May 1, 2023 4 min read

The teenage boy involved in a shootout with another group of teens outside a Carmichaels gas station last year was acquitted of most charges but was convicted of illegally possessing the firearm.

The Greene County jury returned its verdict late Friday after deliberating the fate of Christopher Emmitt McKenzie for nearly 10 hours following a four-day trial in the March 3, 2022, gunfight outside the Circle K gas station in the borough.

While the jury found McKenzie guilty of felony gun possession, it acquitted him of 24 other felony charges, including four counts of attempted homicide. The jurors also announced they were hopelessly deadlocked on eight misdemeanor charges, including simple assault, when they returned their verdict about 9:30 p.m. Friday. It was not known if the prosecution planned to re-try the case on the misdemeanors.

“The jury obviously took their job very seriously, and we’re grateful they did,” said Noah Geary, who served as McKenzie’s defense attorney. “I think (the verdict) was a clear rejection of the government’s theory.”

Geary conceded during the trial that his client should not have possessed the handgun used in the shooting because he was only 16 at the time, but he argued that he acted in self-defense when the group of teens assaulted him when a deal to purchase a cellphone from them soured.

After a lengthy discussion about the cellphone moments before the shooting, McKenzie took the cellphone and keys from the group’s vehicle and ran toward the store where the teens assaulted him. After breaking his arm and kicking him in the head, the group went back to the vehicle, prompting McKenzie to pull out his handgun and fire multiple times, striking two of the teens, both of whom survived. One of the other boys in that car, Vincent Pratt, who was also 16 at the time, returned fire, striking McKenzie in the left eye.

“The prosecutor talked about the rights of those four thugs to get their property back, but Christopher has rights, too,” Geary said. “His life and his body are more important than their keys.”

Greene County District Attorney David Russo argued in his closing statements Friday morning that it was McKenzie who was the aggressor, and that his actions endangered not only the group of teens, but countless people in the gas station parking lot and inside one nearby building that was struck by gunfire.

“Everything he did that day proves he was trying to kill those individuals,” Russo said. “Christopher McKenzie is not justified in any shot he took. He is not justified in use of deadly force.”

But the jury returned twice to ask questions Friday during deliberations, including a request to again hear the definition of reasonable cause and then later to ask what they should do if they were “hung up” on some charges. President Judge Lou Dayich gave them a short break and then asked them to go back into deliberations, which they did for another four hours before rendering a partial verdict.

McKenzie, of Carmichaels, who turns 18 later this month, has been jailed without bond since he left the hospital after losing his left eye during the shootout. He will remain in jail while he awaits sentencing by Dayich at a later date.

State police also charged the group of four teens in the incident. The cases against Pratt, 17, of Redstone Township, and Marquis Noah Curry-Jones, who is now 18, were moved to juvenile court. The two other teens, Kobe Lee Cramer, 19, of Dunbar Township, and Joshua Allen Curry-Jones, 20, of Uniontown, are still awaiting trial. Marquis Curry-Jones, of Uniontown, was shot in the leg while Joshua Curry-Jones was shot in the arm during the exchange of gunfire.