The father of a 12-year-old Pennsylvania girl who was killed
while a constable was serving an eviction notice has been charged with criminal
homicide in his daughter's death, prosecutors said.
Don Meyer allegedly pointed a loaded semi-automatic assault
rife at the chest of Constable Clarke Steele as they argued over an order to
vacate on January 11.
Steele fired one round, which struck the 57-year-old father
in the arm and then pierced the chest of his daughter, Ciara, who was hiding
behind him. She died at the scene.
She had been home from school that day because she was sick.
Prosecutors upgraded charges against Meyer on Thursday. He
now faces counts including criminal homicide, involuntary manslaughter,
aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of children and illegal possession
of weapons.
He is being held without bail in Pennsylvania's Perry County
Jail and has pleaded not guilty.
Several eviction orders had been issued against Meyer,
authorities said, and he had been notified by telephone that a constable was on
the way to serve him with another notice. Meyer met the constable at the door
of his apartment with the rifle slung over his shoulder, authorities
said.
Meyer allegedly raised the loaded weapon and pointed it at
Steele's chest as the two argued.
“The constable was there the day before to remind them that
the next day was the day they had to be out,” family member Hope Cordas
Rohde told INSIDE EDITION after the shooting. “Don had an arsenal of
weapons and he had them ready. He wasn’t going to pay,” she said.
Perry County District Attorney Andrew Bender has said the
constable acted in self-defense and will not be charged in the shooting. The
officer has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
By law, Meyer was not allowed to possess firearms because he
had previously been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility,
authorities said. Constables who responded to the shooting said they
confiscated five weapons at Meyer's home.
Ciara's family blames her father for her death and they
support the district attorney's decison to prosecute him for homicide.
“I think he is deserving of every single charge,” uncle
Jason Gehman told ABC 27.
Ciara's grandmother, Alice Gehman, agreed. "I hope he
never gets out," she told the station. "Because if he does, we are in
trouble."
Fighting back tears, family members recounted how they
recently sat down with constable Steele after he requested a meeting with
Ciara's kin.
The officer is distraught over her death, they said.
“He just needed to have some kind of closure - that we don’t
blame him for this,” Alice Gehman said. “It went wonderful and this man has so
much pain, I cannot even explain it to you.”
The grandmother said she wrapped her arms around the
officer.
“When I was holding him and he was saying how sorry he was,
I said ‘How are you?’ And he said, ‘I can’t breathe.'''
She told him, "Just slow down, because everyone is
having trouble breathing, believe me.”
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