Crime & Safety

Woodland Hills Grad Killed in Braddock Hills Shooting

Brandon Johns' Twitter feed included references to violence in the weeks before his death.

Brandon Johns posted two similar messages on Twitter, one on July 30 and another more detailed one—his last Tweet—just three hours before he was gunned down on Tuesday afternoon in a Braddock Hills apartment complex.

The words, when taken literally, are premonitions of what fate held for him: "Get head shot for not thinking, one shot for just blinking." (Warning: The is very explicit.)

Johns died of multiple gunshot wounds inside the vestibule of his grandmother's apartment in Brinton Manor, off Brinton Road, at about 4 p.m. Tuesday, Allegheny County Police Assistant Superintendent Jim Morton told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that his body was found by his mother, Christie Cosentino.

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Three black men, one bleeding from a stomach wound, escaped the scene and drove away in a late-model silver Dodge Avenger, according to Morton.

The car was spotted outside UPMC McKeesport, where one suspect took the man with the stomach wound into the emergency room, police said, before he was apprehended. The wounded man, who has not been identified, is in critical condition, according to KDKA-TV.

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The third man escaped. He is described as having a medium build and a light-to-medium complexion, and was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, tan cargo shorts and a red-brimmed black baseball cap.

County police homicide unit Lt. Andrew Schurman issued a statement at 12:51 a.m. Wednesday that the vehicle had been located. He offered no further details at that time.

g. Police arrested a Clairton man in connection with Johns' death.

Anyone with information about the homicide should call Allegheny County police at 412-473-1200.

Lamont Johns, the victim's father, told KDKA his son was shot and critically injured last year in Wilkinsburg. Johns said in an interview with the television station that he told his son to be careful with whom he associated.

Johns as much said the same thing himself in a Twitter message at 9:15 a.m. the day of his death: "You gotta know who to and who not to f--- with sometimes."

Johns turned 18 just last month. He attended Boyce Campus Middle College in Monroeville, an alternative school supported by Woodland Hills and other east suburban school districts, and graduated from on June 1.

In news reports, his family described him as a good person and friends mourned his death on Twitter. In recent weeks, he mentioned on Twitter that he loved his family. His photos include a dog and one of himself dressed in a Woodland Hills shirt with a football in his hand.

But other photos on his Twitter feed show drugs and guns—and Johns displaying a large sum of money. Some of his Tweets reference guns, drugs and violence.

Just two days before he was gunned down, he posted a Tweet that said: "Death gotta be easy cause life is hard."


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