Andre Thomas, who died after a confrontation with Swissvale police this month, spent most of his adult life rotating in and out of the criminal justice system.

But, over the last two years, the 37-year-old Mr. Thomas was trying to make a clean break with his troubled history. He was attending church. He was spending time with his friends and children. And he and his fiancee were seeking counseling for their relationship.

Those efforts were cut short Aug. 5, after police used a Taser to stun him. He later suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at UPMC Braddock.

An autopsy performed by the Allegheny County medical examiner's office was inconclusive, pending the results of toxicology and other tests.

Some witnesses said police punched and stomped on Mr. Thomas, and an autopsy by pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, hired by the Thomas family, showed cuts and bruises to the man's face and arms.

"He's one of those people who, if you get to know him, you're going to like him," said Devin Patterson, who provides counseling to parishioners at Destiny International Ministries, the church that Mr. Thomas occasionally attended in Homewood. "He was trying to work through a lot of his past issues."

Mr. Thomas' issues first brought him into contact with law enforcement in 1990, when, at 19, he twice sold cocaine to undercover police detectives from Monroeville and Penn Hills, according to court records.

He pleaded guilty to various narcotics charges and later spent a year in jail. In 1994, he briefly ended up back in prison after Monroeville police arrested him for possessing a small amount of marijuana.

His most troubling brush with the law -- before the Swissvale episode -- occurred on June 9, 1995.

According to a police report at the time, Mr. Thomas was carrying an ax through the streets of Monroeville's Garden City section. He entered a woman's home on Cottonwood Drive, the street where his parents lived, and began "flailing" the ax.

A Monroeville police officer later found Mr. Thomas lying unconscious on Garden City Drive. Paramedics took him to West Penn Hospital's Forbes Regional Campus.

At the hospital, Mr. Thomas punched a dispatcher in the head, the police report said.

Mr. Thomas pleaded guilty to burglary, recklessly endangering another person, simple assault, public drunkenness and criminal trespass. A judge ordered a mental health evaluation, but the results of that evaluation were not available in court records.

Mr. Thomas was eventually sentenced to 2 1/2 to 10 years in prison.

He then rotated throughout the state prison system, and he was released on parole three times. But each time he violated the conditions of his parole.

He finished his sentence on Oct. 2, 2005.

The following year, Mr. Thomas was in trouble again. He pleaded guilty in 2006 to drunken driving, fleeing to elude a police officer, resisting arrest and criminal mischief.

Yet Mr. Thomas was also making efforts to turn his life around. He and his fiancee, Michelle Schantz, started attending the Homewood church, although she attended more frequently. They had a daughter.

Mr. Thomas worked briefly as a chef, and he told Mr. Patterson, the church counselor, that he considered himself a "handyman" and found a variety of small jobs.

Ms. Schantz declined to be interviewed, but she issued a statement through Howard F. Messer, an attorney for Mr. Thomas' family, saying that her fiance was an "all around good guy."

"He was outgoing, he was boisterous, a good father," she said.

Mr. Patterson, also a family counselor at the Parental Stress Center in East Liberty, said the pair met with him several times to discuss a range of issues, including their communication problems and tension over Mr. Thomas' lower level of commitment to the church.

Mr. Thomas never discussed substance abuse, saying only that he liked to have an occasional beer.

But his troubles continued this year. In April, police in New Kensington stunned him with a Taser after he ran into a delicatessen, damaged a machine and claimed that someone was trying to hurt him. Police cited him for public drunkenness and criminal mischief.

Shortly before midnight on Aug. 4, Swissvale police received several 911 calls about a man who was pounding on doors and yelling that someone was trying to kill him.

One Swissvale police officer used a Taser to stun Mr. Thomas at least three times. Witness accounts differ on the use of physical force by officers.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. has said Mr. Thomas displayed irrational behavior, dilated pupils, sudden labored breathing and "almost superhuman" strength in resisting officers' attempts to handcuff him.

His office is investigating the incident.

Mr. Messer has said he has seen no evidence that Mr. Thomas was doing something criminal the night of his death.