A McKeesport police officer was killed, another was wounded and the suspected shooter was shot before being taken into custody early Monday afternoon in the Mon Valley city, officials said.
The officer killed was identified by the McKeesport Police Department as Sean Sluganski, 32.
He began his policing career in Whitaker in 2014, according to a Tribune-Review article at the time. He joined McKeesport’s department in January 2020 and was promoted to a full-time officer in January 2021, the department said. Sluganski’s Facebook account shows he got engaged in July 2021 and had a young daughter.
No one answered the door at Sluganski’s McKeesport home on Monday night.
The department identified the other officer shot as Charles Thomas Jr., 35.
“This is a tragic loss for our department and our community. We have lost a friend, a trusted colleague and an officer whose passion was providing service to the public. At this time, we ask that you keep all of our officers and their families in your hearts, particularly the families of Officer Sluganski and Officer Thomas,” McKeesport police Chief Adam Alfer said in a statement.
Allegheny County Police Superintendent Christopher Kearns said a 911 call came in just after noon from someone requesting a mental health check of a man later identified as Johnathan Jermia Morris, 31.
When responding officers arrived in the 1400 block of Wilson Street, where Morris lived, he walked away from them, Kearns said.
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The police superintendent said officers followed Morris, who then opened fire on them in the 1300 block of Grandview Avenue. Kearns said one officer, later identified as Sluganski, was shot and killed. The other officer, identified later as Thomas, was critically wounded and flown to a Pittsburgh-area trauma center.
Alfer said Monday night that Thomas had been discharged from the hospital and was recovering at home with family.
After shooting the two officers, Morris then exchanged gunfire with a third officer before being shot nearby, Kearns said. He said Morris was in stable condition as of late Monday afternoon.
Morris faces charges of homicide, aggravated assault, assault of a law-enforcement officer and two counts of attempted homicide.
Police escort of fallen McKeesport police officer from UPMC McKeesport. pic.twitter.com/x8uMwgzhUu
— Mike D. (@MikeJdiVittorio) February 6, 2023
The shootings happened near St. Mary’s Cemetery and McKeesport Area Senior High School. District schools had been locked down temporarily because of the incident.
Radio dispatch traffic archived online revealed a panicked scene, with one officer repeatedly screaming for help into his radio.
“Get me some help. Get some help, I’m hit,” the officer can be heard saying.
An emergency dispatcher assures the officer multiple times that medics are on the way.
More than three minutes after the initial call, an officer reports that “13 more rounds just went off.”
“The other rounds were from (another officer’s call number). We have a suspect down. Patterson (Street) at Versailles (Avenue).”
During a press briefing late Monday afternoon, McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko said, “Please keep the family in your prayers, (along with) our police officers, and just pray for our whole city.”
Other officers called Sluganski by the nickname “Sluggo.” Former colleagues said he was funny, had a great smile and was known as the life of the party. Prior to joining the McKeesport police, Sluganski also worked in Charleroi. Sluganski, who attended California University of Pennsylvania, had a passion for narcotics work and was a good communicator.
Outside UPMC McKeesport hospital on Evans Street, more than a dozen officers stood around the emergency room entrance for hours before shutting down the street to transport Sluganski’s body to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.
Across Evans Street, as police lined up along both sides of the entrance to the emergency room, neighbors looked on from sidewalks, windows and doorways.
Fordery Morris, a longtime McKeesport resident who moved across the street from the hospital a year ago, said he recalled hearing sirens before officers began flocking there.
“A little after 12, I looked out the window and saw all the cops over there, and I said, ‘Wow,’” Morris said. “I did not know it was to this magnitude.”
Jordan McCallister, who also lives nearby, said he looked out his front door to watch police cars and motorcycles shutting down the street. He said he also saw police bring the suspect to the hospital.
McCallister said violent crime “is not an everyday thing (in McKeesport) like it is in some other cities, but it still happens enough to where people know it’s a problem. But it’s home, so that’s why I haven’t left. I still have too many family members left here.”
McKeesport resident Jeff Anderson, however, added: “What’s going on in this city is very, very sad and it’s getting worse.”
Sluganski was a Baldwin High School alumnus, according to the Baldwin-Whitehall School District.
“I know that our entire District community will be holding Sean’s memory close as we offer our thoughts, prayers, and heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues at this incredibly difficult time,” Superintendent Randal Lutz wrote in a Facebook post.
Monday’s shooting came just more than a month after Brackenridge police Chief Justin McIntire, 46, was gunned down after a dayslong manhunt for suspect Aaron Lamont Swan Jr., 28, of Duquesne. Swan was later shot and killed by police in Pittsburgh’s Homewood-Brushton neighborhood.
Staff writers Julia Felton and Mike DiVittorio contributed.
