Officer Charged In Fatal Tavern Shooting Granted Bail
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The Pittsburgh Police Officer who was charged with the fatal shooting at a bar in Bloomfield over the weekend was granted bail.
Pittsburgh Police officer Kenneth Farnan, who is on leave and expecting to retire this week, appeared on a video screen at a bail hearing Thursday in the courtroom of Judge Jeffrey Manning.
Farnan's bail was set at $50,000.
Farnan, 50, appeared with an apparent injury to his head as a result of the bar fight that ended in the shooting death of Shawn Evans, 56, after a dispute at Condrin's Tavern in Bloomfield.
Farnan's lawyer is looking at a possible self-defense strategy.
"The facts of this case, in my opinion, in my experience, clearly doesn't rise to a first-degree murder case," said defense attorney Bill Difenderfer. "Specific intent to kill, malice, all that type of thing is absolutely not here in this case."
Farnan was on workers compensation leave after a police car accident in 2010; and the circumstances of the fight, given Farnan's recent neck surgery, will be factors for the defense as well, says his attorney.
"He had severe injury because of that, and that's why he's on disability and never going to be 100 percent, so he was going to retire," says Difenderfer. "That will have a factor, obviously his military experience and his police training will be a factor, too. When he's in a headlock, when his head slammed on the bar, those things will all be a factor."
As part of the condition of bail, Farnan is to have no contact with the victim's family.
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