Memorial ceremony held as Brackenridge changes Third Avenue street signs to McIntire Way, honoring slain chief

Rain fell gently on a wooden podium framed by flags and wreaths as Lori McIntire walked up to the microphone, then choked out the words.

“Third Avenue is where Justin was born and raised,” said Lori McIntire — a 50-year resident of Third Avenue, clad in a gray t-shirt memorializing her fallen son. “And Third Avenue is where he died protecting all of us.

“I know my son is smiling down today,” she said. “He is truly a hometown hero, yours and mine.”

The Brackenridge Council on May 6 officially changed the name of Third Avenue to McIntire Way in memory of late police Chief Justin McIntire, a police officer for 22 years who was killed in the line of duty Jan. 2.

McIntire was ambushed by a fugitive he and police from neighboring communities had been pursuing. He died near that intersection, Third Avenue and Morgan Street. He was 46.

McIntire’s family joined an ever-growing throng of Brackenridge residents — somewhere between 75- and 150-strong — at the quiet, residential intersection for a ceremony to cement the changed name into memory on a gray Saturday afternoon.

Borough officials, religious figures and members of the chief’s family spoke near a blue-armed bench dedicated to McIntire near the corner. McIntire’s brother, Brackenridge public works employee Brandon McIntire, climbed a ladder and manually changed the green, rectangular street sign from Third Avenue to McIntire Way.

The name McIntire Way applies to the length of the former Third Avenue in Brackenridge, but not in Tarentum, borough officials told the Tribune-Review.

“(McIntire) made active decisions in his life toward this place — he had a spirit of helpfulness and pride in his community,” said Mayor Lindsay Fraser, who led the brief ceremony. “It’s the lifeblood of small-town life … which he died to protect.”

The speeches were a mix of memory and memorial, with McIntire’s parents each providing details about the chief’s upbringing — and the raising of his own family in Brackenridge.

McIntire’s father, retired police Officer Lee McIntire, recalled his son’s passion for hunting, joking that his police academy nickname — “Buckshot” — was apropos of his personal life, as well.

“Dad, come kill my deer,” his father, in a rare moment of joy, recalled McIntire saying on one trip to the woods. “I’ve run out of bullets.”

After the ceremony, as people snapped photos with their cell phones, Fraser was swarmed by TV cameramen and reporters.

“It is tragic, it is unbelievable, it is something that has forever changed us,” Fraser told the reporters. “We take a lot of pride in being a small community that nobody really knows about. And that is all changed.”