Not just bipolar disorder, I'd say.
A tense two-hour standoff between police and a prominent activist at the center of recent protests outside Mayor Bill Peduto’s Point Breeze house ended peacefully near there Friday night when officers, a fellow activist and a lawyer were able to persuade Lorenzo Rulli to cease barricading in his car and surrender.
Mr. Rulli, 24, whose legal name is Shawn Lateff Green, was awaiting arraignment Saturday morning on three misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct and using a megaphone as an instrument of a crime, and three summary charges.
Police said he committed the crimes both during the standoff and over two previous hours -- all of which played out live on social media as the defendant streamed from his vehicle, even while driving.
. . . .
The affidavit said that for two hours officers and citizens had observed Mr. Rulli driving around the neighborhood “shouting vulgarities and racial slurs into his megaphone at the neighbors, the mayor and police” all the while broadcasting on social media.
“[Rulli] was exhibiting dangerous, unstable and schizophrenic behavior,” police said.
After being pulled over on a traffic stop — and despite being told he was under arrest — Mr. Rulli refused to leave his vehicle for nearly two hours.
Eventually, officers aided by attorney Paul Jubas and activist Brandi Fisher, who heads the Alliance for Police Accountability, were able to persuade him to surrender to police.
At Mr. Rulli’s request and with police permission, Mr. Jubas and Ms. Fisher accompanied him to the Allegheny County Jail for processing and arraignment.
. . . .
According to Detective Rosato’s three-page affidavit, the following occurred:
For the fourth consecutive day, Mr. Rulli showed up again in the 400 block of Hastings Street “and once again was driving up and down the street yelling profanities towards Mayor Peduto's home, as well as any and all neighbors that were within his view.”
At 6:07 p.m., Officer Alexa Siweckyj spotted Mr. Rulli who, using a megaphone, began shouting at her and pedestrians, including children, at one point going into a 20-minute expletive-filled tirade and “causing alarm, fear, annoyance and numerous calls into 911 for police action.”
Officer Siweckyj was relieved by Officer Shaun Freiss as Rulli drove off to the Point Brugge Cafe at 401 Hastings St. “apparently causing a young girl to begin crying and upsetting dinner patrons outside eating.”
Shortly thereafter, Rulli returned and parked behind Officer Freiss’ marked patrol vehicle and began blaring his horn continuously while shouting additional vulgarities and racial slurs through his megaphone.
“Several neighbors yelled at Officer Freiss to ‘Arrest him already!’”
Rulli blocked the roadway for a time and then continuously drove around the block simultaneously "live streaming" his actions via a phone mounted on the car’s dashboard, shouting through the megaphone and driving erratically and recklessly.
Officers eventually conducted a traffic stop.
During the the traffic stop, during which Mr. Rulli would only give his driver’s license and other paperwork to a supervisor, a large crowd began to gather as he continued to live stream the event, encouraging others to come to the scene and intervene.
Mr. Rulli was advised he was being placed under arrest for persistent disorderly conduct and other charges and was ordered multiple times to exit his vehicle, but he refused.
“Mr. [Rulli] continued to shout…’Get the [expletive] out of here,’ ‘[Expletive] you Cops!,’ and ‘You're here to kill mel’ He also shouted both to officers and into his live feed that ‘Police kill [n-word] and brown skinned people!’ and that he was going to die tonight.”
Detective Rosato said he and Officer Mescan “observed dangerous and possible bi-polar behavior from [Rulli], as he alternately shouted ‘[expletive] you cops, y'all gonna have to kill me before I get outta this car!’ followed by inconsolable sobbing and weeping.”
. . . .
“Most — if not all — actions described above were caught on either social media, city cameras, body-worn cameras, or in-dash police cameras, as every attempt will be made to preserve such evidence for court proceedings,” Detective Rosato concluded his affidavit.
Peduto implements police oversight in wake of recent protests
The Mayor has been a boob about all this for weeks.
He seems like a Democratic Trump for his prominent self-concern.
Those guidelines will include a prohibition of “jump-out arrests” by plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles, the statement said.
All police units will also be barred from wearing military-style camouflage uniforms at protests and related events.
The “jump-out” arrest of protester Matthew Cartier, 25, during a protest in Oakland last weekend prompted two nights of protests outside Mr. Peduto’s house in Point Breeze.
The second night of protests ended with clashes between protesters and police.
Mr. Peduto condemned the tactics police used to arrest Mr. Cartier, saying in a statement on Monday that he was “livid” after seeing videos of the arrest.
Before the protest on Wednesday night, however, Mr. Peduto criticized actions taken by some protesters who had spent the previous night outside his home, saying that he cannot defend a “peaceful protest devolving into unacceptable conduct in which residents are being harassed and threatened.”
On Friday night a 24-year-old man was arrested following a two-hour confrontation with police near the mayor's home.
He was charged with disorderly conduct and harassment after police received multiple complaints from residents.
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