Teen charged as adult in shooting
A Monroeville teenager has been charged as an adult with attempted homicide after a man was shot Tuesday night in Monroeville.
Rayshaun Jackson, 16, was also charged Thursday with aggravated assault, carrying a firearm without a license, possession of a firearm by a minor, reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.
Monroeville police responded about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday to the 100 block of Leslie Drive for reports of a shooting. They found an 18-yearold man sitting in the driver’s seat of a car with two gunshot wounds to his upper body, according to a criminal complaint.
He was taken to Forbes Hospital in critical condition but is expected to survive, Monroeville police Chief Doug Cole said Thursday. His identity has not been released.
“We don’t have a motive yet, but it is likely drug-related,” Chief Cole said.
A set of footprints that were “spread apart as if the person was running” were found in the snow and led from the victim’s car on Leslie Drive to less than a mile away in the 300 block of Coleman Drive, where Rayshaun and a few others were found inside a home.
Several people were taken in for questioning Tuesday night from the Coleman Drive home, the complaint said. Police said they believe Rayshaun is the alleged shooter due to evidence and his confession that a drug deal had gone bad that night. He told police that he went to Leslie Drive to purchase marijuana from a man he had never met before.
Rayshaun told police the man became “triggered” for some
reason when he attempted to pay him for the drugs, and the man threatened to shoot him. Rayshaun also said, however, that he did not see the man pull out a firearm, the complaint said.
Police said that’s when Rayshaun pulled out his own gun and shot the man. He ran back toward the house on Coleman Drive and hid his gun in a shed.
An additional set of footprints led police to a nearby shed where they found a .38caliber special revolver underneath a carpet. The gun had three spent casings and three empty chambers, police said.
Also, a pair of shoes found in Rayshaun’s bedroom at the Coleman Drive house matched the footprints, the criminal complaint said.
His preliminary hearing is set for Feb. 7 at City Court in Downtown Pittsburgh.
While searching the Coleman Drive home, police also found a stolen semi-automatic rifle underneath a mattress that had been reported missing in 2012. Jordan Trowery, 34, of Verona, was arrested Thursday and charged with receiving stolen property. He posted bail the same day, according to court records.
Mr. Trowery told police he was unaware the gun had been stolen and that he had received the firearm a few weeks ago from a friend. He declined to give police his friend’s name and was charged. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for him Feb. 10 before District Judge Jeffrey L. Herbst.