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PITTSTON — Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis ruled Tuesday afternoon the deadly police shooting of a disabled 77-year-old man waving what turned out to be a pellet gun was justified.

Salavantis identified the Pittston police officers as Dion Fernandes and Kyle Shumosic.

State police at Wyoming said Robert Patrick Quinn had expressed suicidal intentions by waving the pellet gun when Fernandes and Shumosic encountered him sitting in a motorized scooter smoking a cigarette in front of the Anthracite Apartment building on North Main Street at about 8:46 p.m. Sunday.

Five minutes later, police called for emergency medical technicians to the scene along with Police Chief Robert Powers, a county detective, an assistant district attorney and state police Forensic Services Unit.

Salavantis said multiple witnesses heard Fernandes and Shumosic repeatedly stating, “Sir, please put down the gun.”

Quinn finished smoking his cigarette, stood up and aimed the firearm directly at one of the officers prompting the two officers to discharge their weapons, Salavantis said.

Salavantis said more than 24 interviews were conducted.

Investigators learned Quinn advised a friend to call 911 to report a man with a gun. When the friend asked who had a gun, Quinn replied, “Me,” Salavantis said.

Salavantis stated Quinn had a Marksman 177 pellet gun, a realistic replica of a higher caliber pistol.

Quinn’s estranged wife and friends told investigators Quinn complained of constant pain and had suicidal thoughts for at least 10 years, including thoughts of being shot by police, Salavantis said.

Given the time of the incident just after sunset, there was no way Fernandes and Shumosic knew the firearm he was holding was a pellet gun, Salavantis said.

State police Lt. Richard Krawetz, commander of the criminal investigations unit, said the pellet gun Quinn waved and aimed at the two city officers did not have an orange tip.

Pellet guns and airsoft rifles are excluded under a 1989 federal law that require toy guns to have brightly-colored orange tips to distinguish them from real firearms.

The exclusion creates a life-threatening and dangerous risk for police officers and bystanders, said Dallas Township Police Chief Robert Jolly, president of the Pennsylvania Police Chiefs Association.

“Some of them do look like real weapons even examining them under the bright lights of an office,” Jolly said. “It’s extremely difficult for any police officer, especially at night, who has microseconds to determine if the weapon is a toy, a pellet gun or a real gun. A lot of factors come into play.”

Jolly said the orange tip on toy guns can easily be altered simply by coloring it with a black marker.

“These toy guns and pellet guns, they duplicate the look, feel and appearance of a real gun,” Jolly said.

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman settled with five major retailers — Amazon.com, Kmart, Sears, Walmart and California-based ACTA — for violating that state’s law prohibiting the sale of “imitation weapons,” toy guns that look like real weapons.

An estimated 6,400 prohibited toy guns were sold in New York without the orange tip from 2012 through 2014, according to a news release from the New York Attorney General’s Office.

The news release says there have been at least 63 shootings in New York State since 1994 as a result of someone holding a toy or imitation weapon. At least eight of those were fatal.

A search of Pennsylvania laws returned no such legislation that bans the sale of toy guns without orange tips. State law requires a person to be 18 years or older to purchase a pellet gun.

Jolly said a buyer of a pellet gun is not subjected to a mandatory three day waiting period, such as the case when an adult purchases a real gun.

While no crime statistics for toy guns and pellet guns exist in Pennsylvania, there was a police-related fatality involving a pellet gun in Wilkes-Barre nearly four years ago.

On Oct. 26, 2011, three city police officers and two Luzerne County sheriff deputies encountered Otha Derrick Green Jr., 29, outside a children’s day care center at North Washington Street and George Avenue. Green was armed with a pellet gun he aimed at the officers, who believed the firearm was real.

Green suffered seven gunshot wounds. He died Nov. 1, 2011, at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center due to a blood clot in his lung, according to the county Coroner’s Office.

By Ed Lewis

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Reach Ed Lewis at 570-991-6116 or on Twitter @TLEdLewis