Eugene Coon

Thursday, October 22, 1998

Eugene Coon

Former sheriff dies at 67
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Eugene Coon, the former Allegheny County sheriff who refused to evict steelworkers from their homes as mills closed during the 1980s, died of lung cancer Wednesday, current Sheriff Pete DeFazio said.

He was 67.
Coon served as sheriff of the state's second-largest county from 1969 until retiring in 1997.
His deputies evicted employees of steel mills at first when the steel industry downturn in the Monongahela River Valley began, but Coon halted the evictions when he realized that the homeowners were being cheated out of equity they had built up.
"He thought it was overbearing that these people were losing their homes through no fault of their own," said DeFazio, who worked for Coon for 27 of Coon's 28 years as sheriff.
Coon, a former employee at J&L steel, later testified in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., in favor of legislation that protected homeowners' equity in case of evictions. Mortgage lenders opposed the plan and described the measure as "Elect Sheriff Coon To Higher Office Legislation."
During the steel slump, Coon also sent two female deputies to remove a defrocked priest from a church. The priest was ousted after he was critical of steel company executives for laying of tens of thousands of workers but refused to leave.
Coon, a former Pittsburgh narcotics detective and homicide investigator, decided last year not to seek re-election.
He was seen as vulnerable because of two misdemeanor convictions related to a 1994 incident at his weekend home in Westmoreland County. Coon fired shots over the heads of guests at a birthday party and voluntarily entered an alcohol treatment program. He later apologized.