Police fatally shoot ‘intruder’ inside Pittsburgh home
SEWICKLEY – An Oklahoma man was fatally shot by police responding to a burglar alarm at a home in an upscale Pittsburgh suburb. The man had periodically stayed at the home before a court ordered him to stay away after he allegedly threatened the woman who lived there.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the dead man as Robert Brooks, 27, of Poteau, Okla. An autopsy scheduled Tuesday was expected to confirm that he died from being shot when Sewickley police answered the alarm Monday about 9:30 p.m.
Allegheny County police are investigating the shooting. The shooting occurred after police had been called to the home hours earlier Monday for a domestic dispute.
The residents of the home were gone by the time Brooks tripped the burglar alarm, and he was fatally shot while scuffling with police who found him inside the residence. Police have said a woman named Sarah Brooks lived at the home with two of her three children.
“When (police) entered the house to investigate the burglar alarm, they encountered a man. There was an altercation and shots were fired,” Allegheny County police Lt. Andrew Schurman said.
Online court records show Robert Brooks had been charged last month with making threats in the borough just west of Pittsburgh. That happened after Brooks’ cousin, Chadrick Brooks, and Sarah Brooks – who is identified in the criminal complaint as Chadrick Brooks’ ex-wife – obtained a protection-from-abuse order against Robert Brooks in January.
Robert Brooks allegedly sent the couple threatening text messages in February, which formed the basis of the criminal terroristic threat charges that Sewickley police filed after the couple told police about the texts last month.
Sarah Brooks identified herself as a current or former intimate partner of Robert Brooks in the PFA filing. In the criminal threat complaint, Chadrick and Sarah Brooks contend the suspect sent them threatening texts including, “If I’m going to go out I will take you guys with me.”
The couple also told Sewickley police that Robert Brooks was a former Army Ranger who planned “to go down in a blaze of glory and wants to commit suicide by cop.”
Sarah and Chadrick Brooks did not answer a telephone which continues to be listed in both their names at the address of the shooting.