As the dog days of 2017 approach, the killings in Allegheny County have become more heated. July’s homicides included the brutal shooting of a potential homicide witness because she was screaming, and the brazen daylight shooting of two men in Larimer. They also included two victims who died after being shot years earlier. In all, 83 percent of July’s homicide victims were Black:
JULY 1—Romeke Freeman, a 22-year-old Black male, was found by Pittsburgh police with a fatal gunshot wound to the head outside a home in the 400 Block of S. Aiken Avenue in Garfield. He was taken to UPMC Presbyterian where he died about three hours later. Police have not identified a suspect. The investigation is ongoing.
JULY 2—Jeremiah Jones, a 19-year-old Black male, was found fatally shot around 3 a.m. in a remote wooded area off Lougeay Road in Wilkins Township. Allegheny County police Chief Andrew Sherman said it appeared he had driven there to meet someone. No suspect has been identified as of yet. The investigation continues.
JULY 4—Erric Jackson, a 28-year-old Black male, died as a result of a gunshot wound to the head he received in 2010. In 2015, Melvin “We-eye” Smalls, who was in jail at the time, was charged with the shooting that had left Jackson in a permanent vegetative state.
JULY 9—Mia White, a 30-year-old Black female, was killed when the car she sat in on Liverpool Street in Pittsburgh’s Manchester neighborhood was riddled with at least 10 shots. A 27-year-old female she was sitting with was wounded in the leg. Police have not yet identified a suspect. The investigation continues.
JULY 16—Robert Harper Jr., a 28-year-old Black male, died from multiple gunshot wounds in the hallway of an apartment building in the 1700 block of Belleau Street in Fineview’s Allegheny Dwellings public housing complex. Police have not identified a suspect. The investigation is ongoing.
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