Three face trial in daylight Sheraden shooting

Grandmother recounts incident

Marilyn Black was watching her grandchildren playing with a football on a Saturday afternoon when the blue minivan pulled up.

After that, the shooting began.

“I said, ‘why are you doing this? We don’t even know you all,’ ” recalled Ms. Black, holding back tears during her testimony at a preliminary hearing Friday at City Court.

Itwas her testimony — along with that of a detective — that led District Judge Oscar Petite tohold three men for trial in the September triple shooting in Sheraden that left Ms. Black, her 23-year-old grandson and 4year-old granddaughter wounded.

Facing three counts each of aggravated assault and attempted homicide and one count of conspiracy are Ricco Michael Green, 24, of Northview Heights, Tywan Saunders-Davis, 20, of East Pittsburgh, and Diontae Hollinger, 17, of North Versailles.

Police said they arrived in the 3200 block of Huxley Street on Sept. 16 to find Ms. Black, Jaquan Green and the 4-year-old wounded — and a gray pickup truck speeding away. The man in the pickup truck was a bystander who pointed officers to a dark blue minivan, which they pursued through heavy college football traffic near Heinz Field before catching the three suspects — who had fled the vehicle — on the North Side.

Ms. Black, who was shot seven times as she stood outside her daughter’s house, said the minivan pulled up with the

driver’s side closest to her. A man got out of the passenger side and started shooting. When asked to identify that shooter in the court room, Ms. Black pointed to Ricco Green.

Ms. Black, who was 57 at the time of the shooting, identified the driver as Mr. Saunders-Davis, whom she said she didn’t see with a gun.

She described a chaotic scene that followed — including seeing another man, short in stature, getting out of the minivan — before they drove away from the scene. She said the smaller man was wearing a mask. She did not identify him as Mr. Hollinger during the hearing.

A witness described the incident similarly to police in September, and said that one of the men had a shirt over his face.

Jaquan Green was shot in the knee and hip, while the child was shot once in the head.

A detective who pursued the minivan testified Friday that police retrieved surveillance video from a private business that showed the van coming to a stop in the middle of Behan Street in Central North Side.

The three men, being held in Allegheny County Jail, will be formally arraigned March 5.