Justin Vellucci stories, Page 10

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. on Thursday used a video’s release as a springboard to warn residents about elder fraud, which scammed more than 12,000 Allegheny County residents out of nearly $8 million last year. Zappala said his office has prevented an estimated $35 million in elder...

Pittsburgh police believe a spate of armed robberies carried out last week appear to be connected. The three crimes occurred over 36 hours on June 7 and June 8 and targeted a restaurant, a fast-food chain and a clothing shop in three different neighborhoods in Pittsburgh’s East End. No arrests...

Tim Oxenreiter needed just five days to craft a video that packs a whole lot of Pittsburgh into 63 seconds. Book-ended by Acrisure Stadium and the picturesque Point State Park, Oxenreiter’s latest ode to his hometown laid on the local mythology thick as part of the region’s pitch to host...

Call it three for three. A tiki boat captain rescued a man who couldn’t swim after his kayak capsized last weekend on the Allegheny River — the third such rescue by the Pittsburgh-based cruise company in the past 12 months. A Cruisin’ Tikis Pittsburgh captain saw “someone bobbing in the...

Authorities on Thursday identified the man fatally shot a day earlier by a Brentwood police officer as Craig W. McGrath of Pittsburgh. McGrath, 37, was shot multiple times Wednesday in Brentwood. Investigators said that an armed McGrath rammed a police vehicle while driving a stolen car and fought with an...

Storm clouds gathered above the shuttered Second Avenue Commons homeless shelter as Ronald McGinnis literally planned his next steps. On Tuesday, the 59-year-old homeless man, who entered the Downtown shelter six weeks ago, watched people pour out of the building as flames shot off its roof and smoke filled the...

A weekend shooting at a Penn Hills hookah bar that killed two people and wounded seven others is believed to be a case of targeted violence that might have stemmed from a love triangle, its mayor told TribLive Wednesday. Police have disclosed little about their ongoing investigation. But Penn Hills...

As many as 100 people crowded inside a Penn Hills hookah bar when gunfire erupted, killing two people, police said Tuesday. Nathaniel Smiley Jr., 44, of Pittsburgh got into an altercation with an unknown man around 2:50 a.m. at Ballers Hookah Lounge and Cigar Bar, Allegheny County Police Lt. Venerando...

A Pittsburgh teenager was charged Monday with opening fire on a group of people at a Sheraden intersection late Friday night, killing one of them. Malachi Smith, 18, of Pittsburgh’s Fairywood neighborhood, shot Israel Walker-Young, 18, of Pittsburgh, from the tailgate of a silver Dodge pickup that Smith and six...

A Penn Hills hookah bar where nine people were shot over the weekend, two fatally, was operating without a liquor license, authorities said Monday. Allegheny County Police, who are investigating the shooting early Sunday at Ballers Hookah Lounge and Cigar Bar, said they will consult with the District Attorney’s Office...

A Pittsburgh police cadet was fired after authorities said he drove drunk — with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit — after downing multiple beers over four hours at a North Hills bar. Robert Redman, 33, of Ohio Township, told Franklin Park police he had seven or...

A construction worker died Thursday morning after falling nine stories from scaffolding at an apartment building under construction in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Authorities identified the man as John J. Allen, 47, of McKees Rocks. First responders were dispatched shortly before 8 a.m. to 419 Melwood Ave. Allen was pronounced dead...

Joel Goldstein received the first phone call laced with antisemitic slurs within weeks of a mass shooter murdering 11 Jewish congregants at Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018 — the worst antisemitic attack on U.S. soil. The former executive director of the Squirrel Hill synagogue had left...

Dylan Tarbi wasn’t the best third-baseman Freeport Area Youth Baseball coaches ever saw. That didn’t matter to the 13-year-old Buffalo Township boy, several people close to Dylan said Saturday. He always just worked to be his best. On Thursday, a day before a single-cab pickup fatally struck Dylan as the...

Kylee Marie Reiber knew something was wrong. The McCandless sixth-grader had struggled to manage asthma her whole life, family members said. Suffering from a cold on Sunday at her Wittmer Road home, Kylee took two breathing treatments — inhaling the asthma medication Ventolin each time through a nebulizer mask, said...

A jury trial opened Wednesday for a former Pittsburgh Faison School fourth-grade teacher who authorities allege sexually assaulted a student multiple times when the pair were alone. Police arrested James Zeigler, 42, of Pittsburgh, last year on six criminal charges — including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, and...

A Bellevue man will face trial on charges that on several occasions in March he raped two 14-year-old girls — one of them a runaway he met at a Downtown Pittsburgh bus stop. Deandre Steele, 34, was held for court Friday following a preliminary hearing. Police said Steele took the...

When Reol Audhasse and his family fled Cameroon for Pittsburgh last year, surging ethnic violence had displaced more than 1 million residents of the central African nation. Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group, had slaughtered thousands of civilians near the country’s northern border with Nigeria. Conditions were dangerous, and so...

The top spokeswoman for Pittsburgh’s mayor acknowledged Tuesday that city employees broke in-house rules by using a municipal credit card to charge thousands of dollars in payments to a former worker after he became a private contractor, but she rejected suggestions that the hiring itself violated the state’s ethics law....

Police have arrested a McKees Rocks teen who they say fatally shot a Stowe man on Thanksgiving eve. Cy-Miar Amari Woods, 16, was charged as an adult Thursday in the Nov. 22 death of Michael Dean. Dean, 26, was killed at his house in the 800 block of Benwood Avenue,...

Pittsburgh police have arrested the second of three suspects in a fatal stabbing in March at an abandoned West End house. Police on Thursday arrested Carlena Wells, 18, in the death of Marc Kovach, 37, who was beaten and stabbed, according to a criminal complaint. His body was then hidden...

The man arrested for pointing a gun at a North Braddock pastor inside a church on Sunday has been charged with killing his cousin earlier that day. Bernard Polite, 26, is charged with criminal homicide in connection with the shooting death of Derek Polite, 56. Two of Derek Polite’s cousins...

Hiding from Nazis in an Amsterdam annex, Anne Frank peered out an attic window and saw a white horse chestnut tree towering over 188 Keizersgracht’s courtyard as a beacon of hope. On Feb. 23, 1944, two years into hiding, the young Jewish girl sat in silence as she and Peter...

For Tim Novosel, Brazilian jiu jitsu is more about control than contact. The Pittsburgh police commander — who launched a jiu jitsu training program for city cops about two years ago — talked about the importance the martial art places on focus instead of force. Nearby, a dozen officers grappled...