Pittsburgh teen charged with killing friend while they played with guns
A Pittsburgh teen was arrested Thursday after he accidentally killed his friend while the two were playing with guns, authorities said.
Khyree Harper, 17, of South Side, was holding a pistol and exchanging gun magazines with Tyrome Gatewood in a Knoxville home around 1 p.m. Thursday, a witness told Pittsburgh police, according to a criminal complaint.
“Put it away,” Gatewood, also 17, of Carrick, said, the witness told police. “You got that thing aiming at me.”
“Bro, even if I pulled the trigger, it’s not going off,” Harper replied, according to the witness.
Then it went off.
The witness heard the gun fire, then saw Gatewood fall to the floor, the complaint said.
“I didn’t mean to,” the witness heard Harper say, according to the complaint.
Police did not name the witness.
When paramedics arrived, Gatewood was bleeding from the head and unresponsive, a pistol magazine inside his jacket, the complaint said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Harper waited outside the home in the 100 block of Rochelle Street and surrendered to police, the complaint said.
“It was me,” he told police, according to the complaint.
Police said they found one spent 9 mm shell casing, an empty gun magazine, and a black pistol with an extended, 15-round magazine at the scene. The black pistol was loaded.
Pittsburgh police charged Harper with criminal homicide and a firearms count. He is being prosecuted as an adult.
Harper was taken early Friday to the Allegheny County Jail and arraigned around 2 a.m., court records show. A judge denied him bail.
He has a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 11. Harper’s attorney was not listed in the court record.
Harper is a Pittsburgh Public Schools student but Gatewood was not, school district spokeswoman Ebony Pugh told TribLive. She declined further comment.
Last month, the group South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace gave Harper what they called a “Peacekeepers Award,” according to a Feb. 6 post on Facebook. They identified Harper as a student from Carrick High School.
The award, the group said online, goes to students and faculty “who go above and beyond to prevent violence and maintain peace and cohesiveness among peers.”
The group did not respond Friday to phone calls or emails seeking comment.
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at jvellucci@triblive.com.
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