A Penn Hills man has been charged in connection with a shooting Tuesday night at South Hills Village Mall.
Elijah E. Brown, 18, is charged with aggravated assault, discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure, receiving stolen property, carrying a firearm without a license and attempting to elude police, according to a criminal complaint.
Bethel Park Police were dispatched around 5:10 p.m. Tuesday to the parking lot of the AMC movie theater in the South Hills Village Mall. A male victim on scene, whose age was not included in the criminal complaint, told police that a 16-year-old boy punched the sideview mirror of the victim’s car after arguing with a group of people sitting inside a Kia sedan.
The victim told police he exited his car and began arguing with the 16-year-old, demanding payment for the car damage. The victim told police he dragged the 16-year-old to the ground and the two began fighting. The victim heard two loud pops that he believed were gunshots, the complaint says.
No one was shot, according to police.
The 16-year-old got back into the Kia, which drove away, the victim told police. Mt. Lebanon Police later determined the Kia had been stolen and attempted to stop the vehicle. It crashed and four male occupants fled on foot.
Allegheny County Police took three of the occupants into custody for questioning — the 16-year-old, Brown and another man, who has not been charged.
Brown told police he was driving the stolen vehicle and that he fired a gun twice into the ground in the direction of the victim and the 16-year-old as they were fighting.
The 16-year-old told police that Brown picked him up in Oakland and that he knew the Kia had been stolen. The two drove to pick up another man from Beechview before heading to the South Hills Village Mall, the complaint says.
The 16-year-old told police he got into a verbal altercation with Brown and exited the vehicle. He admitted to fighting the victim after punching his sideview mirror. The 16-year-old did not hear a gunshot but assumed the victim had been shot “because he stopped fighting abruptly,” the complaint says.
Police found a bullet impression in the wall near the theater’s main entrance, as well as a 9mm shell casing lying on the road.Ring doorbell footage shows Brown falling and dropping the firearm in front of a home on Wainbell Avenue in Dormont while the males were fleeing from the crashed Kia, police said.
A preliminary hearing for Brown has yet to be scheduled.