District attorney waits on critical information from police about undercover bar brawl

PITTSBURGH — The Allegheny County District Attorney told Channel 11 he is waiting on critical information from Pittsburgh police about a bar brawl involving undercover officers and members of the Pagan Motorcycle Group.

"That's why I got cameras up and down Carson Street because I don't want to go through this nonsense," said Stephen Zappala, Allegheny County district attorney.

A lot of questions remain over what led to the fight inside Kopy's, and the role of the undercover police officers seen on the video.

“I don't know what kind of games these guys are playing, but this is serious stuff," Zappala said. "That's one of the reasons I'm talking with the U.S. attorney.”

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Zappala told Channel 11 he just received more than a dozen disks of security footage from the night of the fight, nearly two weeks later.

“I don't know that they're undercover," Zappala said. "I don't know why they're in the bar. We haven't heard from a supervisor that they were on-duty. We haven't heard from a supervisor who the target was, if there was in fact a target.”

Attorneys for the four Pagan suspects facing assault charges have criticized the officers conduct, saying they had 40 drinks between them before the fight.

Zappala said he's still waiting on critical information from police, including body camera video from the responding officers.

“Controlling a situation or trying to hurt somebody are two totally different things," Zappala said. "This is the second time we've had somebody repeatedly struck in the head. I have a problem with that.”

Those Pagan members involved in the bar fight are scheduled to be in court next month.

Channel 11 asked Pittsburgh police to respond to the district attorney's criticism over the handling of the investigation, but a spokesman declined to comment.

Cox Media Group