Parents, community leaders gathered to brainstorm solutions to end violence after hayride shooting

NORTH VERSAILLES, Pa. — It’s been nearly two weeks and there are still no answers in the murder of a 15-year-old shot to death at a local fall hayride.

Steven Eason was shot to death at a packed Haunted Hills Hayride in North Versailles, police said, when he tried to breaking up a fight involving someone he knew.

Families and local organizations claim local leaders have been silent while people in the community are dying from gun violence. Several groups created safety plans specific to each neighborhood in the city so kids can go to football games and hayrides and be able to come home at the end of the night.

“It’s over for my nephew. He can’t go to the prom. He can’t graduate. He can’t get married. He can’t go to college. His life is done,” Kimberly Eason said.

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office said homicide detectives are still investigating Eason’s killing.

“When you look at the carnage, the number of murders in the black community, that’s a state of emergency,” said CEO of the Community Empowerment Association Rashad Byrdsong.

Stakeholders want a public plan to protect kids and teens that’s designed to meet the needs of individual neighborhoods.

“I think everyone can relate to that. We all went on hayrides. We see younger and younger kids going out to have fun and never coming home,” Byrdsong said.

His grandson was friends with Eason. The two Central Catholic students were murdered less than a year apart.

It’s not clear what, if anything, came out of Thursday evening’s meeting.

Central Catholic High School student laid to rest one week after murder at Haunted Hills Hayride

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