Screenshot of video taken from Kopy's bar on October 12, 2018
The lawsuits include allegations of malicious prosecution and assault and battery, as well as civil rights claims based on the city’s alcohol policy that allowed undercover officers to drink on the job.
The incident began around 12:30 a.m. on October 12, 2018. Earlier that night, four undercover Pittsburgh police officers investigating drug activity entered the Kopy's bar, identified themselves as construction workers and began drinking. Four members of the Pagan's MC, arrived about 11:30 p.m. Within an hour, a brawl had erupted, and the four Pagan's MC members were arrested.
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The four Pagan's MC members were charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy and riot. The undercover officers, David Honick, Brian Burgunder, Brian Martin and David Lincoln, were supposedly investigating a drug complaint at Kopy's bar the night of the brawl.
According to city’s lawyer's, the officers knew the Pagan's MC members to carry weapons, and they believed that their undercover status had been compromised by the four bikers. According to an affidavit by Stephen Kopy, the now-deceased owner of the bar, the officers told him that night they had issues with the Pagan's MC.
“I was then asked by one of the undercover officers whether I was ‘siding’ with the bikers,” Kopy wrote in the affidavit. “I told them that I was not ‘siding’ with the bikers. I just did not agree with the undercover officers that the bikers were trying to cause trouble.” As the Pagan's MC members got up to leave, he continued, the officers stopped them and spoke with them.
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But his lawsuit said that the officers, who were visibly intoxicated, impeded his exit from the bar, with David Honick repeatedly showing him his loaded handgun in the front band of his pants, not revealing that he or any of the others was a police officer. About a month later, the criminal charges were dropped by the Allegheny County District Attorney’s. The officers were ultimately suspended for five days without pay and reassigned.