Justin Vellucci stories, Page 10
Judge finds New Kensington man’s killer guilty of 3rd-degree murder
A McKeesport man was convicted Wednesday of fatally shooting a New Kensington man after a fight outside a Pittsburgh skate shop and entertainment space. Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Randal B. Todd court found Zahvair Palmer, 23, guilty of third-degree murder in the March 19, 2022, death of Adam Cloud,...
Judge sends mentally ill Pittsburgh bank robber to prison despite plea for mercy
A judge Tuesday sentenced a Pittsburgh man to nearly a decade in federal prison for robbing three Shadyside banks, rejecting a request for leniency because of the defendant’s mental illness. The federal public defender who represents Rashon Coleman, 31, of the city’s East Liberty neighborhood, maintained his client’s schizophrenia and...
Ex-North Braddock cop pleads guilty to dealing drugs
A judge Tuesday gave a former North Braddock police officer two years of probation after he pleaded guilty to drug charges just before his scheduled nonjury trial. Craig William Gibson, 47, of McKeesport, had been accused of dealing drugs in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s...
Man shot on Pittsburgh’s Brookline Boulevard
A man was shot Monday afternoon in the abdomen in Pittsburgh’s Brookline neighborhood. Pittsburgh police found the victim, an adult who authorities did not name, suffering from gunshot wounds in the 800 block of Brookline Boulevard about 5 p.m. The man had been shot twice near Brookline Boulevard at Flatbush...
Man charged with using $190 bottle of tequila as deadly weapon heads to trial
A Beaver County man in January bought a $190 bottle of tequila at a Pittsburgh bar and smacked another man in the head with it, knocking him unconscious and fracturing his skull, police said. Now the accused and two other men involved in the sidewalk brawl are heading to trial...
PRT bus strikes girl, 11, in Hill District
A Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus on Monday afternoon struck an 11-year-old girl in the Hill District. The girl was taken to UPMC Childrens’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Her condition was stable, according to Adam Brandolph, a transit agency spokesperson. Details about her injuries are unknown. The bus, an 81 Oak Hill...
Clairton man charged in South Side shooting during St. Patrick’s Day celebrationVideo
A Clairton man remains jailed after being charged with shooting someone early Sunday during St. Patrick’s Day revelry in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood. The victim, who was shot in the buttocks, was taken to UPMC Mercy hospital. City camera footage showed Joseph Vance Brown, 20, fire multiple shots after running...
Revolving door: Pittsburgh police leadership in limbo as 5th chief of Gainey’s tenure takes over
Not much can faze Elizabeth Pittinger, the eyes of police oversight in Pittsburgh for the past 27 years. But even the longtime executive director of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board is alarmed by the recent revolving-door leadership that has fomented turmoil in the 758-officer force. “We’ve never had anything...
Controller’s audit finds no major misuse of city credit cards by Pittsburgh parks officials
Pittsburgh Controller Rachael Heisler said Thursday her auditors found no widespread abuse by parks officials who use city credit cards, or p-cards, to pay vendors. The release of the 21-page audit, which recommended reforms to p-card policies, capped a 17-month inquiry that was sparked by a city administrator’s move to...
5 years after covid struck, Pennsylvanians assess pandemic’s impact
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5 years after covid struck, Pennsylvanians assess the pandemic’s impact
Five years ago this month, Pennsylvania’s chief executive scrambled to manage a global health crisis for which no one in the world was prepared. As leader of the nation’s fifth most-populous state, then-Gov. Tom Wolf found himself winging it like everyone else. He had no playbook for covid-19. “It looked...
Dump truck flies over hill in Parkway East crash that sends 3 to hospital
Three motorists were taken to the hospital Thursday after a three-vehicle crash on the Parkway East in Pittsburgh shot one car into oncoming traffic and flipped a dump truck over a hill, authorities said. The crash occurred when an eastbound dump truck and sedan collided on Interstate 376 about 11:25...
Taking one for the team: Brave souls take a dip in frigid Buffalo Creek to aid Freeport Youth Baseball
For Nate Scott, the anticipation was the worst part. Scott gazed over Buffalo Creek in Freeport shortly before 11 a.m. Saturday, wondering just how cold it would feel when he and nearly 50 other Alle-Kiski Valley residents leaped into it to support a local fundraiser. The whole thing was over...
Dormont musician to celebrate new record and the label that released it with VFW show
On March 15, Josh Oswald is set to take the stage, Roland-style drum machine and his trusty black-and-white Fender Jazzmaster guitar in tow, to make some noise at Dormont’s Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge. The live set will celebrate the area musician’s latest adventure under the nom de guerre Spacebastard,...
‘WILKINSBURG IS A SURVIVOR’
`Wilkinsburg is a survivor:` Elected leaders, developers say revitalization already is underway in East End borough Wilkinsburg resident Louise Plowden bundled up in a puffy, yellow winter coat and black wool cap at 6:30 a.m. one January morning to be one of the first shoppers to christen her hometown’s new...
Wilkinsburg rising: Scrappy suburb sports signs of long-sought revivalVideo
One late January morning, Dontae Comans pushed his two youngsters in a shopping cart down the tidy aisles of Wilkinsburg’s new Aldi supermarket, the latest success story in the tattered borough’s ongoing revival. Moments earlier, Comans, Wilkinsburg’s first-term mayor, had presided over a grand-opening ceremony before joining scores of his...
Box truck kills man near UPMC Mercy hospital in Pittsburgh, victim identified
A man was killed Thursday morning after he stumbled into a road in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood and was struck by a box truck, according to city police. Pittsburgh police were dispatched at 10:30 a.m. to Forbes Avenue and Pride Street, close to UPMC Mercy hospital, where they found the man...
New details emerge about arrest of man shot by Munhall police in holding cell
The man Munhall police shot last week in a borough holding cell because, they said, he was strangling an officer, had been taken into custody about an hour earlier for strangling a woman in her home and resisting arrest, according to court papers. Christopher Allie, 38, of Pittsburgh’s Carrick neighborhood,...
Shooting turns fatal in Pittsburgh’s East Hills
A man shot Tuesday morning in Pittsburgh’s East Hills neighborhood has died. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner identified him as Conrad Rozier, 44. Police found Rozier around 8:30 a.m. when responding to a report of a gunshot victim in the 2300 block of East Hills Drive. Rozier had been shot...
Police charge Munhall man who fought with cops before officer shot him in police holding cell
A man was charged Friday with fighting with authorities and choking a Munhall police officer before the officer shot him last week inside a police holding cell in the borough’s municipal building. Munhall police initially took Christopher Allie, 38, of Munhall into custody after a violent domestic dispute on East...
2 more arrests made in March 2024 gunfight in Wilkinsburg that killed teenage bystander
Allegheny County Police arrested two men Friday who they say helped escalate a social media beef into a homicide last March when they fired multiple shots at a group of women fighting in Wilkinsburg, and instead struck and killed a teenage bystander. Eugene Camp, 22, of Whitehall and Omar Campbell,...
Western Pa. politicians laud release of Oakmont’s Marc Fogel
Elected Pennsylvania leaders from both parties lauded Tuesday’s release of Oakmont teacher Marc Fogel after nearly four years in Russian captivity — a rare instance of solidarity in an increasingly divided political environment. “Today is a day of celebration, thankfulness and gratitude knowing our fellow Pennsylvanian will soon be back...
Roundup: 2 injured at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works; victim ID’d in Glassport shooting
Here are some of the latest news items from this morning, Thursday, Feb. 6: Loud boom heard at Clairton Coke Works An issue with a battery early Wednesday triggered a fire — and an “audible boom” — that injured at least two people at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works plant...
Man dies in West Mifflin house fire
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office Wednesday named the man killed in a house fire earlier that day in a house fire. Bentley Beckinger, 61, was pronounced dead at 11:27 a.m. following a residential fire in the 200 block of Millport Road, the medical examiner said. The fire was first...
Icy conditions — and fog — expected to linger through morning commute
Cold air and icy conditions lingered early Thursday in the Greater Pittsburgh area, triggering meteorologists to extend a winter weather advisory three additional hours — through 10 a.m. Temperatures could reach the upper 40s Thursday but hovered early in the morning around freezing through much of the region. That means...

