Coroner: ‘Multiple gunshot wounds’ cause of death in police shooting

An autopsy on the body of Gregory Stough was conducted Monday at Lehigh Valley Hospital.

(York) — An autopsy conducted on the body of a 27-year-old man — killed during an altercation with police Saturday — determined his cause of death to be multiple gunshot wounds and his manner of death as homicide, according to York County Coroner Pam Gay.

Gregory Stough, 27, who was wanted on four traffic warrants, resisted arrest, accelerating his car, both in forward and reverse toward Northern York County Regional Police officers on Saturday morning in a Manchester Township church parking lot, police said.

Police fired at Stough, of the 200 block of Dicks Dam Road in New Oxford, fatally wounding him. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 4:24 a.m., according to Gay. 

“While the coroner’s definition of homicide is ‘death at the hands of another,’ it is important to remember that the legal definition may differ, or be found to be justified in some cases,” Gay wrote in a news release on Monday.

State police are investigating, which is the protocol for a police-involved shooting. The York County Coroner’s Office and District Attorney’s Office are also investigating.

Public Information Officer Trooper Brent Miller could not be reached Monday for comment on the investigation.

Suspicious vehicle

Miller said previously that Northern York County Regional Police officers initially were checking out a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot of Stillmeadow Church of the Nazarene on Stillmeadow Lane, near Susquehanna Trail, in Manchester Township. 

An officer made contact with Stough in his Pontiac Bonneville around 3:21 a.m. The officer discovered Stough was wanted on four traffic warrants related to vehicle inspections. Stough also had a suspended driver’s license. 

A second officer arrived to help take Stough into custody. Stough resisted arrest, and during the struggle, he put his car in reverse with the driver’s door still open, police said. He accelerated backward, trapping the second officer between the door and the car. 

According to police, Stough continued driving in reverse and “propelled the officer violently into a parked police vehicle.” 

The first officer opened fire. Stough put the car in drive and traveled toward the officer who was firing at him, police said, before being fatally wounded.  

One Northern York County Regional Police Officer suffered minor injuries during the incident. The second officer, who fired his pistol at Stough, is on administrative leave. 

Family members said Saturday they weren’t sure why Stough was at the church parking lot, but his father speculated his son might have been out drinking in the area. Stough might have tried to stay with some family who live near the church, but then tried to “sleep it off” in the parking lot. 

Stough had some trouble with the law and with drinking but had recently been trying to turn himself around because he has daughters, according to his sister. 

This story comes to us through a partnership between WITF and The York Daily Record.