Officers surround house, arrest gun threat suspect
A man was arrested after Butler Township police say he held a handgun to a woman's head and struck her in the head with the gun barrel during an altercation at their home on Eckstein Road.
Jason C. Kropko, 51, is behind bars on felony assault and other charges in the Sunday evening incident during which three other police departments assisted.
The alleged victim, a 51-year-old woman, suffered several injuries but none required medical treatment.
The woman called 911 about 6:45 p.m. to report the alleged assault, police said. The defendant was allegedly armed and he had other weapons in the house.
She characterized herself as a friend of Kropko's, and said their relationship was not romantic. The two live together with Kropko's father, police said.
Due to the nature of the call, police from Butler and Penn and Middlesex townships assisted township police, and officers surrounded the house.
Police said they escorted the woman away from the home. She told them that Kropko had apparently been upset with her since Thursday.
On Sunday morning, she recounted, he punched her in the head after her cat vomited on the bedroom floor. Later, he allegedly kicked her in the left knee cap.
At some point that day, the woman said she “felt the pressure of a cold barrel of a gun to her right temple,” according to charging documents. She saw his finger on the trigger.
She described the gun as a .44-caliber revolver. She believed it was loaded. Police said she told them that she knocked the gun away with her elbow.
“Kropko rolled on top of her,” documents said, “and hit her on the left side of her head with the gun barrel saying, 'I'm going to kill you.'”
The woman's injuries included swelling and bruising around her right eye and to the bridge of her nose, a swollen left knee and a scrape on her right wrist.
Police subsequently called Kropko's father out of the house, before the defendant eventually came out, too.
Officers got a search warrant for the house and seized a .44-caliber Taurus revolver that was loaded with five rounds, police said.
District Judge Kevin O'Donnell arraigned Kropko on a felony charge of aggravated assault, and misdemeanor charges of terroristic threats, simple assault and reckless endangerment. He also is charged with a summary count of harassment. He is in the Butler County Prison in lieu of $25,000 bond.
