Police hunt for man charged with killing co-worker

With one employee dead and another on the run from Allegheny County Police, managers at Community Options Inc. stayed silent Monday even as others raised concerns about the residential care home in Baldwin Borough where a fatal shooting occurred.

James Hines, 21, of Clairton, was shot outside the care home at 936 Angelo Drive about noon Sunday.

Before Mr. Hines died, he named his co-worker, 33-year-old James D. King, of California-Kirkbride, as the shooter, according to court records. A witness told police the men argued just before Mr. King donned blue latex gloves and fired several shots at Mr. Hines.

County police charged Mr. King in the homicide and continued to search for him Monday, tracking down the tan Hyundai sedan he was last seen driving.

As the search went on, neighbors of the care home expressed concern about employees’ behavior and fretted that more violence could occur.

The single-story brick home is owned by Community Options Inc., a New Jersey nonprofit that specializes in providing care to people who havedevelopmental disabilities.

The nonprofit operates more than 140 residential care facilities across Pennsylvania, according to records kept by the state Department of Human Services’ Office of Developmental Programs.

Eighteen of those facilities are in Allegheny County, including the home on Angelo Drive, where neighbors said three adults live full time and receive one-on-one care.

Community Options has good standing in the state: A random sampling of the organization’s care homes underwent inspections this year, said Rachel Kostelac, a human services department spokeswoman. The Angelo Drive home, however, was last inspected in 2014 and did not show any violations, according to state records.

Neighbors said Monday that residents of the home are pleasant people who rarely cause trouble — but the employees who are hired to care for them seem to be unprofessional and constantly changing.

The neighbors, who all asked not to be named out of concern for their safety, said they sometimes heard shouting and cursing from the home, and they suspected that drug transactions were occurring outside the home.

One neighbor filmed a curbside exchange and gave the footage to Baldwin Borough police earlier this year, they said. Police Chief Michael Scott could not be reachedfor comment.

Bridget Haney, regional director of Community Options, did not respond to multiple requests for comment Monday. A national spokeswoman for the nonprofit, Kathryn Sampson, referred questions to Ms. Haney and declined to comment. A man who answered the door at the home also declined to comment. No information was available on the organization’s hiring or screening practices.

Mr. King has had several brushes with the law, but all charges — including aggravated assault — were either withdrawn, dismissed or handled as a summary, non-traffic offense.

A woman who lives near the house said she heard four shots Sunday and ran outside to see Mr. Hines lying in the street, eyes glazed over.

It’s not clear how long Mr. Hines worked at the care home before he was killed. The Clairton native was a kind man who “always had a smile on his face,” his aunt, Theresa Hines, said. He played football at Clairton Middle/High School and went on to college, she said.

Police ask anyone who sees Mr. King to call 911. Anyone with information on his whereabouts can call the police tip line at 1833-ALL-TIPS. Mr. King is described as about 5 feet 7 and 160 pounds. He wears glasses.

Sunday’s shooting is the second time this year in the Pittsburgh area that one coworker at a group care home was accused of killing another coworker.

Deon Wells, 23, is charged with homicide in the shooting of 50-year-old Timothy Maxon on Aug. 4 at a care home in Kennedy.

That home is run by ARC Human Services.

Shelly Bradbury: sbradbury@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1999.