Father forgives suspect in son’s death
24-year-old stabbed on North Shore street
A pounding on the door at 5 a.m. Sunday woke Dulane Cameron Sr. from a deep sleep.
The friends at his front step in Leetsdale brought awful news: His son was dead, stabbed outside a bar on the North Shore in Pittsburgh shortly after 2 a.m.
The dog was barking, and Mr. Cameron couldn’t quite comprehend what they were saying. His son had just been home; they’d spent Saturday building a retaining wall behind the house, it stood now, straight and neat, stacked brick by brick. He went upstairs to tell his wife. “I’ve got tears in my eyes, and all my strength of who I am is being stripped from me as I realize my son is dead and I have to tell my wife,” he said Tuesday. “I couldn’t tell her right then.”
But the dog’s barking woke her up, and she came downstairs and asked what was wrong.
“Apparently our son is dead,” Mr. Cameron told her.
He got dressed, drove to police headquarters in Pittsburgh and learned from detectives that his son — Dulane Cameron Jr., 24, of Monaca — had been stabbed during a fight in front of Tequila Cowboy in the300 block of North Shore Drive.
“They weren’t calling it a hate crime because it is [an] ongoing [investigation],” Mr. Cameron Sr. said. “They said, ‘We can tell you this: Your son did no wrong, he did nothing to initiate, to escalate, nothing to warrant any form of confrontation. Apparently your son was targeted by this guy and his buddies.’ “
Mr. Cameron later learned that the suspect was 24-year-old Joden Rocco, who posted in a video on social media that he was playing a game, trying to see how many times he could use a racial slur before he was kicked out of bars. Mr. Cameron learned of a Facebook account under Mr. Rocco’s name that
posted racist comments.
Mr. Cameron discovered Tuesday that more than 900 people had signed an online petition demanding that Mr. Rocco face hate crime charges. Mr. Rocco is white; Mr. Cameron Jr. was black.
The elder Mr. Cameron has seen the petitioners’ rage, but he doesn’t share it.
“He has my forgiveness,” Mr. Cameron said. “As Jesus, humble on the cross, said, ‘Father forgive them; they know not what they do.’ And I’m feeling the same way.”
He believes evil forces were at work, and he can’t blame the suspect himself.
“This is definitely demonic; there is definitely a spirit that is corrupting and causing all this division and crime,” Mr. Cameron said. “My heart goes out to that man, and it goes out to hisfamily for what he has to face.”
Pittsburgh police charged Mr. Rocco with homicide on Sunday but declined to say Tuesday whether the confrontation outside the bar was motivated by race or whether Mr. Rocco will face hate crime charges.
“What I can tell you is that we are investigating all aspects of this horrible, senseless crime, including motive,” Cmdr. Victor Joseph said, adding that police will consult with Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala. Jr. about whether additional charges are appropriate.
Mr. Zappala’s spokesman, Mike Manko, said Tuesday that no decision had been made.
“We are certainly aware of some of the attitudes, opinions and positions that the defendant has posited, but we have not made a decision as to whether or not additional charges are warranted,” Mr. Manko said.
A spokeswoman for the FBI Pittsburgh, which often investigates hate crimes,declined to comment Tuesday.
Witness accounts and surveillance video point to Mr. Rocco as the aggressor in the confrontation outside Tequila Cowboy, according to a criminal complaint. Mr. Rocco is shown on video being turned away from the bar, then walking down the sidewalk and attacking Mr. Cameron Jr. and his friend, Trei Hendon, for no apparent reason,according to the complaint.
An 8-second video obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette appears to depict a portion of the confrontation as filmedby a bystander. It shows a shirtless white man squaring up ahead of two black men, swinging his fists, as they walk slowly down the sidewalk toward him, arms at their sides. Several people are shouting, with at least oneperson urging calm.
A witness told police that both men eventually attempted to strike each other, and Mr. Cameron Jr. fell to the ground with blood gushing from his neck. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
On Tuesday, Mr. Cameron said his son was working part-time jobs and attending college classes; as a boy, he had excelled in sports and school. His first word was “Dada,” his father said, and he was giving and gentle, articulate and outgoing.
Mr. Cameron Jr. and Mr. Hendon had been friends since the fifth grade, Mr. Cameron said, their activities changing over the years from sleepovers to late nights at the bar.
“They weren’t raised to pick fights or to bully,” Mr. Cameron said. “They didn’t have that in their hearts. It wasn’t a part of their spirit. These were beautiful men, beautiful young menof color.”