Gunman in April 2019 Monroeville Mall shooting pleads guilty to aggravated assault

Dillon Carr | Tuesday, November 10, 2020 3:14 p.m.

Dillon Carr | Tribune-Review

Three glass-pane doors at the first-floor entrance of a Macy’s Backstage store at the Monroeville Mall were covered with wooden boards following a shooting that damaged them. The shooting occurred in April 2019.

A McKeesport man who was arrested and charged for spraying bullets into the doors of a Monroeville Mall entrance last year pleaded guilty Tuesday before an Allegheny County judge.

Brandon Noel, 23, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in connection with a fight that broke out between two McKeesport gangs at the mall in April 2019. The fight ended with Noel firing 14 shots into the Macy’s Backstage entrance doors. No one was injured.

In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop all other charges, according to Mike Manko, a spokesman for the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office.

Noel was initially charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, riot, reckless endangerment and firing into an occupied structure following his May arrest.

The fight and the shooting led officials to evacuate the mall.

Five other men were arrested and charged in connection with that night’s fight.

Brandon Murphy, 25, Jared Ogrosky, 23, Fordery Morris, 22, and Treysaun Lockett-Tillman, 22, all from McKeesport were initially charged with one count each of riot, simple assault and disorderly conduct. Jamaal Abdul-Rabb, of Turtle Creek, faced the same charges.

According to court records, Murphy, Morris and Lockett-Tillman took plea deals. Prosecutors dropped the more serious charges in exchange for a guilty plea to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. Ogrosky and Abdul-Rabb still face initial charges and have court dates scheduled this year or early next year.

At the time, District Attorney Stephen Zappala said the fight and subsequent shooting stemmed from a dispute between McKeesport gangs. One was affiliated with Crawford Square and the other was affiliated with Harrison Village.

He said Noel, Ogrosky, Morris and Lockett-Tillman were affiliated with Crawford and Murphy was connected to the Harrison gang.

According to the criminal complaint, five men in two vehicles pulled into the mall parking lot. Noel and Morris were in a Dodge Avenger. Lockett-Tillman, Ogrosky and Abdul-Rabb were in a Volkswagen.

Investigators said the men went into Macy’s shortly after 7:30 p.m. Morris bought a shirt and the five left the store but “quickly returned to Macy’s as if the group saw something or someone,” according to the complaint.

Noel walked to the Dodge Avenger where police believe he retrieved a 9mm handgun. The group went into the lower level of the mall, police wrote, where Ogrosky started a fight with Murphy, who was already in the mall.

More men joined the fight, which began near the mall’s children’s play area, according to the complaint. In a press briefing that occurred after the fight, Zappala described the fight as a “melee.”

The fight moved into Macy’s, and the five men who arrived together eventually ran toward the store’s outdoor exit, police said. As they did, Noel allegedly turned back to the store and fired 14 shots toward Macy’s double doors.

From there, the men involved scattered.

All the men involved were arrested about a month after the mall fight. Murphy, however, was at-large until state police found him two months later in possession of 15 bricks of heroin in a Wal-Mart parking lot in North Huntingdon.