Pittsburgh police arrest 2 in shooting death of pizza delivery man

Witnesses and officers’ community familiarity helped Pittsburgh homicide detectives arrest two people in connection with the ambush killing of a pizza delivery driver, according to documents filed Friday.

D’Ambrosse Garland, 18, and Timothy Walls, 17, are both charged with homicide in the Oct. 13 shooting death of Abdulganiyu Sanusi, who went by Patrick Adesanya.

Adesanya, a 56-year-old driver for Domino’s, was delivering a pizza to a residence on North St. Clair Street in East Liberty about 12:30 p.m. when he was shot twice, according to police. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Sanusi, a Nigerian immigrant who had been in the United States for about two years, worked several jobs to support a wife and seven children still living in Nigeria, according to Wasi Mohamed, executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh.

“He was an active brother,” Mohamed said. “People described him as a big tree. Everybody wanted to take shade under him.”

Sanusi was heading to Penn Avenue when the person who ordered the pizza asked him to change the delivery point to North St. Clair Street, according to police.

At least six witnesses told police they saw two men at the scene at the time of the shooting or heard gunshots, according to a criminal complaint. Witnesses said one man was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, and the other, a black hooded-sweatshirt.

Photos Garland posted on Facebook less than two hours before the shooting showed him wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt with a white graphic on the front, according to the complaint. Another man in the photo, identified later as Walls, was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt over a gray sweatshirt.

Police wrote in the complaint that they believe that Garland wore Walls’s black sweatshirt to cover the logo on his own shirt.

Detectives circulated surveillance video footage of Garland among other detectives and Zone 5 officers, and one recognized Garland from prior dealings with him, according to the complaint. They knew him for his “involvement with violent gangs in their area of responsibility and his involvement in violent crimes,” police wrote.

Investigators determined that a cell phone number associated with Walls had called six different restaurants between 6:06 p.m. and 6:20 p.m. Oct. 15. One restaurant owner gave police a recording of a man who used that number and identified himself as Tim. He ordered a pizza and later canceled the order.

Police tracked Garland and Walls to the city’s Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood, where they were taken into custody about 5 p.m., police said. Walls declined to speak with police, but Garland told officers the gun “just went off,” according to the complaint.

Asked what he did after the shooting, Garland just shrugged, police said. He would not tell police who he was with, saying only that he would “take his on the chin.”

He told police he felt bad about the shooting.

“No one should grow up without a father,” he told officers, according to the complaint. “If I could take it back, I would.”

Sgt. James Glick praised the help from the public.

“The public’s always a help when they come together and give us information,” he said. “It’s always appreciated. We couldn’t do some things without them.”

He said his heart goes out to the family of Sanusi.

“It’s very rewarding when we get the people who are responsible for such a tragedy,” Glick said. “We just feel for the family, and hope we can prevent anything from happening.”

Mohamed said the Pittsburgh Muslim community has raised about $30,000 to help with Sanusi’s family and funeral expenses. He described him as a generous man who would distribute free pizzas to needy people.

“We were really happy to see that there were arrests made, but seeing how young the (suspects) are it’s really disappointing,” he said. “It’s really sad that seven kids have to grow up without a father and these (suspects) are going to be impacted their whole lives by their actions. I think it says something about Pittsburgh that they can be pushed to do something like that at such a young age. We shouldn’t have kids getting anywhere near this type of act.”

Megan Guza is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Megan at 412-380-8519, mguza@tribweb.com or via Twitter @meganguzaTrib.