Morning Roundup: Man charged in Downtown stabbing; McKeesport teachers ready to strike

Here are some of the latest news items from this morning, Friday, Oct. 6:

Police say argument led to assault

A Thursday night altercation near the Second Avenue Commons shelter ended with one man being stabbed, hospitalized and charged with assault.

Marvin Kennedy, 53, of Pittsburgh, was awaiting arraignment early Friday following the incident, which occurred shortly before 8 p.m., Tribune-Review news partner WTAE reported.

Kennedy and another man started arguing about alcoholic beverages and Kennedy smashed a glass vodka bottle over the second man’s head, according to a criminal complaint in the case.

Police said the second man then stabbed Kennedy. Kennedy was taken to a local hospital for treatment, though his condition was not available Friday morning.

Police said witness testimony indicates that Kennedy was the aggressor in the incident, WTAE reported.

Pittsburgh police charged Kennedy with aggravated assault, making terroristic threats, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person, court records show.

Kennedy’s attorney was not listed in the court record.

McKeesport teachers prepare to strike

McKeesport teachers have voted to prepare for a strike.

The McKeesport Area Education Association (MAEA) Thursday night granted what it called a final 30-day extension to negotiate teacher contracts with the Allegheny County school district, Tribune-Review news partner WTAE reported. In August, the group had voted unanimously Thursday to form “strike teams” to prepare for a work action.

A work stoppage has not been announced yet.

“We’re being ignored,” said Gerald McGrew Jr., the MAEA president. “We’ve given and we’ve given. We keep pushing and we keep pushing — and we keep giving deadlines. Well, we just accepted yet another deadline and that’s the last deadline.”

The union and district came to a tentative agreement this summer that would have given teachers an average 6% pay increase over five years, according to WTAE. District officials rejected the contract proposal, leaving teachers without a contract entering the new school year.

Negotiating teams for the union and district are slated to meet next week. The union said they will call a strike “if a contract settlement cannot be reached in the near future.”

“We remain hopeful that we will come to a mutually beneficial agreement,” Superintendent Tia Wanzo said in an email to WTAE.

Homicide victim identified

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office has determined a cause of death for the second person killed Wednesday following a shooting in Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood.

Cameron Blue-Gray, 16, of Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood, died from gunshot wounds of the trunk and left forearm, the medical examiner said. The manner of death was deemed a homicide.

Blue-Gray was found unresponsive at about 3 a.m. in the 2300 block of Webster Avenue in the Middle Hill, authorities said. He was taken to UPMC Mercy hospital, where he died at 3:52 a.m.

A second man — later identified as Robert Lee Freeman, Jr., 33, of Pittsburgh — also was found unresponsive at the scene with a gunshot wound to the head, after Pittsburgh police responded to a 16-round ShotSpotter alert there, authorities said. He died at the scene.

Multiple gunshot wounds caused Freeman’s death, the medical examiner said. His death was deemed a homicide.

The police bureau’s Violent Crime Unit detectives are investigating, police spokeswoman Cara Cruz said.

No arrests have been announced.

Garbage truck catches fire

No injuries were reported after a garbage truck caught fire early Friday behind a Beaver County school.

The driver, who was not named, managed to escape the truck after it caught fire in Hookstown, Beaver County, at about 4 a.m., WTAE reported.

The incident took place in the 4900 block of Route 151, right near South Side Area High School, where the truck was spotted near a maintenance shed, WTAE said.

Crews were able to put out the fire. There’s no initial indication of what sparked the flames.