Two men jailed in store robberies
Two men were in the Allegheny County Jail on Friday, charged with stealing cash from two South Hills convenience stores during an early-morning crime spree.
Police arrested Clyde Kuntz, 27, of Baldwin Borough and Jay Ketter, 22, of Allentown after a car chase that ended with the men crashing their stolen car and running into some nearby woods, Dormont police Chief Russ McKibben said.
The spree began about 3:25 a.m. when the suspects took a cash register from the CoGo's store at Broadway and Potomac avenues in Dormont, McKibben said. A few minutes later, the men took a register drawer containing $100 from a BP gas station on Banksville Road in Pittsburgh, McKibben said.
A Green Tree police officer saw the men driving and began chasing them. Kuntz and Ketter drove back into Dormont and crashed their car — which had been stolen from Mt. Washington the night before — on Dwight Avenue before running into a wooded area, McKibben said.
Police from six area departments surrounded the area, and with the help of police dogs caught the suspects and recovered the drawer and register.
Kuntz and Ketter are charged with robbery, theft, conspiracy, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest, fleeing and eluding police and conspiracy.
Highland Park
A Highland Park man will be sentenced Jan. 7 for voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of an East Liberty man whom he thought was reaching for a gun during an altercation.
James Cokes, 29, was convicted Thursday in the slaying of Leon Blair, 30, who was shot on June 11, 2000, on North Highland Avenue.
Common Pleas Judge Robert E. Colville Sr. ordered a presentence report on Cokes, who claimed Blair and several friends had threatened him when he refused to buy drugs.
Voluntary manslaughter carries a possible 10 to 20 years in prison. Cokes faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison for the use of a gun in the slaying.
The defendant said he thought Blair was reaching for a gun in his waistband. Cokes, a former taxi and jitney driver who had been shot three times before, said he pulled his own gun, which he had a license to carry, and shot Blair in the back, abdomen and arm.
Homewood
A school bus in Homewood carrying school children home was hit by a barrage of bricks Friday afternoon.
Five elementary school children who are students at Dillworth Traditional Academy were riding the bus at the time of the incident, said Pittsburgh Public Schools spokeswoman Pat Crawford. One boy sustained a scratch on his hand from glass, while one girl on the bus was considerably "shaken up," Crawford said.
The incident occurred about 3:30 p.m. at the corner of Brushton Avenue and Frankstown Road.
There was no description available on the people responsible for the attack.
Squirrel Hill
Two children were left alone in a playground after day-care center workers left Schenley Park without them, police said.
The two 4-year-old girls were taken to Anderson Playground in the park as part of a field trip for Train Up A Child Day Care Center, which is located along Chartiers Avenue in McKees Rocks.
Sgt. Stephen Matakovich of Zone 6 police station said the children were accidentally left behind by the day-care workers but a mother at the playground saw them playing by themselves and took care of them until police arrived.
Matakovich said the girls were in the park for 45 minutes until someone from the day care center returned to look for them. The girls were not harmed, he said.
Homewood
A Homewood man was charged Friday with helping two Clarion County teenagers build a bomb, police said.
Donnell Johnson, 23, is accused by police of helping Aaron Golden, 18, and a 14-year-old boy build a bomb that was found Wednesday in a vacant Clarion apartment.
Clarion police with FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents evacuated 10 homes near the apartment after a building inspector found the bomb. Clarion police said they believe the bomb was planted to intimidate a woman living there.
Johnson and Golden both have been charged with possession of an explosive, risking a catastrophe, corruption of a minor and conspiracy. Authorities said Johnson turned himself in to Penn Hills police.
Region
A man from Ohio has pleaded guilty to U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh for distributing thousands of Ecstasy pills between 1997 and 2000, prosecutors said.
Justin D. Hileman, 22, of Akron was one of 32 people arrested by federal authorities for their parts in a multimillion-dollar international scheme to distribute Ecstasy in Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere.
Prosecutors said Hileman was a member of one of three separate and sometimes competing rings that were operating about the same time in Pittsburgh, State College, Indiana County, eastern Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maryland, Wisconsin and New York.
Ross Township
A federal judge has sentenced a Ross Township man to serve a prison term for violating federal drug laws.
Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill sentenced Eric Johns, 33, of Link Avenue, to eight years in prison followed by five years probation.
Johns was accused of possessing more than 15 pounds of cocaine on Dec. 7, 2000.
Region
The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation has announced its 2002 Historic Religious Properties Grants and Technical Assistance Awards.
The program, which began seven years ago, is designed to provide assistance for restoration projects to architecturally significant religious properties.
To qualify for assistance, properties must provide social services, have a viable congregation and be able to match the grant.
The foundation received 32 applications for grants and awarded assistance to 24 properties. Grants this year included repairing and restoring stained glass, roof repair and restoration of a church dome.
Erie County
Commonwealth Court struck down an early retirement program for Erie police, saying an arbitration panel wrongly let the program be part of a new contract.
The plan, part of a three-year contract awarded by the arbitration panel in December, would give lump-sum payments to officers who retired after they turned 50 with at least 20 years of service.
Mayor Rick Filippi said the plan could cost the city's pension fund untold millions, and might lead to the early retirement of at least 40 veteran officers on the 206-man force — a cut in the force the mayor says the city can't afford.
The police union had contended the new plan won't cost the city any extra money. The court didn't address which side is correct. Instead, the court said state law requires the arbitration panel to review how much the program would cost the city's pension fund, which wasn't done.
Sheraden
A Coraopolis man was hospitalized Friday night after he was shot by two men who police say stole his friend's purse.
Robert Bewseck, 35, was in good condition at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side.
Pittsburgh police said Bewseck and Debra Goller, 44, were walking in the 3700 block of Allendale Street near Sheraden Park at about 7:30 p.m. when two men approached Goller from behind and one of them put a gun to her back and demanded her purse.
Bewseck was shot in the stomach, said police Lt. Joseph Campesi of Zone 4, who added that the bullet did not penetrate the abdomen and Bewseck only had bruising and swelling. Campesi said the robbers were either using a pellet gun or had damaged ammunition.
