Latest news with #WestmorelandCounty
CBS News
6 minutes ago
- Sport
- CBS News
Hempfield booster clubs hold fundraiser for family of late Penn-Trafford football coach
A fundraiser was held in Westmoreland County on Wednesday to support the family of late Penn-Trafford football coach T.J. Detruf, who died over the weekend. People in Westmoreland County have been coming together to remember Detruf, who was an assistant coach for the school's freshman team. Detruf leaves behind his wife Jen and son Dom, who is the starting quarterback at Hempfield High School. The fundraiser was held by football players, cheerleaders, and band members at Millie's Ice Cream. "T.J. was an amazing father to Dom and husband to Jen," said Jennifer Lippman, president of the Hempfield Football Boosters. "He also was a coach for Penn-Trafford and he was just an amazing person. You'd never see T.J. without a smile, he's always happy." "That's a small town where everybody really takes pride in their guys, and you can tell he was beloved in Jeannette," said Penn-Trafford head coach John Ruane, who said he's heard from coaches across the WPIAL since the weekend. "It's devastating to a lot of people that this guy worked with. Hempfield head coach Nick Keefer says the school community is rallying around Dom and his family, but the surrounding communities have joined in with their support as well. "I think that's the biggest thing that you see in Westmoreland County and even in the Pittsburgh area, the football community is when people rally together," Keefer said. The Penn-Trafford football boosters are also collecting donations to support the Detruf family through a QR code posted on the group's Facebook page.
CBS News
2 days ago
- Sport
- CBS News
Beloved Penn-Trafford football coach dies
A beloved high school football coach in Westmoreland County died over the weekend. TJ Detruf died at his home Saturday in Hempfield. He was 41 years old. Detruf was an assistant coach for the Penn-Trafford freshman football team and a former quarterback at Jeannette High School. "That's a small town where everybody really takes pride in their guys, and you can tell he was beloved in Jeannette," said Penn-Trafford head coach John Ruane, who said he's heard from coaches across the WPIAL since the weekend. "It's devastating to a lot of people that this guy worked with. "TJ was a really good person first and foremost, and we hope he gets memorialized as a father and a great husband first because that's what he was." Detruf's son, Dom, is a three-year starter at quarterback at Hempfield, and head coach Nick Keefer says TJ's legacy lives on in the player Dom has become on the field. "TJ wasn't just Dom's dad. He was a coach, a man, and a leader that touched everyone he was around and had an impact on," Keefer said. "He poured his heart into this game we love and into his son every day, and that shows the way Dom carries himself with high character, strength and love for his teammates." Keefer says the Hempfield community is rallying around Dom and his family, but the surrounding communities have joined in with their support as well. "I think that's the biggest thing that you see in Westmoreland County and even in the Pittsburgh area, the football community is when people rally together," he said. The Penn-Trafford football boosters are collecting donations to support the Detruf family through a QR code posted on the group's Facebook page. The Hempfield football team, cheerleaders and band are hosting a spirit night on Wednesday at Millie's Homemade Ice Cream on South Pennsylvania Avenue in Greensburg. "We have three communities behind us, and we're going to be all right," Dom said. "My mom's strong. I'm all right."
CBS News
4 days ago
- CBS News
Alleged gunman dead after firing at police during traffic stop in Westmoreland County
One person has died after allegedly shooting at a Ligonier police officer during a traffic stop on Saturday evening. Pennsylvania State Police out of Westmoreland County say an officer was conducting a traffic stop along Route 30 when the driver shot at the officer. The driver then appeared to turn the gun on themself, police added. The driver was confirmed deceased at the scene. The investigation has now been turned over to Westmoreland County detectives. No other injuries have been reported. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Bombshell new investigation into Pennsylvania's Roswell as mystery of UFO crash deepens
An eyewitness to the supposed crash-landing of a UFO in a small Pennsylvania town nearly 60 years ago now claims investigators have made new, startling discoveries about the incident. On December 9, 1965, people in seven US states and Canada reported seeing a giant fiery object lighting up the night sky. Ronnie Strubel, 82, lived in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, at the time and described it as a 'fireball with a red rooster tail behind it'. Contrary to more recent reports where witnesses claim UFOs they saw were unnaturally quick, Strubel told Daily Mail the object he saw was moving about as fast as a commercial airplane. Then, he said, it came down in a wooded area in the unincorporated town of Kecksburg, which lies in Westmoreland County. 'It only took like 15 or 20 minutes for us to get out to the site, and the military was already there,' he said. But in the decades since, this strange event likely seen by thousands of people has largely been erased from the collective memory. That is, until the History Channel aired a documentary on the subject earlier this month, where a mix of experts used modern technology to uncover what may have happened all those years ago in Kecksburg. The 42-minute long episode, titled 'Pennsylvania's Roswell', was part of reality TV series Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, a show that focuses on sites around the country where there has been supposed paranormal activity. Strubel and another local, Bill Weaver, were featured in the episode. During a shot near the crash site, Strubel told the same story, but Weaver added some more context about the government response. 'The police and the military, they were all over the place. And there were guys out there in dark suits. They were the ones that seemed to be in charge,' Weaver said. 'While we were standing there watching what was going on, the state police and the military came up to us and they told us, "If you don't move, we're going to confiscate your car." And I figured I better move,' he added. Hosts Andy Bustamante, an ex-CIA officer, and Paul Beban, an award-winning journalist, unpacked much of the lore surrounding the UFO sighting and crash. This included the persisting claim from longtime residents that the object they saw was shaped like an acorn. An acorn-like model of the alleged UFO has been sitting outside the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Station since the 1990, when it was created as a prop for the NBC show 'Unsolved Mysteries.' They also discussed many of the explanations that were thrown out by the federal government in the days, months and years after the incident. Very early reports quoted astronomers claiming it was merely a meteor, but this didn't hold much credibility because of the unprecedented military presence documented by witnesses and local media. NASA still maintains that it was likely a meteor, but also acknowledges speculation that it could have been Soviet satellite. Beban said the strangest thing about the case was that it got plenty of media attention at the time before it 'faded from view' under 'a cloak of secrecy'. Bustamante and Beban turned to the expertise of technologist Pete Kelsey in hopes that he would be able to uncover the exact site of the UFO crash. Kelsey used LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) imaging from a drone and slam scanner to get a topographic map of the ground, which would reveal possible impact points. Later, the team gathered to look at the results of the scan and found what Kelsey called a patch of 'man-made earth work'. 'It's level against this otherwise very steep slope. Straight lines, right angles. Those kinds of things do not occur in nature,' he said. They then returned to that exact spot with handheld spectrum analyzers to measure the radio waves. The alleged crash site had a vastly different radio signature than a spot just 20 feet away, which had a flat frequency. 'This doesn't make any sense. How is there a radio signal in one place that doesn't exist just a few feet away? That's not how radio energy works,' Bustamante said. 'We're getting even more evidence that suggests that there really was something strange that happened on this spot, in this ravine, in Kecksburg,' he added. 'We might have actually found the real crash site.' Strubel revealed these findings at this past weekend's 20th annual Kecksburg UFO Festival, an event he founded with permission from the fire department in 2005. Strubel himself is a 50-year veteran of the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department, once serving as chief. The three-day festival routinely attracts thousands of visitors from all over the United States and the world as a whole, he told Daily Mail. 'We've had people from Japan, from Germany, from England with this little town event that we have,' he said. The first two days of the festival were not solely dedicated to the extraterrestrial, with attendees enjoying a cornhole competition, a parade, fireworks and even a hotdog eating contest. 'Years ago, we used to have a street fair, and that went to the wayside. And this was our idea for some kind of event to draw a little bit of money into the community. So we started the UFO Fest,' Strubel said. It remains unclear what truly happened in Kecksburg six decades ago, but the mythos surrounding the UFO crash is clearly buoying the area to this day.
CBS News
5 days ago
- Climate
- CBS News
Pittsburgh-area house with 20,000 rounds of ammo inside catches fire
A fire ripped apart a home in Westmoreland County on Friday morning, igniting thousands of bullets inside. Shots rang out as flames poured out of a home in Vandergrift. It was the sounds of the 20,000 rounds of ammo stored inside. "It was constant pops," next-door neighbor Don Cocco said. It was around 8 a.m. when Cocco smelled smoke and heard his neighbors screaming that the house next to his on Emerson Street was on fire. "When I came out, I seen all of the smoke in the eaves," Cocco said. They began to panic and banged on the front door, thinking the woman who lived there was home. Cocco said it wasn't long before she pulled up to the home as flames shot out of the side air conditioner. "The flames were pretty high, and I was scared for my house," Cocco said. Shortly after fire crews arrived, ammo started to take off. "It was very scary because, you know, nobody knew where they were going," Cocco said. Vandergrift #1 Fire Chief Randy Dunmire said he quickly pulled their crews out of the building. "It's just kind of like flying around some. It doesn't have a lot of velocity to it because it's not coming out of a barrel, but it still has enough from the powder," Dunmire said. Fire crews attacked the blaze from the outside for about 30 minutes until they knew all the ammo had exploded. The bullets traveled far, with some shell casings found about a half a block away. "We decided if we didn't hear any for 10 minutes, then it was OK to go in," Dunmire said. After knocking the fire down, crews did a lot of manual work, tackling fire in the walls and ceilings. In the process, they rotated crews due to the heat. "It was a dangerous situation for quite some time," Dunmire said. Dunmire said they saved some rifles and handguns, but many were destroyed. He called the house a total loss. They're in contact with the state fire marshal. Dunmire said he's not ruling on a cause, though he believes it was accidental. Cocco is just grateful everyone is OK. "I give all of the credit in the world to the fire departments. Unbelievable job they did," Cocco said.
