The death of Jonny Gammage shook the region 20 years ago
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
On June 19, an East Pittsburgh police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. The officer, Michael Rosfeld, shot 17year-old Antwon Rose after the teen “bolted” from a car during a traffic stop, Allegheny County Police Superintendent Coleman McDonough said the next day. A witness captured the incident on video.
In the past few years, videos captured on smartphones have become the iconography of police violence. Social media provides a platform for eyewitness accounts, with vigilant Facebook or Twitter users documenting others’ encounters with law enforcement.
In 2016, when Officer Jeronimo Yanez of the St. Anthony police force in St. Paul, Minn., fatally shot Philando Castile, Mr. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, broadcast on Facebook Live the gruesome moments after shots were fired. Officer Yanez was acquitted inthe fatal shooting.
In 2014, when Eric Garner died in a police chokehold in the New York City borough of Staten Island, a bystander recorded the incident — the confrontation, the tackling, and the strained utterance that became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement: “I can’t breathe.” No charges were filed in the death.
No photographers were present when Jonny Gammage, stopped for “erratically”driving a borrowed car, died in the custody of suburban police in October 1995 on Route51inBrentwood.
There are differences between Antwon and Mr. Gammage. Mr. Gammage was 31 years old; Antwon was 17. Mr. Gammage was from Syracuse, N.Y., a visitor to Pittsburgh; Antwon was a native of the East Pittsburgh municipality in which he was killed. Mr. Gammage died of asphyxiation, tackled to the ground in a confrontation that involved five police officers; Antwon died by gunfire.
The results, however, are the same: a young black man left lifeless after an encounter with police, a community blown open by grief and outrage.
In the days after Mr. Gammage’s death, the news media documented moments of personal mourning and public action. Pictures captured the victim’s wake and burial inSyracuse.
Back in Pittsburgh, the black community erupted in protest.
Two of the five officers, Shawn Henderson and Keith Patterson, did not face criminal charges. The other three, Milton Mulholland, Michael Albertand John Vojtas, were charged with involuntary manslaughter. None were convicted.