Jonny Gammage

On October 12, 1995, African-American businessman Jonny Gammage was killed by police officers from several departments around Pittsburgh.

Background

Jon E. Gammage was born on July 20, 1964, in Syracuse, New York, to Johnny L. and Narves Gammage. He was the cousin of Ray Seals, an NFL football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was Seals's business partner and adviser, helping him manage his entrepreneurial and philanthropic ventures. His last words were "Keith, Keith, I'm 31. I'm only 31."

He was officially declared dead at 3:51am at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh. Besides the officers involved, the only other witness to the killing was a tow-truck driver.

Autopsy A coroner's report by the Allegheny County medical examiner stated that his cause of death was homicide by asphyxiation due to pressure applied to the chest and neck. Cyril Wecht, a pathologist who performed an independent autopsy, told CBS This Morning that,

[There was] no evidence of a heart attack or any other natural disease process. He died as a result of asphyxiating due to compression of the lower neck and upper chest area... through the application of some instrumentality. Considering that these were police officers involved, then the best bet obviously would be a night-stick, a truncheon of some kind that would have been pressed down somewhat parallel to the ground, perpendicular to the transverse lie of the chest with a significant amount of pressure applied over a sustained period of time.

Trials On November 3, 1995, a coroner's jury after a three-day open inquest recommended that homicide charges be brought against all five officers. Allegheny County district attorney Bob Colville filed charges of involuntary manslaughter against Mullholland, Michael Albert of the Baldwin Police Department, and John Vojtas of the Brentwood Police Department. Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, who is white, appealed for calm and criticized the verdict. "I don't think that this is Pittsburgh's finest day. I think justice could have been done better." By September 2019, Votjas had retired.

Aftermath Despite community pressure in both Pittsburgh and Syracuse, on Feb 19, 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice declined to bring a civil rights action against the officers and police departments involved.

Mentions in media The incident forms part of the basis of the song "Police Story" on the Anti-Flag album, A New Kind of Army.

The incident is also mentioned by rapper Sun Rise Above on the song "Triple 7 Special".

The Gammage Project, a play by Attilio Favorini, centers around the events of the murder and the trial.

In the This Is Us season 5 premiere, Randall tells Malik about Gammage's death and how tough it was to cope with it on his own.