Justin Vellucci stories, Page 5

Storm clouds and winter temperatures don’t faze Jamie Ganss. The power of tradition brings the Brackenridge woman every year to the corner of Corbet Street and Third Avenue in Tarentum to watch the Tarentum-Brackenridge Christmas Parade. Her annual ritual to kick off the holidays has generated a deeper meaning since...

Pittsburgh police are accusing a man of fatally shooting his companion in the back when, investigators say, they opened fire on a group of people earlier this month in the city’s Northview Heights neighborhood. Police on Tuesday arrested Ernest Terry, 18, of Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar and charged him with the death of...

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato Wednesday said the $57 million she’s proposing in public safety spending in her 2025 budget would help fund the ongoing modernization of an outdated public safety radio system, ensure there are enough county police to handle emergencies, and roll out a pilot program for civilian...

A teen remained in jail Tuesday after police charged him with fatally shooting an 18-year-old man at a Glassport bus stop two days earlier. James Martin, 17, of McKeesport fled the shooting scene on a Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus but was arrested after the driver told a dispatcher the suspect...

A driver was hospitalized Monday after striking a Shaler police vehicle en route to a car crash. Shaler police were dispatched about 7 a.m. to Kittanning Street after a car flipped onto its side near the intersection with Badali Drive, Chief Sean Frank said. Firefighters and paramedics extricated the driver,...

A 70-year-old man was hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday after being shot outside a Pittsburgh nursing home. The man was shot in the stomach about 12:35 p.m. outside Corner View Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the 6600 block of Frankstown Avenue in the city’s Larimer neighborhood, police said. The victim,...

The FBI is investigating a bank robbery Tuesday morning in Penn Hills. Police were dispatched about 11:30 a.m. to Citizens Bank at 6125 Saltsburg Road for reports of a robbery. A man was seen running from the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash, Penn Hills police Chief Ronald Como...

Security at Pittsburgh International Airport Tuesday morning caught a West Virginia man they said was trying to carry a live flash-bang grenade onto a flight. Allegheny County Police said they arrested Zachary Velling, 25, of Morgantown, after the Transportation Security Administration officers found the device in a passenger bag at...

The drowning deaths of two men in a swimming pool in Pittsburgh’s North Hills this summer were both accidental, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said Tuesday. Christopher Gebhardt, 63, of Pine, and William Miller, 57, of Cranberry were found dead in the pool in the 200 block of Whetherburn...

Had Pittsburgh’s Fern Hollow Bridge pinned people under the wreckage when it collapsed in 2022, local first responders would have had to wait for a highly specialized search-and-rescue unit from Philadelphia to help. “If anyone was trapped under the rubble of that bridge, they would’ve had to wait 12 hours,”...

Here are some of the latest news items from this morning, Thursday, Nov. 7: 3 injured in shooting in Pittsburgh’s Northview Heights Three people were injured after at least 20 rounds were fired during a shooting early Thursday in Pittsburgh’s Northview Heights neighborhood. Pittsburgh police said they were dispatched to...

World leaders early Wednesday congratulated President-elect Donald Trump on his return to the White House as news outlets called the 2024 presidential race for the Republican and former president. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country is managing a multi-front war in the Middle East, became one of the first...

A cellphone left near the scene of a fatal shooting in Stowe this weekend, along with a witness, helped lead police to the Pittsburgh man they charged with pulling the trigger. Curtis Horne-Baker, 34, of Pittsburgh’s Sheraden neighborhood, remained Monday in the Allegheny County Jail in connection with the shooting...

Dormont police say they’re stepping up patrols near Kelton Avenue after reports of 10 to 12 car break-ins there over the weekend. Residents reported the break-ins Saturday and Sunday on and around Delwood, Kelton and Pinehurst avenues, Officer Robert Barnes said Monday. The most common item stolen was loose change....

While there’s no indication the final hours of the presidential race will spur unrest in Pittsburgh, city police are prepared for any problems, Acting Chief Christopher Ragland said Monday morning. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police intelligence unit has not seen evidence of any specific, election-related threats, Ragland said during a...

A man was hospitalized in criticial condition late Thursday after being stabbed in Downtown Pittsburgh. The man, who police did not name, was stabbed in the abdomen about 11:30 p.m. in the 700 block of Liberty Avenue after being involved “in some sort of altercation,” Pittsburgh police said. Paramedics rushed...

Pittsburgh police Chief Larry Scirotto keeps dribbling his way into controversy over his side hustle as an NCAA basketball referee. Three years ago, he was the subject of an audit about his officiating while running Fort Lauderdale, Fla.’s police department. The auditor alleged that Scirotto was double dipping — being...

Everyone had different reasons for filling Aspinwall’s Commercial Avenue in picture-perfect autumn weather Saturday, Oct. 12, during the borough’s annual Fall in the Wall celebration. Fox Chapel resident Jodi Linder watched, with a twinkle in her eye, as granddaughter Alanna gazed at a balloon artist plying their trade. Despite being...

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office on Monday said it would no longer seek the death penalty for a man charged in a Pittsburgh triple killing. Ronald Steave, 32, had been facing the possibility of capital punishment if found guilty of killing his ex-girlfriend Nandi Fitzgerald, 28; her son, Denzel...

Pittsburgh police on Monday charged a homeless man they say broke a woman’s back and pelvis by shoving her to the ground while trying to rape her two months ago in the city’s South Side neighborhood. William Hercules, 27, pushed the woman, who uses a walker, to the ground around...

A Pittsburgh man Monday pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for fatally stabbing his roommate after a New Year’s Eve drinking session escalated into a fight. Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Flaherty sentenced Martin Lopez Hernandez, 33, of East Allegheny, to time already served in the Allegheny County Jail —...

A 44-year-old man found fatally stabbed Monday afternoon along the Montour Trail in Moon was a liquor control enforcement agent with the Pennsylvania State Police. Benjamin Brallier of Coraopolis was pronounced dead at Heritage Valley Sewickley hospital just before 4 p.m. Brallier, who had stab wounds to his back, upper...

A Pittsburgh man whose homicide trial opened Monday killed a restaurant’s teenage cook just 15 minutes after being thrown out of the Strip District establishment, a prosecutor told jurors. Howard Hawkins, 49, was kicked out of Preeti’s Pitt on Penn Avenue in the Strip District at 8:55 p.m. on Feb....

A jury Monday found two men guilty of first-degree murder in a 2021 homicide at a Pittsburgh gas station. Michael James and Randall Jones are each facing a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole for the killing of Robert Agurs. Allegheny County Judge Edward J....

Lawyers for a man accused of a Pittsburgh triple killing have failed to convince a judge that the death penalty should be off the table because of what they say is their client’s intellectual disability. “This case is going to trial — my position did not change,” Allegheny County Common...