuts, which is, uh, an old Navy, uh expression.
00:31:01.080 --> 00:31:08.288
So pardon me for sniffling, I'm unprepared here, but anyway, so that's that's.
00:31:08.489 --> 00:31:31.303
You know, we go to CrossFit Boston, my wife and I, for our first L1 certificate course, and we get there and one of the instructors who was present had been around a bit longer than we had and he was there as a as a trainer, uh, tj Cooper, dear friend and brother, tj Cooper, crossfit West.
00:31:31.303 --> 00:31:45.329
And so he emails me after the course and the subject line says I want my kick in the nuts parentheses T-shirt.
00:31:45.329 --> 00:31:56.980
That is so.
00:31:56.980 --> 00:32:01.759
Needless to say, that was one of the first kick in the nuts T-shirts we ever sent out to anyone outside of our immediate Pittsburgh area.
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