Dec 6, 2016 3 min read

Citing three recent deaths in cases in which women had sought protection-from-abuse orders in Washington County Court, a senior judge on Tuesday denied a request from a police corporal’s attorney to grant him access to a firearm during working hours.

Cpl. James Hughes of Mt. Lebanon Police Department was not present in court for the brief proceeding, which stemmed from a petition his estranged wife filed after a Nov. 30 argument at the home the couple had shared on East Buffalo Church Road in Buffalo Township.

Linda Hughes’ petition asked that all of James Hughes’ guns be seized. Christopher Blackwell, solicitor for Sheriff Samuel Romano, confirmed that Hughes’ gun collection includes 120 weapons, which presented the sheriff’s office with a quandary of where to store such a large number of firearms after the seizure.

In court, James Hughes’ attorney, Dana Turk, asked that Hughes be allowed to carry one firearm only during his shift as a law enforcement officer and relinquish it to the highest-ranking officer on duty when he was through.

“We were not asking that he be allowed to carry it at any other time,” Turk said outside the courtroom. “He needs to work. He’s paying the mortgage on the house she’s living in. Both of them are going to be in a pretty tough situation.” She said James Hughes will be forced to take unpaid leave from the police department.

Senior Judge John C. Reed, without naming those who have perished in high-profile cases, referred to “three deaths,” presumably the Aug. 30 slaying of Tierne Ewing, who was shot in a murder-suicide committed by her husband, Kevin Ewing, in West Finley Township, and the Nov. 10 fatal shootings of Dalia Sabae and Canonsburg police Officer Scott Bashioum by Michael Cwiklinski. Both women had initiated protection-from-abuse petitions against their husbands.

Linda Hughes, 44, sought the protection-from-abuse petition in the wake of a confrontation in which James Hughes, now a Pittsburgh resident, and his mother arrived to retrieve his belongings from the home where he had lived. Linda Hughes alleged that a screaming match ensued, that he cautioned her not to act that way in his mother’s presence and that he said Linda Hughes “was ruining (him) with this divorce.” She alleges that he then moved close to her face so he could not be overheard and said he “wanted to take me out in the woods and shoot me in my head. I froze as he left, and I then went to the police. When I have said I was going to call the cops in the past, he said that he knew how to put marks on himself and that they would arrest me and not him” because he was a law enforcement officer.

Linda Hughes’ attorney did not appear before Reed on Tuesday, but a hearing to make the temporary protective order permanent is scheduled for next week in Washington County Court.

As to the gun storage issue, Blackwell said the sheriff’s department was able to obtain space in a courthouse vault.

According to court documents, the couple’s divorce proceedings began in 2014.