A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit filed against numerous state troopers by family members of Walter Wiemann, who was 73 years old when he was shot and killed by state police during a standoff at his Forward Township home in September 2018.

Judge W. Scott Hardy, of the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, dismissed the suit without prejudice, giving the plaintiffs until Oct. 1 to file an amended complaint.

The suit was filed on behalf of Tammi Kaufman and Kimberly Wiemann, Walter Wiemann's daughters, and Karen Wiemann, his widow and administrator of his estate, by Butler attorney Al Lindsay.

The plaintiffs could not be reached for comment. Lindsay said he is reviewing the judge's ruling, and a decision on filing an amended complaint hasn't been made.

Police were called to Wiemann's home on Nursery Road in the morning of Sept. 18 for reports of an armed man “making threats to himself, others and police responders,” according to a police report.

Police killed Wiemann after the armed standoff escalated with the activation of the Special Emergency Response Team, a helicopter being called in and the deployment of a 17,550-pound armored vehicle known as a Bearcat carrying 10 to 12 officers. Police said Wiemann was shot after he aimed a scoped rifle at troopers. He died from the gunshot wounds later that day in a Pittsburgh hospital.

County District Attorney Richard Goldinger cleared the officers involved in the shooting in December that year.

According to the lawsuit, Wiemann was a Vietnam War veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and Alzheimer's disease.

On the morning of the incident, he was upset because his beehives no longer contained bees. He did not remember that he and family members cleaned out the hives and burned the remains due to a mite infection some time before the incident, and wondered if neighbors had tampered with the bees.

As he became more agitated, Tammi Kaufman called 911 and the dispatcher connected her with state police. She also contacted the Center for Community Resources' Crisis Center to seek help.

State police Cpl. Timothy Morando and CCR crisis representatives told the plaintiffs they had to fill out a form in order to have Wiemann involuntarily committed for a mental health evaluation. Karen Wiemann signed the form.

The plaintiffs told Morando and other troopers that the ringer on the phone in Wiemann's house was disabled because the ringing exacerbated his PTSD and Alzheimer's disease, and he had access to an antique hunting rifle that was not loaded, according to the suit.

The SERT unit of more than 30 troopers, the armored vehicle and a helicopter responded after troopers on the ground were not able to reach him by phone, and police would not allow the plaintiffs to approach the house to try to calm him down, according to the suit.

At one point during what the suit said was a four-hour siege by police, a barn on the property was set on fire. Wiemann walked toward the barn, and was shot as he turned toward the police vehicles in his front yard, according to the suit. He was shot once in the head and twice in his shoulders, according to the suit.

The suit alleges police violated Wiemann's Fourth Amendment constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures and his Fourteenth Amendment right prohibiting states from depriving anybody of life, liberty or property without due process of law were violated. The suit also alleges assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, loss of companionship and wrongful death.

The suit sought unspecified compensatory and punitive monetary damages as well as a jury trial.

In Hardy's ruling, he said the Eleventh Amendment bars federal suits seeking monetary damages against a state and its agencies, and the suit does not provide facts to suggest the troopers committed the other allegations.