While Brackenridge police were mourning the death of Chief Justin McIntire, McKeesport Officer Sean Sluganski volunteered his time to patrol the tiny borough.

Now, barely a month later, Brackenridge officers are patrolling McKeesport while police there mourn Sluganski’s death.

“He was one of the first volunteers to sign up to cover shifts (here),” Brackenridge Mayor Lindsay Fraser said of Sluganski. “Our officers want to be with the McKeesport community during this time of shared grief. The recent police shootings in McKeesport and Brackenridge are not separate incidents.”

Sluganski was fatally shot Monday while responding to a domestic incident in McKeesport. Also wounded in the same incident was McKeesport Officer Chuck Thomas Jr., who has been released from the hospital and is recovering from his injury.

He, too, volunteered to patrol Brackenridge in the wake of McIntire’s death.

Four weeks after McIntire’s death, Brackenridge police officers — and those from Tarentum and Harrison — are among those patrolling McKeesport while that community grieves.

Tarentum Borough Manager Dwight Boddorf said two of that borough’s officers are patrolling McKeesport, filling shifts for some of the city’s 36 full-time officers.

“We’ll cover as many as they need us to,” Boddorf said, recalling the outpouring of support after McIntire was killed.

He said the Tarentum police station at that time was inundated with a flood of officers “coming in and out all day,” along with donations of meals and water that filled the lobby.

“The officer who lost his life covered a shift here for us,” Boddorf said. “We felt it was important to do what we can for him.

“Given that we were, unfortunately, just in this situation, we didn’t hesitate to offer our help.”

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