The July 29 encounter produced both an officer-involved-shooting investigation and felony allegations against the man who was wounded.
LEHIGH TOWNSHIP, Pa. — The police shooting that wounded Sean Deibert during a July domestic call remains a distinct part of a case that later grew to include accusations that he approached responding officers with a knife and committed aggravated assault against them.
The July 29 confrontation on Heritage Lane initially drew public attention because a Lehigh Township officer fired at a 49-year-old man during a response involving a 71-year-old woman. The first official accounts were spare: officers responded at about 3:51 p.m., entered the residence, became involved in a confrontation, used a Taser and then shot the man. The wounded man was taken to a hospital, and Pennsylvania State Police Troop M’s Major Case Team assumed responsibility for investigating the officer-involved shooting.
What preceded that use of force emerged more fully over the following days. Authorities identified the wounded man as Deibert and accused him of attacking his mother before police arrived. Investigators said the woman reported that Deibert forced his way into her room, knocked or shoved her down, choked her, struck her in the head and threatened to kill her. She was eventually able to get away from the property and seek help at another home.
The escape came during another alleged confrontation. Police said Deibert had gone outside and threatened a neighbor, while reports described him yelling during the disturbance. His mother used that period to leave and call 911 from a nearby residence. The sequence turned what began as an alleged assault inside the home into an emergency response involving a neighbor, local officers, medical personnel and, ultimately, the independent investigation that follows police gunfire.
Later state police accounts offered more detail about the officers’ arrival. Investigators said officers found Deibert outside the house and observed what they described as nunchucks in his pants before he returned indoors. Officers then learned the mother’s account and sought to have him come out of the home. Police said he did not follow those requests. The decision by officers to go inside set up the encounter that is now central both to the additional charges against Deibert and to the review of the officer’s decision to shoot.
State police said officers saw Deibert emerge from a room holding a knife. According to investigators, officers repeatedly directed him to drop it, but he continued toward them. One officer then fired twice, striking Deibert in the chest and arm, while another officer used a stun gun. Police said Deibert released the knife and dropped to his knees. The officers rendered aid and took him into custody before an ambulance transported him to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg.
That expanded account goes well beyond what authorities publicly said in the hours immediately after the incident. Early reports described a confrontation without identifying the object Deibert allegedly carried or explaining the movements police said prompted the gunfire. Those details matter because an officer-involved-shooting inquiry examines the circumstances surrounding the firearm discharge, while the criminal case asks whether Deibert committed the offenses prosecutors have accused him of. The two questions arise from the same minutes but are not legally interchangeable.
Deibert’s criminal exposure also changed after the first wave of charges. He initially faced strangulation, simple assault and terroristic threats tied to allegations involving his mother and a neighbor. State police later added three felony counts of aggravated assault arising from the confrontation with officers, along with possession of an instrument of crime and an additional terroristic-threats allegation. Local police said the aggravated-assault counts were added Aug. 7. By Aug. 13, local reporting said Deibert was in Northampton County Prison in lieu of $100,000 cash bail.
The aggravated-assault counts put the officers themselves at the center of part of the prosecution. Pennsylvania law contains provisions specifically addressing assaults and certain threatening conduct directed at police officers while they are performing their duties. State law includes circumstances in which an attempt to cause injury, the intentional or knowing infliction of bodily injury, or physical menace creating fear of imminent serious injury can support aggravated-assault allegations against a defendant. Prosecutors still bear the burden of proving the elements applicable to the counts filed against Deibert.
The officers’ status after the shooting followed a different track. At an August township meeting, Lehigh Township police Sgt. Jon Roth said the officers involved were on administrative leave under standard protocol. He emphasized that the leave itself did not indicate wrongdoing. Roth also said the township department had called for assistance from nearby Moore Township, Walnutport and Slatington during the incident and that the Pennsylvania State Police and Northampton County District Attorney’s Office were handling the review connected to the firearm discharge.
That outside review is important because the officer who fired was a member of the department that responded to the original call. State police involvement places the shooting investigation with another law-enforcement agency, while the district attorney’s office can evaluate the legal implications of the evidence collected. Public reports reviewed for this story did not identify a final determination on whether the officer’s gunfire was legally justified, and the later filing of charges against Deibert should not be read as automatically resolving that separate question.
The underlying domestic allegations remain central even though the officer encounter produced the later charges. Deibert’s mother was 71 at the time, and police say she accused her son of applying pressure to her neck during the assault. Pennsylvania has a specific strangulation law that does not require prosecutors to prove a visible physical injury. The statute also provides different grading based on circumstances that include whether the alleged victim is a family or household member. Deibert has not been convicted of the accusation.
Police also allege Deibert made threats at multiple points in the episode. A neighbor was allegedly threatened before officers entered the home, and investigators later said Deibert threatened an officer after being shot and disarmed. Those allegations are part of the criminal case and remain subject to proof in court. Publicly available reporting reviewed here does not establish his defense strategy or provide a final adjudication of any of the charges.
The result is an incident moving on parallel tracks: Deibert faces prosecution over the alleged attack on his mother, threats to others and his confrontation with police, while authorities separately examine the circumstances under which an officer fired two rounds. The latest verified reports place Deibert in county custody and describe the officer review as having been turned over to state police and the district attorney’s office. No later public disposition of that shooting investigation was located.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.