Police: Fist-Fight Led to Crawford Slayings

By Staff Reports
The Tube City Almanac
March 02, 2023
Posted in: Crime and Police News

A fist-fight between several people in Crawford Village on Wednesday afternoon led to a shooting that left two people dead and a third hospitalized, Allegheny County homicide investigators said.

Jerred M. Duncan, 22, of Turtle Creek was pronounced dead at the scene of the incident from a gunshot wound to the chest, the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office said.

Jordan Eubanks, 30, of the city was taken to UPMC Mercy Hospital, Uptown, with gunshot wounds and died about 90 minutes later, the medical examiner said. An 18-year-old man was taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds to the leg, police said. His name has not been officially released.

The shootings happened at around 1 p.m. in Crawford Building 50, county police said in a prepared statement.

Detectives allege that Duncan and Eubanks had been in a physical altercation that led to the shooting.

Police said that the 18-year-old and his father, age 44, also discharged firearms during the incident and that the Allegheny County district attorney’s office will decide what, if any, charges will be filed.

The incident was not related to a shooting less than an hour earlier outside a Family Dollar store in the 3100 block of Versailles Avenue in which a 47-year-old man was killed, police said.

Emergency personnel said investigators are reviewing video of that incident and that it is possible that the victim’s companion was the intended target of the shooter.

There was no threat to the general public from either incident, police said, although the McKeesport Area high school campus went on lockdown as more than 20 law-enforcement officers from local, county and state agencies canvassed the area.

McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko said the random nature of the violence is depressing, but is also making it more difficult for police to prevent and predict.

“If you polled 100 people who know where the Family Dollar is, and where Crawford Village is, they would say ‘they have to be related,’” he said. “Ten years ago, it would have been the case. These were random acts of unpredictable violence.”

Although McKeesport battled gang activity 10 to 20 years ago, police do not believe that organized gangs are responsible for a recent spike in gun violence, Cherepko said.

“We need to curb what I believe is an addiction to crime and violence,” he said. “The hostility and the bloodshed in our world today, not just in the City of McKeesport, is more than a policing issue. It’s a community issue. And the community is made up of every single one of us. We need to change the circumstances that lead to these shootings.

“That means coming together in our neighborhoods, our households, our community organizations, our churches, in all of the places where we gather, to be united as a community,” Cherepko said. “Until we curb this addiction to crime and violence, whether it’s through the school, whether it’s through after-school activities, whether it’s at home, there’s nothing our police department or the FBI or anyone else can do.”

The city also will continue to partner with the Allegheny County police and sheriff’s office, state police and probation officers, and federal agencies on policing solutions, he said.

Police were grateful for the cooperation they received from witnesses and residents on Wednesday, Cherepko said.

County detectives are asking anyone with information about either of the incidents to call the Allegheny County Police Tip line at 1-833-ALL-TIPS (1-833-255-8477); callers can remain anonymous. The department also can be reached via its social media sites.

Originally published March 02, 2023.

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