'Nobody's getting hurt today'
Peter Schmitt, like he does nearly every weekday, waited Friday afternoon at the corner of Spang and Morton avenues in Butler to get his two stepchildren, ages 9 and 10, as they came off the school bus.
He escorts them three blocks to his house through the typically peaceful neighborhood.
Friday was different.
Schmitt suddenly found himself in a confrontation with an angry man brandishing a rifle in a threatening manner toward a group of school children.
“I was just thinking 'nobody's getting hurt today,'” he said in an interview Monday.
When the man turned away from him for a split second, Schmitt sprung into action, landing a “sucker punch” to the man's mouth.
“I saw an opportunity and I took it, knocked him to the ground, forced the rifle off of him and secured it until the officers arrived,” he said.
Schmitt is credited by city police with diffusing the situation and calling police.
The man, Timothy J. Krick, 55, was arrested Friday following the incident and booked into Butler County Prison on $10,000 bail.
Krick faces charges of terroristic threats, two counts of simple assault and recklessly endangering another person, all misdemeanors.
Schmitt recalled that there was a small group of students and adults gathered on the sidewalk Friday afternoon. The children were playing with some baby ducks and Schmitt was showing his stepson a photograph on his cell phone of a fish he had caught that day.Krick, who lives in a ground-level apartment with its front door just feet from the bus stop, emerged to walk his poodle, Schmitt said.He became angry and was heard saying “I'm going to take care of this right now,” according to a police affidavit.The man allegedly yelled at the children, telling them to get off his property and claiming that they had stolen his mail, the affidavit said.Schmitt, standing on the sidewalk with his phone still in his hand, said he then saw Krick go back into his apartment and come out holding a rifle at hip level, with the barrel pointed away from the group. Schmitt, sensing trouble, used his phone to take a snapshot, possibly to be used as evidence.Krick then allegedly turned to face the sidewalk, pointing the gun at the people standing there, he said.“I took that as a threat that he was going to shoot me or one of these children or all of us,” Schmitt said.At one point, Krick turned away from him and that was all Schmitt needed to land a punch and grab the man by the wrist to get the gun, which he placed on the ground before police arrived.
A Pittsburgh native, Schmitt said he grew up in some rough areas where he learned a thing or two about fighting.“I'm no tough guy, but when push comes to push. I'm not going to get pushed around,” he said.Schmitt said he came to Butler three years ago hoping to raise a family in a safer environment than his former neighborhood in Pittsburgh. But, he said, drugs and violence here have created cause for concern.“Children shouldn't be scared to walk outside their house to play on their scooters or their bicycles or to play in the alleyway, without nutballs pulling out guns on them. It's crazy,” he said.Though Krick remains incarcerated, school district officials notified families in the area that the bus stop, starting this week, will be moved a block away from his apartment.Krick does not have any prior convictions in Pennsylvania, according to court records.
