Justin Vellucci stories

Keith Edmonds zapped an unarmed homeless man so many times with his Pittsburgh police-issued Taser that the city paid an $8 million court settlement after the man died. Aaron Fetty, another Pittsburgh police officer, was accused of sexually assaulting a co-worker while off duty. Philadelphia police Lt. Marc Hayes texted...

Authorities Friday arrested a McKees Rocks fugitive charged with holding his ex-girlfriend captive for two days this summer — all while repeatedly punching her in the stomach after he learned another man had impregnated her, investigators said. Detectives took Justin Daugherty, 24, into custody at a Stowe residence on two...

Quaylyn “Q” Carter grew up amid poverty and crime in North Braddock, the youngest son of a hard-working single mother. He graduated from Woodland Hills High School, then earned a criminal justice degree at Seton Hill University. After working for a sheriff in North Carolina, he returned to Pittsburgh, helped...

Three men incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail — two of them accused killers — are facing trial on charges they beat up and sexually assaulted a fourth inmate inside his cell in September while hunting for drugs. Jayshon Martin, 21; Damon Peters, 22; and Jewel Woods, 28; all of...

Pittsburgh police’s SWAT team was called Wednesday afternoon to the city’s Hill District neighborhood after a midday shooting in a public housing development. A woman was shot in the leg in the 2500 block of Bedford Avenue, near the Bedford Dwellings complex, police said online. First responders said she was...

A man found dead Tuesday morning inside a vehicle in Wilkinsburg had been shot multiple times, Allegheny County Police said. Wilkinsburg police said they found the man after they were dispatched to the 1600 block of Penn Avenue around 7:35 a.m. The man was pronounced dead at the scene at...

A phone call about a missing teen near Baton Rouge, La., led an investigation involving authorities in three states to the basement of a Pittsburgh home last week, where the 13-year-old runaway was found hidden in a sheet-covered box. Police on Friday arrested Ki-Shawn Crumity, 26, of the city’s Brighton...

A man set fire to a McKeesport home in September after a couple who had lived there failed to pay him $200 for heroin, police said. After a preliminary hearing Monday, Arthur Franklin, 32, now heads to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court for trial. Video footage showed Franklin walking toward...

Both candidates vying to be Allegheny County sheriff agree: the Nov. 4 election will be a referendum on incumbent Kevin Kraus. Kraus, a Democrat and retired Pittsburgh police officer, is seeking reelection to a second term. He touts his management experience in overseeing the $24 million, 177-deputy office as a...

A fugitive wanted for a September shooting at a Pittsburgh playground was arrested more than 200 miles away — with $300,000 worth of counterfeit watches in a rental car’s trunk, authorities said. A Pennsylvania State Police trooper said he arrested Kaheem Sturdivant, 24, of Pittsburgh’s Troy Hill neighborhood around 2:30...

A friend of Keith Keller, the TV crewman who plunged at least 50 feet from Acrisure Stadium’s main scoreboard last weekend while prepping the Pittsburgh venue for a prime-time Sunday Night Football audience, said the Chicago-area man has a long road — and a lot of medical bills — ahead...

The Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday broke their silence and provided new details about a man’s 35-foot fall from the upper concourse of the arena during Monday night’s game, leaving him critically injured. The team and Oak View Group, the venue’s managing partner, “can confirm the patron was not using the...

For Pittsburgher Fabian Carrazana, going to a hockey game or concert means braving the vertigo-inducing pitch of PPG Paints Arena. “The upper bowl is terrifying,” Carrazana said Wednesday, two days after witnessing a man at a Pittsburgh Penguins game suffer life-threatening injuries after falling from the venue’s upper level. “It’s...

Officials remained largely tight-lipped Tuesday after a spectator at a Pittsburgh Penguins game suffered life-threatening injuries after falling an estimated 35 feet from the upper concourse inside PPG Paints Arena a day earlier. Around 7:15 p.m. Monday, a man fell from the 200 level of the stands during a Penguins...

Pittsburgh police Detective Dorothea Leftwich didn’t plan out her newest assignment. Leftwich, a mother of three known by many as “Dea,” patrolled neighborhoods and worked stints with narcotics and burglary units after joining Pittsburgh’s force in 2007. For the past 12 years, she’s been working full-time in the bureau’s Office...

Maverick Republican Tony Moreno knows he probably won’t be Pittsburgh’s next mayor. But the unconventional candidate, who faces Democrat Corey O’Connor on Nov. 4 at the ballot box, says he stresses what needs to be said. The retired Pittsburgh police officer first sought the city’s top elected post — unsuccessfully...

A man was hospitalized Friday following a midday shooting that prompted a nearby school to go into lockdown. Police said officers were dispatched around 11:30 a.m. to the 200 block of East End Avenue in the city’s Point Breeze neighborhood. A call came in about an argument followed by gunshots....

An anonymous tip this spring from a 412 “burner phone” helped detectives crack open a cold case: the Mt. Oliver home invasion that ended in the fatal shooting of Damon Lincoln. On Friday afternoon, the case took another step forward when a judge bound suspected gunman David Barlow, now 28,...

A Braddock man filmed himself on a cellphone video accusing a “childhood friend” of plotting to “do something to me” moments before police say that friend fatally shot him outside a Pittsburgh bar last month. In six expletive-laced videos, Kevin Venson, 55, insulted and threatened Sean Carter on Sept. 12...

The new police force set to begin patrolling Swissvale and Braddock Hills next year now has a leader. Veteran Swissvale police Chief Charles Watson was selected Monday night to lead the Swissvale Braddock Hills Regional Police Department, whose 18 full-time officers start Jan. 1. The appointment, made by a seven-member...

Pittsburgh and Allegheny County violated a Muslim woman’s constitutional rights to religious freedom and protection from unreasonable searches when officials forced her last year to remove her hijab, a religious head covering, when taking an ID photo in a municipal courthouse, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday claimed. Candace Dyer Bey...

Police have charged an Ohio social media influencer with hopping a fence on his birthday last month at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium’s elephant enclosure, where he was nearly trampled twice by the animal. “Almost elephant food,” the man, 19-year-old Noah Thomas, captioned a video of the encounter posted to...

One headline that roared Friday morning in the Cincinnati Enquirer summarized most of what those in Ohio’s third-largest city were saying after the Cincinnati Bengals defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers the night before at Paycor Stadium: How Joe Flacco saved the Bengals’ season in win over Steelers. “See, Cincinnati Bengals can...

A driver was killed and his passenger seriously injured in a three-vehicle crash early Wednesday on a berm along Interstate 79, state police said. Travis Brown, 37, of Monroeville was driving a Ford Explorer northbound on I-79 in South Fayette around 3:15 a.m. when his SUV hit a vehicle stopped...

A Pittsburgh man was killed when he lost control of his motorcyle late Tuesday and crashed on Interstate 279 in the city, Pennsylvania State Police said. Derrick Johnson, Jr., 23, was driving southbound on the highway in a “careless” manner around 11:55 p.m., police said. Johnson lost control of his...