Police have charged a Pittsburgh man with breaking into a home, impersonating a Pennsylvania state trooper and stealing car keys last week in the city’s Greenfield neighborhood.
Officers charged Luke James Miller, 36, of Hazelwood with burglary, criminal trespassing, impersonating a public servant and other counts in the Wednesday home invasion.
Police arrested Miller on Saturday and took him to the Allegheny County Jail, where a district judge denied bail. His attorney was not listed Tuesday in online court records.
Pittsburgh police were dispatched around 12:15 a.m. Wednesday for a burglary in progress at a home in the 900 block of Greenfield Avenue.
A woman who lives in the house said she heard a loud noise at the front door from her second-floor bedroom, according to a criminal complaint. The woman “grabbed a shower curtain rod and walked towards the steps, down to the first floor.”
Police said she saw the man later identified as Miller, dressed in black pants and a black tank top, on the stair’s landing between the first and second floors.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the woman told Miller, according to the complaint.
“State trooper, you’re under arrest!” police said Miller yelled in response.
Police said Miller then ran away down Greenfield Avenue. The woman went to chase him onto Greenfield Avenue but she fell, injuring her big toe, the complaint said.
The front door had been “knocked off its hinges” and was laying on the living room floor, the complaint said. It had been deadbolted shut.
The only thing missing from the home were keys to a Hyundai sedan that belongs to the woman’s father, the complaint said.
Camera footage showed Miller return to the victim’s home Friday, the complaint said. Police did not elaborate in the criminal complaint against him.
Kathleen Miller, the suspect’s mother, later told police officers that her son previously lived at the Greenfield Avenue home he entered.
Miller also “has been having ongoing mental health issues,” his mother told police, according to the complaint.
Police said two people in the house at the time of the break-in identified Miller in photo arrays. His preliminary hearing is Sept. 9.