Funeral arrangements set for fallen Brackenridge Police Chief Justin McIntire as community mourns
NEW KENSINGTON, Pa. (KDKA) - Funeral arrangements are set for fallen Brackenridge Police Chief Justin McIntire, who was shot and killed in the line of duty on Monday.
Visitation will be held at the Ross G. Walker Funeral Home in New Kensington on Monday and Tuesday from 2 to 8 pm., the funeral director said.
A service will be held at Mount St. Peter Church at noon on Wednesday, and the burial will take place at Mt. Airy Cemetery in Natrona Heights.
The procession route that will follow the noon ceremony at the church is posted on Tarentum police's Facebook page and can be found below:
- Freeport Road to Tarentum Bridge Road.
- Left onto Tarentum Bridge Road traveling northbound.
- Exiting southbound on Tarentum Bridge via the First Avenue ramp.
- Traveling on First Avenue, turning left onto Morgan Street.
- Continuing to Freeport Road
- Turning right onto Freeport Road and continuing to Mount Airy Cemetery.
Generations House of Worship in Brackenridge is now working to find a way to bring hope and healing to the community and a way to honor McIntire.
"To take this beautiful building and just illuminate it in blues says that, 'I'm not alone. My tragedy is not alone. The pain is not alone. I don't have to navigate this alone,'" said Nick Chybrzynski, pastor of Generations House of Worship.
Chybrzynski said the area of Brackenridge, Tarentum and Natrona Heights makes up only a small community, but he said it's tight-knit and wants residents to know they don't have to go through this tragedy or pain alone.
"What can we do to let everybody know our hearts grieve with you? To take this beautiful building and just illuminate it in blues, that says that I'm not alone," Chybryznski said.
He is encouraging residents to light up their homes or porches with blue lights to show unity.
"I think it's important to develop unity, especially in the last few years where just discord and this unity has been so common. Whatever we can do to create unity among people, we are the most important thing on the Earth. God so loved the world, the people in the world, so we need to learn to love one another and for me to say, 'Hey guys, let's all put blue on our houses. Anything you got that's blue, just light it up through the evening,' that's special to me," Chybryznski said.
Generations House of Worship will also hold a service Wednesday night focusing on hope and healing. The service will begin at 7 p.m.
"We're hoping to just give a massive hug of encouragement that supports everybody," Chybryznski said.
On Thursday, a candlelight vigil will be held at Brackenridge Park at 7 p.m. in memory of McIntire.
On Monday, McIntire, who had been the chief since 2018, was killed in a shootout with a suspect.
Police said the suspect, 28-year-old Aaron Lamont Swan of Duquesne, was later killed in a shootout with police in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood after fleeing the area in a carjacked vehicle.
