Justin Vellucci stories, Page 18
County, nonprofits collaborate to serve those displaced by Downtown Pittsburgh shelter fire
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...
Penn Hills mayor links hookah bar killings to love triangle
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...
Police: 2 or more shooters opened fire after argument at Penn Hills hookah bar
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...
Pittsburgh police arrest teen in Sheraden homicide
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...
Penn Hills hookah bar where 9 were shot lacks liquor license
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...
Pittsburgh police fire cadet charged with DUI in Franklin Park
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...
Construction worker killed in 9-story fall in Oakland is identified
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...
California woman sentenced to prison for harassing calls to Squirrel Hill synagogue official
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...
‘For those who didn’t come home:’ Family, friends mark Memorial Day at national cemeteryVideo
Sunday marked Peggy Quatman’s first Memorial Day service without Bob. The Glenshaw resident’s husband, a factory worker and Neville Island steelworker, once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his U.S. Navy peers while serving during the Vietnam War. His bleach-white headstone — section 13, site No. 460 — in the National Cemetery of...
‘Gentle giant’ Dylan Tarbi, 13, mourned by family, community
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...
‘Help me. I’m gonna die.’ McCandless woman mourns granddaughter’s death after asthma attack
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...
Alleged victim takes stand in Homewood school sex assault case
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...
Bellevue man to face trial on charges that he raped 2 teenage girls
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...
Teen’s journey from Cameroon to Pittsburgh reflects city’s refugee influx
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...
Gainey aide defends administration over controversial contractor payments
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 charge McKees Rocks teen in Stowe killing
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 arrest 2nd of 3 suspects in fatal West End stabbing
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...
Man arrested for terrorizing North Braddock pastor now charged in cousin’s death
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...
Descendent of tree that once stood outside Anne Frank House now grows in Pittsburgh
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...
‘Another tool on your belt’: Pittsburgh cops embrace jiu jitsu training
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...
White Oak woman recounts terror of 2 kids tumbling from 3rd-floor window
Two White Oak children might owe their lives to Andi Cartwright’s busted pair of Bluetooth headphones. Skies were sunny and temperatures lingered in the mid-80s last Monday afternoon as Cartwright strolled down Ohio Avenue in the Mon Valley town she’s called home for 22 years. As she walked, listening to...
Pittsburgh EMS expands pilot program for paramedics to utilize mobile blood banks
It didn’t look good for the teenage driver. Shortly after 7:15 a.m. on a rainy Thursday in May last year, the young man — who lost control of his yellow sports car when it hydroplaned on Saw Mill Run Boulevard and he slammed the vehicle into a utility pole near...
From cassette tapes to vinyl records, physical media is trending in Pittsburgh
Cassette tapes brought Veronika Cloutier to Pittsburgh. Vinyl LPs have kept her here. Before moving to Pittsburgh from North Carolina in 2021, the former vocalist and guitarist for the band Attack Cat measured the city’s livability by connecting with a local indie label that releases cassettes. “The fact that there...
Morning Roundup: 1 injured in crash in Baldwin Borough
Here are some of the latest news items from this morning, Friday, May 3: 1 injured in crash in Baldwin Borough Several live power lines and at least five telephone poles were broken or knocked down Thursday night after a vehicle hit one of the poles in Baldwin Borough. Two...
1 dead following Hill District shooting
A Pittsburgh man died early Friday morning after being shot in the head in the city’s Hill District neighborhood, police said. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victim as Anthony Young, 35. A cause and manner of death has not yet been determined. Pittsburgh police from Zone 2...
