Police head responds to Wilkinsburg case criticism
Allegheny County police Superintendent Coleman McDonough on Monday defended his department’s handling of the investigation into the mass shooting in Wilkinsburg four years ago that led, on Friday, to an acquittal in the case.
Superintendent McDonough issued a news release in response to comments posted by Wilkinsburg Mayor Marita Garrett on her Facebook page on Monday morning.
Ms. Garrett, who did not respond to requests for comment, started the post by reciting the names of the five adults who were killed in the March 9, 2016, massacre on Franklin Avenue.
“Jerry Shelton, Tina Shelton, Brittany Powell, Shada Malone, Chanetta Powell and her unborn baby. Say their names,” she wrote.
Ms. Garrett then went on to criticize how the case was investigated and prosecuted.
Two men — Robert Thomas, 31, of Homewood, and Cheron Shelton, 32, of Lincoln-Lemington — were charged.
On the day the capital case was scheduled to begin, Feb. 3, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski dismissed the case against Thomas, citing a lack of evidence.
The case went to trial with only Shelton as a defendant.
On Friday, after deliberating over four days, the jury found Shelton not guilty of all counts.
Ms. Garrett wrote on Facebook that the case, since the beginning, “has been shrouded with uncertainty,
inconsistencies, and now unsolved murders that further traumatizes the families and our communities.”
In the same post, she questioned prosecutors’ planned use of two jailhouse informants — one who admitted his involvement in the 2013 shooting death of 15-month-old Marcus White Jr., and another, Kendall Mikell, who says he was paid to be an informant and then told to lie about what he’d learned from the Wilkinsburg defendants.
At trial, the prosecution did not call either of those men as witnesses.
Ms. Garrett called the handling of the Wilkinsburg investigation “reckless.”
“The Allegheny County Police Department and Allegheny County District Attorney’s office should be held accountable for their lack of oversight and protocol,” she wrote. “This only deepens the fracture of trust in law enforcement at a time when we are dealing with the gun violence epidemic.”
She concluded by asking those two agencies to “recognize their egregious missteps and take actions to ensure this does not happen again. Lives depend on your actions — we demand better.”
Mike Manko, a spokesman for the DA’s office, said it’s time for everyone to be “beyond political rhetoric at this point and instead ... be focused on formulating solutions.”
“We are not sure what officials in Wilkinsburg are trying to communicate, but we understand the sense of their failure to adequately protect their citizens and empower them to stand up against criminal conduct,” Mr. Manko added.
Superintendent McDonough said in his news release that he was disappointed Ms. Garrett, who he did not name, did not contact him first about her concerns before expressing them on social media.
As to her criticism regarding the situation with Mikell, whose statements in the initial affidavit of probable cause were used to file charges in the Wilkinsburg case, Superintendent McDonough noted that the DA’s office chose not to call him as a witness.
However, shortly after the trial began, Mikell reached out to Shelton’s defense attorneys and told them that the county police had paid him thousands of dollars, purposefully housed him next to Shelton at the jail and then asked him to lie about what Shelton said to him.
Shelton’s defense attorneys, who requested a mistrial, said they were never made aware of any of that information.
The prosecution, in response, denied the allegations, calling them “a desperate attempt ... to influence a jury that has not been sequestered during deliberations in this matter.”
In that response, the prosecution denied that Mikell was ever instructed to fabricate information about Shelton or that he received “off the books” payments.
In his statement Monday, Superintendent McDonough reiterated those statements with more specificity.
“Mr. Mikell came forward of his own accord while he was incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail,” he said. “At no time did our detectives ever move him or exert any pressure on jail staff to move him into closer proximity to the defendants in this matter.”
Superintendent McDonough said Mikell was never even interviewed by county detectives until after they confirmed his housing assignment at the jail to begin corroborating his information. The police superintendent went on to say that Mikell was never a paid informant of the Allegheny County police, “despite his assertions to the contrary.”
Superintendent McDonough said that during routine vetting done with all informants, investigators disqualified Mikell from being used.
However, the superintendent said Mikell did later receive financial assistance for relocation after Mikell asserted that he was endangered by his cooperation with authorities.
“These payments were not made in a vacuum but came about after an interactive process involving several law enforcement entities in accordance with longestablished protocols,” Superintendent McDonough said in his statement. “The payment(s) occurred after the determination was made that he would not be used as a witness. That is a far cry from compensating him to ‘lie ... for money.’”
The superintendent continued that Mikell was never forced or directed to lie, either.
“Even in a case of this magnitude, for a detective or prosecutor to solicit ‘lies’ from a potential witness not only violates the solemn oaths they are sworn to uphold, but it potentially damages their credibility and that of the criminal justice system to such an extent that it belies all reason,” Superintendent McDonough said.
He said he wanted to remind Ms. Garrett and others who might publish inaccurate statements about law enforcement agencies that “lives also depend on ‘trust in law enforcement at a time when we are dealing with the gun violence epidemic.’ To damage that trust without due regard for the truth is reckless and irresponsible.
“The men and women of the Allegheny County Police put their lives and their reputations on the line every day in service to every citizen in this county. They do not deserve to be subjected to unfair and uncorroborated attacks in any public forum. Despite these attacks, they will continue to serve with honor and integrity, and respond to calls for assistance from every community beleaguered by violent crime.”