Baseball bat attack puts man in hospital
A man from Elliott remained hospitalized in serious condition Wednesday after being beaten by a man armed with a baseball bat, city police said.
Jose Torrez, 30, was being treated for head lacerations and bruises suffered in the attack that occurred about 1:30 a.m. in the 600 block of Lorenz Avenue, city police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin said.
Police were called for the report of a white man clad only in blue jeans who was beating another man, Ewin said. Officers searched the area but could not find the attacker, Ewin said.
Downtown
Member vacancies hamper police board
With four vacancies and a delay on new appointments, the Citizen Police Review Board did not have enough members to conduct business at its monthly meeting this week, Executive Director Elizabeth Pittinger said Wednesday.
She had warned City Council two weeks ago that such a problem might occur, and members responded by nominating five people on May 13. Mayor Tom Murphy can choose two of the nominees, and he can make two of his own appointments.
The board has seven seats. It needs four members for a quorum. Marsha Hinton and the Rev. Johnnie Monroe were the only members at Tuesday's meeting.
Murphy called the delay an oversight and said he expects to make all four appointments by next week. The mayor has until July 12 to act. Afterward, council may make the appointments.
Pittsburgh
Checkpoint results in arrests, citations
City police said Wednesday that officers arrested six drivers on charges of driving while intoxicated during a sobriety checkpoint along Bigelow Boulevard during the holiday weekend.
One motorist and a passenger were charged with receiving stolen property. The passenger also was arrested on drug charges, police said. A second driver was arrested for possession of marijuana and two illegal aliens were detained and turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
A dozen drivers were cited for vehicle code violations and seven vehicles were impounded.
The next sobriety checkpoint will be conducted on the weekend of June 6-8 along Route 65, police said.
North Side
Man shot in arm while sitting in car
A Manchester man was shot in the arm as he sat in his car at a North Side traffic light early Wednesday, Pittsburgh police said.
Thomas Minnefield, 39, was treated at Allegheny General Hospital, North Side. Police had no suspects in the shooting.
Minnefield said a dark-colored, older-model car pulled beside him as he sat at the intersection of Brighton Road and Marshall Avenue about 12:30 a.m. Someone inside the car fired at least eight bullets at him, striking him once, police said.
Minnefield told investigators he did not know the assailant and had no idea why someone would shoot him, police said.
Ross
Smoking material ruled cause of fire
A fatal Ross apartment fire earlier this month was caused by smoking material -- a cigarette, match or lighter -- an investigator from the Allegheny County Fire Marshal's office said Wednesday.
The body of Michael Drobashevsky, 45, was found May 13 in the living room of his home in the Northway Apartments building on Browns Lane.
Deputy Fire Marshal Donald Brucker said the fire began on the bed and smoldered, causing a lot of smoke but little flame. An autopsy showed that Drobashevsky died of smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Firefighters responding to a report of the smell of smoke had to use thermal imaging equipment to determine which apartment was on fire.
Aspinwall
Fatal heart attack cited in vehicle crash
An Aspinwall man whose vehicle crashed into a pole Wednesday morning in Aspinwall died of natural causes, according to the Allegheny County Coroner's Office.
Wayne Hafner, 55, of 10th Street, suffered a fatal heart attack before his vehicle drifted off the road and crashed shortly before 6 a.m. along Freeport Road, a spokesman for the coroner's office said.
Allegheny County
Fatal shooting results in no contest plea
A Garfield man pleaded no contest Wednesday to a charge of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a Penn Hills man outside a bar in Garfield.
Nathan "Petey" Pack, 27, also pleaded no contest to firearms charges and reckless endangerment in the Dec. 5, 2001, shooting death of Craig Owens, 24. Pack entered the pleas as part of an arrangement with prosecutors.
Police said the incident began inside the Horoscope Lounge on Penn Avenue when one group of patrons objected to the presence of Owens' cousin because he was from outside the area. The argument spilled outside the bar, police said, and someone began firing. Police said Owens may have been an innocent bystander.
Defense lawyer William Difenderfer said more than a dozen shots were fired from two different guns and that shell casings were found near where both Pack and Owens were standing.
Paint fire at Haskell's lasts over four hours
Firefighters needed more than four hours to get a fire under control in a former office furniture manufacturing plant in Penn Hills.
Glenn Kopec, chief of the Unity Volunteer Fire Company, said the fire in the former Haskell's of Pittsburgh factory started mid-afternoon when construction workers ignited paint and lacquer. Portions of the building on Haskell Lane were being demolished and those sections were the areas affected by the blaze, he said.
No damage estimate was available for the building yesterday, but Kopec said firefighting equipment was lost due to contamination from paint.
Mt. Oliver
Volunteers reopen police mini-station
The Mt. Oliver neighborhood police mini-station reopened with a troop of volunteers.
The mini-stations -- once convenient settings for residents and beat officers to get acquainted -- closed last fall after Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr. placed the officers under zone commanders. Now, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police hopes to reopen at least six of its 39 mini-stations by mid-June -- by appealing to citizens to volunteer their time to help staff the stations.
The site at Father Kraus Center, on the ground of St. John Vianney Church on Cathedral Avenue, was the first to restart last week.
The hours are from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, with additional summer hours from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays.
The bureau's volunteer coordinator, Elaine Caparelli, has spent the past three weeks visiting different sites and helping to organize volunteer efforts in different neighborhoods.
The sites at Carrick, Lawrenceville, Homewood, East Liberty, Point Breeze, Hazelwood will follow Mt. Oliver's lead.
Westmoreland County
Teller sentenced for funds misapplication
A Westmoreland County woman was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to serve three years' supervised release on her conviction for misapplication of funds by a bank employee.
Senior U.S. District Judge William L. Standish imposed the term on Kimberly Morris, 37, of the Latrobe area, who was a teller at S&T Bank's Westmoreland Mall branch.
A November 1999 audit revealed a loss of about $72,000 from J.C. Penney cash deposits and the vault.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis P. Kissane said an analysis of bank records and Morris' personal bank account showed that she embezzled at least $39,500 and falsified bank records to conceal the loss.
Prior to imposing the sentence, Standish said that the term was lessened due to Morris' payment of $39,500 in restitution.
North Allegheny schools
Board replaces band leader after criticism
The North Allegheny School Board went out of state Wednesday in hiring a new high school marching band director.
The board unanimously approved the hiring of Michael Sewell, currently the band director at Pickerington (Ohio) High School.
Sewell replaces David Patterson, who was ousted after a year on the job in the wake of criticism from some parents and band members over his gruff style. About 20 students walked out of the meeting after Sewell's hiring was approved.
Sewell will earn $54,696 annually as a secondary teacher and another $5,750 as band director. Sewell hasn't yet been given a teaching assignment.
He has been director of Pickerington's marching band since 1981. The band last year marched in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl parade, and has competed in the Ohio Music Education Association state finals in 20 of the past 21 years -- all under Sewell's direction.
Beaver County
ACLU helps mother get daughter back
A mother got her infant daughter back from Beaver County Children and Youth Services after the American Civil Liberties Union intervened in a hearing to argue that the woman's rights were violated.
The agency took the daughter of Selena Underwood, 20, a few days after Na'Dayja, now 3 months old, was born. Officials first became involved because Underwood's son, now 2, appeared to be malnourished when he was an infant.
It was later determined he had a bowel obstruction that was corrected by surgery, and the boy developed normally afterward. But the boy never was returned to Underwood because she didn't take steps to improve what the agency said were substandard housing arrangements.
Then, when Underwood's daughter was born this year, the agency asked the court to declare the baby a ward of the state. The ACLU and other groups intervened, saying it was wrong for the agency to take her daughter away based on neglect allegations relating to her son that already had been disproved.
Somerset County
Grant sought for alternative power
Borough council members in one Somerset County community are planning to apply for a state grant to turn methane gas into electricity.
Hooversville council member Lester McNutt says the town's sewage can be processed so that it emits methane gas. The gas can then be used as fuel for electricity.
The state Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Agriculture soon will have grants available for such systems, McNutt said.
According to DEP Acting Secretary Kathleen McGinty, the initiative will help spur the adoption of clean and renewable energy technologies from biomass to wind power. The initiative, called the Pennsylvania Energy Harvest, is expected to hand out $5 million in grants.
Jefferson County
Police: Faulty wiring caused church fire
Faulty wiring was to blame for a fire that destroyed a 115-year-old church in Punxsutawney, state police in Jefferson County said.
Insurance investigators are trying to determine whether to declare the First English Lutheran Church a total loss.
Church officials said they have substantial insurance and are mulling whether to rebuild, but some damage can't be undone.
The fire started in the church's steeple as a handful of worshippers had gathered Sunday morning in the basement for breakfast. They all got out safely, but the fire was too high and too hot to be put out quickly, said the Rev. Joseph Boomhower, assistant bishop of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Centre County
Sex crime charges net 912-year term
A Centre County man who had been charged with sex crimes against two children has been sentenced to 912 years in prison.
"The mandatory minimum (sentences) do not adequately reflect what you have done to these victims," Centre County Judge David E. Grine told Christopher G. Glunt, 31.
Psychologist Herbert Hayes testified at a sentencing hearing that Glunt fit requirements of being both a pedophile and a sexual sadist. Hayes also mentioned a prior conviction, when Glunt was 17, involving a sex crime against a girl, 10.
Glunt, who maintained his innocence, was convicted of raping one child a dozen times.
Erie County
Police officer from area slain in Virginia
A police officer who grew up in Erie County was shot to death Wednesday in the Virginia community of Midlothian, not far from Richmond.
The slain officer, Ryan E. Cappelletty, 23, originally from Erie, graduated from the police academy in January. He was married but had no children.
Cappelletty was the first officer to respond to calls about a man firing shots in front of a house at 7 a.m. Cappelletty encountered a man on the front lawn of the house. The man refused to surrender and fired at Cappelletty. A second officer who had arrived apparently fired the shot that killed the suspect, police said.
Police did not know the gunman's name or whether he lived at the home. No one else was at the house at the time of the shooting, police said.
Murder conviction brings life sentence
An Erie man will spend life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder.
An Erie County jury convicted Antwon Brewer, 23, in the shooting death of Jason Tate, 21, in October 2001. A previous trial ended in a deadlock.
Tate was shot numerous times in the back about 40 minutes after two groups fought at an Erie bar, according to prosecutors.
Brewer told police he went home after the fight, but two of his friends said he parked his car after arming himself with a semiautomatic handgun and repeatedly shot Tate as the victim ran away.
Fire department to recruit minorities
Erie's fire department has launched a campaign to recruit more minorities using its only black firefighter, Greg Martin, who is the Bureau of Fire's deputy chief of recruitment.
Martin, the former fire chief, is on the bureau's recruitment poster and has been busy sending out letters, attending job fairs and speaking to groups.
Erie Mayor Rick Filippi has said he would like to see more minority candidates for jobs in the city's fire and police departments. In February, Filippi formed a committee to find out whether civil service procedures could be made more flexible to allow for more minority candidates.
Fire Chief William Hertel said shortly after he was promoted in January that he wanted to reach out to the black, Latino, Bosnian and Russian communities.
