Family, Friends Mourn Slain McKees Rocks Man

MCKEES ROCKS (KDKA) -- Tears and grief overflowed for a young man who died this weekend.

Marshawn Ptomey, 19, was remembered at a vigil in McKees Rocks.

"I just want people to remember that he was a great kid," Sonya Smith, Marshawn's sister, said. "He had a very sense of family. He loved everybody. He had a very big sense of humor. I don't feel like he should have died that way."

Relatives say they are still coming to grips with the reality that he is gone and that a juvenile girl, 17-year-old Destiny Brown is a suspect in the deadly shooting.

Marshawn's pastor led the vigil, calling on the crowd of mostly families to be on the front lines on the fight for change in their community.

Many grieving family members were also in attendance. They gathered in the same location where the 19-year-old college student was gunned down last week -- the 300-block of Russellwood Avenue.

Marshawn was also a stand-out football player at Sto-Rox. Some of his former teammates were there, including one young man who planned tonight's vigil.

"It's just crazy that we have to bury another one of my childhood friends that doesn't deserve to be buried," Shawn Dorsek said. "He had a full life ahead of him and it got taken away from him."

After the vigil, the crowd made their through the neighborhood to the Sto-Rox High School football field. They called it a peaceful walk to counter the gun violence that too often happens on their streets.

"The streets is nothing," Antwian Beck, the victim's cousin, said. "Just go home, do what you have to do, listen to school, be disciplined. That's what I'm trying to tell to the young crowds. Some might listen. Some might not."

Even before Marshawn died, they arrested Brown in connection with that shooting. She is been charged as an adult.

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