A Pennsylvania father is looking for answers after his teen son died on Friday night after allegedly being chased by other teenagers who had gone to his house and urged him to play a game of tag.
Orville Johnson told ABC News that his son, Justin Johnson, had sickle cell disease, and that, due to his condition, the teen could not run or expend too much energy because it could “cost him his life if he has to do anything like that.”
Related posts
“He was so special,” Johnson said about his son, who would have been 17 on Tuesday. “I’d do everything in my life to make sure he could live a good life, and they took him away from me.”
Justin Johnson died naturally due to the consequences of sickle cell disease, with cardiomyopathy also playing a role, according to local ABC station WHTM.
Around 8:20 p.m. on Friday, the 16-year-old was at home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when a group of four youngsters arrived. As one of the youths rang the doorbell, brandishing what looked to be a fake gun, another juvenile called Johnson and told him to “come outside,” according to home surveillance footage supplied to ABC News.
During the call, while standing on Johnson’s property, the youngster tells Johnson, “Justin, I see you in the window,’ and to “come out.”
The home security system alerted Orville Johnson to the presence of someone outside the door, prompting him to notify his son, according to ABC News.
“[Justin] called me and said, ‘Dad, they didn’t want to chase anybody but me, and I had to run fast, fast away to come home, run away from them, and come home,'” Johnson explained.
About an hour later, Orville Johnson finished his work and called his son, but his calls went unreturned. He got home approximately 30 minutes later and spotted his son’s phone on the counter. As he stretched to get the phone, he observed Justin lying on his stomach on the ground.
Orville Johnson then dialed 911, and the dispatcher directed him to administer CPR until aid arrived. They subsequently transferred the boy to a nearby hospital, where they pronounced him dead just before midnight.
Nick Johnson, a family lawyer, reported that both the father and the teen were present when the youths first entered Justin Johnson’s home on Monday night. Justin Johnson stepped out and spoke briefly with one of the adolescents before returning to the basement of the house, where he had been with his father before the teens arrived.
Orville Johnson remembered the event and watched his video surveillance tape from that night, finding that the youngsters had been hidden in a location where they couldn’t be seen when answering the door.
“They’re trying to lure him to come outside, and Justin didn’t want to take part in it on Monday,” Johnson added. “Then on Friday, after Mr. Johnson called him and told him, ‘Listen, your friends are outside,’ Justin gave in and went with them.”
Nick Johnson stated that the kid, who had migrated to the United States from Jamaica in January 2023, wished to establish friends and integrate socially.
Home surveillance footage from Friday night shows Justin Johnson eventually leaving his house to play with the group. The teenagers pursue Johnson as he races down an embankment on the side of his house and hides.
“What we’re hoping for is a full and thorough investigation by law enforcement to find out exactly what happened,” Mr. Johnson said.
“What triggered this event? What caused Justin to flee from these people as if he was afraid for his life, falling down this embankment and trying to hide from them?” “Those are the questions we’re asking,” Nick Johnson explained. “And we hope we can get answers to those questions.”
Sgt. Autumn Lupey of the Lower Paxton Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Section confirmed to ABC News on Tuesday that the department is investigating the incident. The police posted a statement on their website on Monday, requesting anyone with knowledge of the event to contact them.
“There isn’t a single person I know who knows Justin and doesn’t want to talk to him,” Orville Johnson said, remembering his son.
