Democratic Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who recently launched his campaign for Senate, pulled a shotgun on an unarmed black jogger in 2013.
“Mr. Fetterman used his shotgun to stop an unarmed Black jogger and detain him, telling the police that he had heard shots fired near his home and spotted the man running,” the New York Times reported of the resurfaced incident.
The jogger, Christopher Miyares, was unarmed and wearing running clothes and headphones, according to the police report.
“Fetterman continued to yell and state that he knows this male was shooting,” the police report stated.
The incident occurred on Jan. 31, 2013, when Fetterman served as mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Neither Fetterman nor Miyares was charged in the incident.
“He’s trying to make it like it’s OK. He’s trying to justify what he did. I mean, you’re the mayor of Braddock … with a shotgun,” Miyares said in an interview after the incident.
Fetterman released a video this week defending what happened in 2013, saying that the incident took place just weeks after the Sandy Hook school shooting.
“There was an episode over eight years ago where I was outside with my young son, who was 4 years old at the time, and I heard this crushing burst of gunfire coming from a corridor that was the scene of dozens of shootings — some fatal, some not,” Fetterman said in the video. “And I immediately made a series of split-second decisions — get my son to safety, call 911. And then I saw an individual dressed entirely in black, in a face mask, who was running from that scene in the direction of our elementary school.”
“I realized that I could never forgive myself if I didn’t do anything and something terrible would’ve happened. So I made the decision at that point to intervene, to stop him from going any further until the first responders could arrive,” he said.
Fetterman announced his Senate campaign on Monday, aiming to fill Sen. Pat Toomey’s seat when he retires in 2022. He is an outspoken liberal candidate who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders for president in 2016.
