Woman sexually assaulted by man charged in off-duty officer's killing calls him 'ticking timebomb'
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Police say the man accused of shooting off-duty officer Chuck Stipetich was a ticking timebomb of anger, arrested just this past April on assault charges at the Pittsburgh Board of Education.
A woman sexually assaulted by Kevin McSwiggen as a minor said McSwiggen has always been a danger and she believes more could have been done to prevent Sunday night's tragedy.
McSwiggen is at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital under armed guard awaiting his official arraignment on criminal homicide charges, but a woman he assaulted 22 years ago said he was always ready to explode.
"He's been a ticking timebomb," she said.
We came to know of Kevin McSwiggen this past spring when he was charged with assaulting the chief of Pittsburgh Public Schools police, and tragically, we came to know him again Sunday night, accused of fatally shooting Oakdale officer Chuck Stipetich. But 22 years ago, he sexually assaulted a woman, then a minor.
Andy Sheehan: "He put a knife to you?"
Woman: "He put a knife to my throat."
Sheehan: "He had a knife, saying what?"
Woman: "He said if anyone talked, 'this is an example of what I'd do.'"
At the time, McSwiggen was a young lifeguard at Magee Pool in Greenfield and the woman says she was one of several underage girls McSwiggen had been touching inappropriately. She says he threatened her when he believed she was telling adults.
"He told me whoever was the one to talk, terrible things would happen. They would be beaten unrecognizable, put in a barrel and sent to the bottom of one of the rivers," she said.
Police arrested McSwiggen and he was found guilty in July 2001 on two counts of indecent assault and sentenced to a year probation and released from jail after time served awaiting trial.
He was arrested again in April after several confrontations at Greenfield Elementary School and the Pittsburgh Board of Education Building in Oakland over school issues concerning his child, culminating in the assault of the chief. But though he was charged with several counts of aggravated assault and defiant trespass, the charges were downgraded to disorderly conduct and McSwiggen was again given probation.
"Every time he's been charged with anything, he's been dropped down to a lesser offense and he's been able to skate," the woman said.
On Sunday night, McSwiggen is accused of shooting Stipetich in a fit of road rage. Police say McSwiggen pointed a gun at Stipetich's father, but the dying officer was able to incapacitate McSwiggen with a bullet wound to the armpit.
McSwiggen's attorney Casey White says he has been unable to have a confidential conversation with his client because of the armed guard and had no comment on the young woman's comments.
"There are some people who come out of the woodwork, so to speak, and lay some claim," White said. "That's really not my focus. My focus is what took place during the evening and as result, one young man is deceased and the other young man is in the hospital with gunshot wounds."
However, this woman believes more could have been done to prevent Sunday night's tragedy.
"This has been a buildup of all these years and this was the culmination of it," she said. "And I just feel awful for the family that nothing more was done in the past to contain him. A failure of the system, that's what it sounds like."
Despite his past, sources say McSwiggen had a registered gun and a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Police sources say he was able to get the permit because he had been convicted only of misdemeanors and given probation.
