August 28, 2023 4:59 am
By some measures, Jacksonville, Florida, was making strides to emerge from its racist past. Then three Black people were fatally shot by a young, white man as the city prepared for an annual commemoration of Ax Handle Saturday. A mob of white people descended on the city’s downtown 63 years ago and used baseball bats and ax handles to club peaceful Black demonstrators who were protesting segregation at a lunch counter. Some longtime residents say racism has once again become normalized because of the nation’s divisive politics. They say the deadly shooting over the weekend may be another example.
August 28, 2023 4:56 am
PITTSBURGH — (WPXI) – School shootings are an all too familiar and terrifying scene, but at the University of Pittsburgh, students and professors will soon be armed with a new tool to help fight back. Panic buttons are being installed for the fall semester in about 400 main campus classrooms, generally on doors or podiums, to quickly call for help in case of an active threat or emergency. The university posted a video to its website showing how the device works. Once pushed, classroom doors lock from the outside and police are immediately called. The new security measures come after two calls in the spring about an active shooter at the university, including in the library. Turns out, those calls were all a hoax, but it caused mass panic with students running for their lives.
August 28, 2023 2:30 am
An unidentified 15-year old boy suffered a gunshot wound to the leg Sunday afternoon in the City of Washington. Police Chief Dan Rush tells WJPA News the shooting occurred around 4 p.m in the area of Arch Street. He says it is believed his injuries are non-life threatening. He was transported to a Pittsburgh hospital but there is no word on his condition. Chief Rush says they have no suspects at this time and detectives continue to investigate. Anyone who may have information about the shooting is asked to call police at 724-223-4226. No other information is being released at this time.
August 28, 2023 2:11 am
MCMURRAY, Pa. (WPXI) — A person was taken to a hospital after an SUV they were driving overturned near a shopping center in Washington County on Saturday afternoon. According to a Washington County 911 supervisor, crews were called to the scene at 3:30 p.m. While leaving the parking lot of Donaldson’s Crossroads Shopping Center, the vehicle went over an embankment and turned over near Route 19. The driver’s condition is not known at this time.
August 28, 2023 2:10 am
ELCO, Pa. — A Roscoe man was killed following a wrong-way crash on Toll Route 43 near Elco early Sunday morning. The Washington County Coroner says 24-year-old Tyler Smith was the operator and sole occupant of a vehicle traveling the wrong way (south in the northbound lanes) on Route 43 near Elco. He reportedly collided with a vehicle traveling north. The incident was reported to Washington County 911 just before 3:00 a.m. Officials say he was transported to the emergency department at Penn Highlands Mon Valley Hospital, and was pronounced dead around 4:00 a.m. Smith’s cause and manner of death are pending an autopsy and further investigation. Brownsville Ambulance and the California Fire Department assisted at the scene. The accident is under investigation by Pennsylvania State Police. There is no word on any other injuries from this incident.
August 27, 2023 7:23 am
In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact. Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them. Many power poles on Maui were built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected life.
August 27, 2023 7:21 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jacksonville’s sheriff says a white gunman who killed three people at a Dollar General store Saturday was racially motivated and hated Black people. Sheriff T.K. Waters says the shooter then killed himself. The two men and one woman who were killed were Black. Waters says there is no evidence the shooter was part of a group. Jacksonville residents, who on the same day attended the 60th anniversary commemoration of the March on Washington and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famed “I Have A Dream” speech, reflected on the continuation of racist violence in Florida.
August 27, 2023 7:19 am
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s Investigative Committee has confirmed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash. The committee said in a statement Sunday that after forensic testing, all 10 bodies recovered at the site of the crash were identified and the findings “conform to the manifest” of the plane. Russia’s civil aviation authority earlier this week said Prigozhin and some of his top lieutenants were on the list of people on board the plane that crashed in Russia on Wednesday. The 62-year-old Prigozhin was killed two months after he mounted a daylong mutiny against Russia’s military that President Vladimir Putin decried as “treason.”
August 27, 2023 7:16 am
PITTSBURGH (WPXI) — A protest was held Saturday afternoon in support of William Hardison Sr., the man who Pittsburgh Police say barricaded himself in his home and died after a lengthy standoff earlier this week. Protesters marched down Broad Street chanting and carrying signs reading, ‘lies’ and ‘housing issues,’ in solidarity with the 63-year-old. They stopped in front of the house where neighbors told Channel 11 Hardison was squatting. Wednesday morning, deputies were serving Hardison an eviction notice from the courts when authorities said Hardison started shooting at them. Hundreds of bullets were fired back and forth for hours as several neighbors took cover waiting to be evacuated by police. During a media briefing Wednesday, Police Chief Larry Scirotto said Hardison’s death was not the outcome they wanted, but they gave him every chance to end things peacefully. Still, protesters are demanding accountability saying his death could have been avoided. State police are in charge of the investigation. The medical examiner has not yet confirmed if Hardison was killed by police or if his wounds were self-inflicted.
August 27, 2023 7:12 am
CLAIRTON, Pa. (WPXI) — The Allegheny County Police Department’s Homicide Unit is investigating the death of a man in Clairton. Authorities responded to a single-vehicle crash on the 600 block of Miller Avenue Friday around 10:55 p.m. They found a 51-year-old man in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was taken to an area hospital, where he died just after midnight. The homicide unit says detectives think the shooting happened in the 800 block of Miller Avenue. Anyone with information is asked to call the County Police Tip Line at 1-833-ALL-TIPS.
