Pittsburgh police charge man in Northview Heights homicide

Pittsburgh police are accusing a man of fatally shooting his companion in the back when, investigators say, they opened fire on a group of people earlier this month in the city’s Northview Heights neighborhood.

Police on Tuesday arrested Ernest Terry, 18, of Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar and charged him with the death of Samuel Mitchell.

Terry was arrested near his Mingo Street home on nine criminal charges, including homicide, attempted homicide and firearms violations.

Police have an arrest warrant in the case for a third man, Devaughn Echols. Charges against him were not available online on Wednesday.

Terry, Mitchell and Echols ran up to a building in the 800 block of Mt. Pleasant Road around 1 a.m. Nov. 7 and shot at a group of people gathered outside, according to a criminal complaint in the case.

ShotSpotter, the gunfire detection system, reported that 20 rounds were fired there at 1:17 a.m., police said.

First responders took two of the victims, whom police did not name, to Allegheny General Hospital in stable condition, the complaint said.

One of the victims had been shot in the right shoulder, police said. The second was shot in the ankle. A bullet grazed a third victim on their side.

Police later found Mitchell, identified by investigators as one the shooters, crawling out of a wrecked car on Pittsburgh’s North Side with a gunshot wound to the back, police said. He later died at Allegheny General Hospital.

Officers recovered 16 shell casings from the street, sidewalk and a grassy area on Mt. Pleasant Road, police said. They also found a trail of blood nearby.

In the line of fire

Video surveillance showed the three suspects squeezing through a hole in a Mt. Pleasant Road fence shortly before the shooting, police said.

They ran near a car parked across the street from the victims, police said. One man, later identified as Mitchell, took a shooting stance and started firing at the group of five people.

Then, police said, Echols ran up and opened fire.

The third shooter, identified by police as Terry, ran toward the building and stopped about 30 feet behind Mitchell, police said. He fired multiple times toward the group, according to the complaint.

But, police said, Mitchell stood in the line of fire.

As gunfire erupted, video footage appeared to show Mitchell being shot, the complaint said. At one point in the footage, Mitchell suddenly arched his back and threw his elbows behind him as he quickly turned around and stopped shooting.

All three suspects fled, leaving Mt. Pleasant Road through the same fence they originally entered, the complaint said.

Just two minutes later, at 1:20 a.m., video cameras spotted a dark-colored sedan speeding recklessly nearby, the complaint said. The vehicle crossed the center lane of traffic and didn’t slow down at stop signs.

That car then hit another vehicle and crashed, the complaint said. Two men were seen fleeing from the car.

The two men climbed a fence and hid under a porch on Tripoli Street, the complaint said. After about 15 minutes, the two men walked into the street, where a Nissan Altima picked them up.

Police responding to the shooting later saw a dark blue Chevrolet Impala crashed on North Avenue, the complaint said. The rear of the vehicle was damaged. Mitchell was trying to crawl out of a passenger door.

Officers rushed Mitchell to nearby Allegheny General Hospital, the complaint said. He died there five hours later.

Fingerprint match

Police later found the Nissan at an Amazon facility parking lot in Aleppo. The vehicle’s owner, who police did not name, worked there.

Fingerprints on a plastic bag in the Nissan matched Terry’s prints, the complaint said.

Police also searched the Impala and found all three men’s fingerprints, as well as a brown Pittsburgh Pirates ballcap and several receipts from the day of the shooting.

One receipt led to a video showing Mitchell and Echols buying a facemask hours before the shooting from a Walmart in West Mifflin, police said. Echols was wearing a brown Pittsburgh Pirates cap in the footage.

Mitchell’s iPhone 11, which police recovered from the car wreck, showed a photo of the three shooters an hour before the incident, the complaint said.

Terry cannot legally possess a gun because he previously pleaded guilty to a felony aggravated assault, the complaint said.