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DA to drop homicide case against neo-Nazi
Wednesday, March 22, 2000 By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The Allegheny County district attorney's office will withdraw homicide charges against a far-right leader who shot and killed a man he said was holding a roommate at gunpoint.
District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said yesterday that prosecutors were not able to show that Michael Stehle, 26, was unjustified in shooting Brian Hartzell, 24, of Salem, Ohio, on Feb. 8.
Hartzell and two other men talked their way into Stehle's home, posing as members of a skinhead band. One of the men, David Kopp, 22, of the South Side, said he, Hartzell and another man, Nate Deaton, planned to beat Robert Reichel, a roommate of Stehle's they believed had attacked Deaton.
Stehle is the Pittsburgh recruiter for the National Alliance, a far-right white supremacist organization led by William Pierce, a former associate of the late George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi party. Police who arrived at the scene of the Feb. 8 shooting said they found a variety of far-right and Nazi paraphernalia.
"I've got some serious concerns that we cannot meet our burden of proof," Zappala said yesterday in deciding to drop charges.
The charges will be officially withdrawn this morning at a scheduled coroner's inquest.
Zappala said that if new evidence pointing to homicide surfaces, "then we'll revisit whether we're going to charge Stehle."
Kopp, in an interview with the Post-Gazette, said police have told him that he and Deaton will likely be charged for their roles in the incident.
Kopp, Deaton and Hartzell were "traditional" skinheads, a movement that grew out of working-class England in the late 1960s. Unlike far-right, neo-Nazi skinheads, with which Stehle was associated, traditional skinheads are opposed to racism and their ranks include black people, including Deaton.
According to Kopp, the confrontation grew out of a conversation at Hartzell's Oakland apartment early on Feb. 8. At that time, Hartzell asked Deaton about scars on his head and Deaton said he had been attacked by Reichel, 27, a far-right skinhead.
Kopp said Hartzell knew Reichel and telephoned the house. Stehle apparently answered the telephone, and hung up on him.
"Brian said, 'I know where they live anyway,'" Kopp recalled. At that point, Kopp said, Hartzell took out his pistol and gave Deaton a shotgun and the men traveled to Mount Washington.
Once there, they telephoned for Reichel again, this time telling Stehle that they were members of the Midtown Boot Boys, a skinhead band. Stehle invited the men over.
At the house, Kopp said he asked Reichel outside, where he and Deaton punched Reichel, who fled up the street.
Both Kopp and Deaton were outside the house when they heard a series of gunshots.
According to police, Stehle told them that, after calling 911 to report the intrusion, he went downstairs, saw Hartzell sitting atop one of his roommates, Joe Foley, with his pistol pointed at Foley's head. Stehle shot Hartzell three times, killing him.
Pierce, the National Alliance leader, last night said he was pleased charges have been dropped but criticized police for filing them in the first place.
If Stehle "had been some member of the establishment and somebody had gotten into his house under false pretenses and pulled a gun and gotten shot, there never would have been charges filed," Pierce said.
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