Identity & Justice

Carmen Riley bent over her unconscious son, looked into his eyes and knew. It didn't take a mother's intuition or a doctor's prognosis to figure out that Ty'rique was gone.

Several days earlier, 21-year-old Ty'rique Riley had been jailed after an altercation with his father. Now he lay in a hospital bed, his body covered in lacerations and deep, dark bruises. He was missing teeth. His kidneys were failing.

How did this happen? And who was responsible?

Seven weeks after his death, Riley's family and supporters are pushing for answers.

Pennsylvania's governor says at least four children from his state were recently separated from their parents by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and wrote Monday to demand the agency halt the practice until it has a plan to ensure the welfare of children.

An eastern Pennsylvania judge has ruled that state police troopers who said they smelled marijuana in a car weren't allowed to search it once they were shown a passenger's medical marijuana card.

A Lehigh County judge tossed out evidence cited in support of drug and firearms counts stemming from the Nov. 7 search in Allentown, The (Allentown) Morning Call reported .

Prosecutors and lawyers for the man charged with killing 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue last year have agreed to a 120-day extension in the case.

A state judge has ordered Jerry Sandusky be taken to a central Pennsylvania courtroom next month for resentencing on his 45-count child sexual abuse conviction, six months after an appeals court ruled mandatory minimums had been improperly applied.

Judge John Foradora filed an order Wednesday that scheduled the proceeding for Sept. 23.

It’s time for parents to have hard conversations with their kids about their internet behavior. That was the message from the Pittsburgh FBI Field Office Wednesday morning, when officials announced the results of a July initiative called Operation Independence Day. The nationwide operation netted 67 suspected child traffickers. 

The Boy Scouts of America are facing new allegations of sexual abuse from about 800 men across the country, according to lawyers representing them. 

Pennsylvania's top state prosecutor says investigations remain underway after 1,862 calls were made to his office's clergy abuse hotline in the 12 months since a landmark grand jury report exposed decades of child abuse within the state's Roman Catholic dioceses.

Pennsylvanians who prefer not to be identified as male or female will soon have a gender-neutral option for their state-issued identification, including driver’s licenses. 

The Philadelphia Police Department says seven officers whose Facebook posts were flagged in an investigation into offensive and sometimes threatening social media activity have resigned.

Last month, the department suspended 13 officers with an intent to fire them after a nonprofit group published the results of a review of personal Facebook posts or comments from officers in Philadelphia and seven other police departments.

Older LGBT people are more likely to suffer from cognitive loss and dementia, according to a new study from the University of California San Francisco. 

The Book ‘Em program will partner with this weekend’s Pittsburgh Wizard World convention downtown to collect hundreds of books to donate to Pennsylvania prisons. 

Pennsylvania's top prisons official says six homicides allegedly committed by parolees over the past two months are horrendous and he's ordering a review of the parolees' supervision history.

A lawsuit has been filed against Harrisburg’s Roman Catholic diocese for covering up alleged brutal sexual abuse of a boy more than 40 years ago.

Pittsburgh Police Officer Calvin Hall was remembered by many as a difference-maker. 

Prosecutors and prison guards are urging a review of Pennsylvania's parole practices following the arrests of three parolees in unrelated homicides committed over the past two months.

One is a convicted murderer who got out of prison in March and is now charged with killing an 8-year-old boy two weeks ago.

Two other parolees released from prison in the last two years are facing charges in the beating death of a 2-year-old Baltimore boy and the strangulation of a 49-year-old Hershey, Pa., woman.

In front of the Zone One Police Station on Pittsburgh's North Side, a police car blocked the entrance. Its lights were on and a blue wreath hung from its front grill. It was the squad car once driven by Officer Calvin Hall, parked in observance of an End of Watch ceremony to commemorate Hall's death days before.

Police say a "person of interest" in the fatal shooting of an off-duty Pittsburgh police officer is in custody.

A group of Carnegie Mellon psychiatrists and psychologists is urging Pennsylvania leaders to close a controversial detention center for immigrant families, because they say it is damaging the physical and mental health of the children who are held there.

The Philadelphia Police Department is suspending 13 officers with an intent to fire them following an investigation into offensive and sometimes threatening Facebook posts.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner says the death penalty violates Pennsylvania’s constitution and he’s calling for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to outlaw it.

Krasner filed a motion arguing the state has used the death penalty arbitrarily — thus violating protections against cruel punishments.

He says ineffective counsel for poor defendants has led to bad decisions that were later overturned, especially in Philadelphia. His office reviewed cases from 1978 through 2017.

Pittsburgh police confirm an off-duty officer critically wounded in a street shooting over the weekend has died of his injuries.