Three people were killed and another was wounded Wednesday in a pair of apparently unrelated shootings in McKeesport, stunning the Mon Valley community just three weeks after a city police officer was fatally shot.
Gunfire first broke out about noon on the 3100 block of Versailles Avenue, where emergency responders found a 47-year-old man, Robert Joyner, with a fatal gunshot wound to the head, Allegheny County police said.
About an hour later, responders to the Crawford Village housing complex found three men shot. Of the three, two died — 22-year-old Jerred Dunkin, of Turtle Creek, was pronounced dead at the scene, and 30-year-old Jordan Eubanks, of McKeesport, died later at UPMC Mercy, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said. An 18-year-old was hospitalized in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the leg.
There was no known threat to the general public, police said without further explanation Wednesday afternoon. Multiple shooters were involved, county police Supervisor Christopher Kearns said.
He did not specify any arrests as police worked with the county district attorney’s office. One suspect was at large, Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV reported. Several schools in the city briefly went on lockdown.
Two shootings in McKeesport
Two people were killed and two more were wounded in two separate McKeesport shootings.
At the Crawford Village complex, officers focused their investigation in front of a unit in the 47-apartment building. They began removing police tape shortly before 5 p.m., but remained on scene. Detectives determined the two shootings Wednesday were not related, police said.
The deadly violence came three weeks after a 32-year-old McKeesport police officer, Sean Sluganski, was shot and killed in the line of duty. And they marked McKeesport's third, fourth and fifith homicides of the year, surpassing the total of four recorded in all of 2022, according to county records.
“We have had another senseless act of violence in our community today,” Mayor Michael Cherepko said on Facebook. “This impacts every person in our community, and we need to pull together in search of a solution to this violence.
“The hostility and bloodshed in our world today — not just here in the City of McKeesport – is more than a policing issue,” Mr. Cherepko said. “It is a community issue, and that community is made up of every single one of us. Changing the circumstances that lead to these shootings — and curbing what I believe is an addiction to crime and violence — will only happen if we work together.”
Police are on scene of a shooting at McKeesport’s Crawford Village. pic.twitter.com/yZNxjr52OR
— Megan Tomasic (@MeganTomasic) March 1, 2023
The first shooting Wednesday took place on the same block with a convenience store allegedly shot up by the gunman accused of killing Officer Sluganski. Just 17 hours before the gunfight that would leave Mr. Sluganski dead and fellow Officer Chuck Thomas wounded, accused shooter Johnathan Morris fired three bullets in a tightly grouped pattern through the window of C Express, at the corner of Versailles Avenue and Sumac Street, a store clerk told police.
Responders on Wednesday included county and city police. Residents gathered throughout the afternoon near the intersection of Crawford Village and Brownlee Street. Crime at the housing complex has worsened, said Anthony Jackson, who has lived there with this 94-year-old mother for three years.
He pointed to a bullet hole in a pillar outside his apartment door.
“I don’t even like putting my mom out here to sit. ... It’s just crazy,” Mr. Jackson said.
A woman near the scene wept as she spoke into her phone: “I said, ‘No way. No way.’”
Children watched the investigation from second-floor windows. Others sat on stoops with toddlers in their arms. A girl cried on the sidewalk across from an apartment building.
Earlier, McKeesport Area Senior High School, Founder's Hall Middle School and Twin Rivers Elementary were on “exterior lockdown due to police activity nearby,” the McKeesport Area School District said on Facebook.
Makiva West was sleeping at home when the Crawford Village shooting broke out down the street, she said. “By the time I came out,” she said, “it was just a mess.”
She described road closures and police lining the streets as they investigated the scene. She has lived at the complex for five years, and crime happens “all the time.”
“I’m just sick of it,” Ms. West said. “It’s always happening. I’m over it.”
Michael Wereschagin contributed reporting.
First Published: March 1, 2023, 7:12 p.m.
Updated: March 3, 2023, 10:37 p.m.