Westmoreland inmate assault tied to Arnold fatal shooting, detectives say

A Wilkinsburg man was arraigned Wednesday after authorities said he beat an inmate at the Westmoreland County Prison for testifying against a man convicted of a 2020 Arnold fatal shooting, according to court papers.

County detectives said Shawnti Shifflett, 27, attacked the fellow prisoner at the Hempfield lockup on Feb. 16. Shifflett is charged with retaliation, aggravated harassment and simple assault.

Authorities said Shifflett was in the fellow prisoner’s cell for about five minutes. The inmate came out with a bloodied face and reported being assaulted for testifying against Mario Gatti, 33, of New Kensington during his October trial, according to court papers.

The prisoner reported that Shifflett punched him repeatedly, saying “this ratting (expletive) is going to stop,” according to court papers. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Shifflett was being held on $100,000 bail. He did not have an attorney listed in online court records. A March 14 preliminary hearing is set.

Shifflett has been at the Westmoreland County Prison since Feb. 6 when he was sentenced to four to eight years in a state prison in two drug cases filed by Arnold and New Kensington police, according to online court records.

Gatti is serving a life sentence. He was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Michael Coover Jr., 33, of Brackenridge.

In January 2020, Gatti parked his car in an Arnold alley, walked into a townhouse with a gun, pushed over Coover’s girlfriend and fatally shot Coover, who was unarmed, according to prosecutors. The shooting followed months of threatening back-and-forth text messages between the two men.

Gatti claimed the shooting was in self-defense. He fled to Florida afterwards and was extradited after being spotted on a Jacksonville beach.