“The fight [against police violence] didn’t end with the civil rights movement. We have a fight today,” said Renee Wilson, a PAPV spokeswoman. “If you want Dion’s death to mean something, you have to make a change.”

At the meeting, attended by 40 people, anyone who wanted to speak was encouraged to do so. Luqmaan Salaam, of the Community Empowerment Association, said the police protect property interests, and cited the behavior of cops in this city as evidence that Black people “do not have a social contract, but an antisocial contract with this government.”

By a majority show of hands near the meeting’s end, the high school and college age crowd agreed to begin a petition campaign calling for charges to be brought against the cops involved in Hall’s death, and to organize a march with that demand. PAPV has tentatively set the march for June 7.

According to the cops’ account, on the evening of May 9, Hall robbed Little Rico’s Pizza, shot a female bystander in the arm, and then fled to hide in a van parked on Hillsboro Street only one block away. Four cops, including two plainclothes, responded to shots fired at Little Rico’s. After questioning witnesses who, they claim, described the suspect as a young Black man who had covered his face, they searched the area.

The police claim that when three of the cops approached the van, they heard a shot from inside. One officer fired three times at close range through a window of the van. The police then pulled back and the SWAT team was called. Two hours later, the police SWAT team threw several flash-bang grenades into the van. When they opened the door, they found Hall dead.

Police have denied responsibility for Hall’s death, claiming he shot himself in the head with a .357 revolver.

Witnesses dispute the cops’ story, saying Hall crawled into the van after being shot by the cops.

Family, friends, classmates, and neighbors in Hall’s community of Sheraden, who have spoken to the press, have expressed shock and disbelief at the claims that Hall would commit armed robbery or kill himself.

“Dion would never have killed himself. That’s them [police] trying to cover up their mistake,” said Michelle Longstreth, Hall’s stepmother.

By all accounts, Hall was a talented athlete and football star who at 17 was already being scouted by football programs from the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State University, and others.

The insistence by police that Hall killed himself has also brought them into conflict with the Allegheny county coroner’s office. The coroner’s report made no mention of the self-inflicted wound the police claim killed Hall. The report states that Hall died of a gunshot wound to the head, and received a second wound, in the back, from a police bullet.

On May 12, acting police chief Charles Moffat said ballistics tests on bullet fragments recovered from Hall’s head wound prove the fatal shot did not come from an officer’s weapon. Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht called Moffat’s claim “premature,” saying there was no evidence to prove that the shot that killed Hall was not, in fact, fired by a cop.

Wecht also said the police deliberately destroyed evidence at the scene to cover themselves. The cops, Wecht said, were motivated by the “legitimate but selfish” desire to clear themselves when they removed the .357 they claim was in Hall’s hand, and the blanket they claim Hall was hiding under, before the scene could be photographed. Wecht insisted that only the Coroner’s Office had the authority to “remove or transfer articles related to that body.” The cops then ordered the city fire department to spray down the crime scene to “wash away the blood,” they claim.

“It’s entirely possible that the bullet slug was in the blood,” Wecht said, referring to the shot that killed Hall. “The slug may have been washed down a sewer.”

Hall’s death comes in the wake of the deaths of four other Black youths and men at the hands of police this year: Michael Hunter, 24, shot by Pittsburgh police on September 7, 2002; Bernard Rogers, 26, gunned down by Pittsburgh Housing Authority cops on November 15; Charles Dixon, 43, asphyxiated by Mt. Oliver and Pittsburgh police on December 21; and Michael Ellerbe, 12, shot to death by Pennsylvania State Police on Christmas Eve in Uniontown.

PAPV has demanded the cops face criminal charges in each of these cases.  
 
 
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