Community grieves death of 12-year-old McKees Rocks boy
The death of a 12-year-old boy has brought a simultaneous outpouring of grief and support in the McKees Rocks community from those who knew him and those who did not but are profoundly touched nonetheless.
Alberto Montano took his own life earlier this week and in a somewhat unconventional move, the McKees Rocks Police Department took to social media to inform the community.
The Facebook post, published Thursday night, detailed the department’s response on Tuesday, Aug. 4, to a call and found young Alberto.
“He was not just an average 12 year-old,” the Facebook post read. “He was special, and kind, and brought love and light into the rooms he walked into; he showed potential and most importantly deserved to live a long life.
“During this time, we have learned of many exterior factors and stressors which may have played parts in this horrific tragedy, including unreported bullying.
“We are posting this information with approval, and in collaboration with his family, in an effort to reach anyone who feels like self-harm is the answer. Anyone who feels like life is not worth it at this moment. We as a Police Department with the sole purpose of serving and protecting will act to preserve life at all cost.
“Parents, family, friends and acquaintances, please, immediately reach out to us if you feel like someone you know is in need of outlets to combat these feelings and/ or in need methods for coping. Please talk to your children and encourage them to speak up, encourage and help them to seek a remedy, or an outlet to manage these feelings. Teach them to love and respect each other and treat others as they would want to be treated, but above all please don’t discount us as an option to help.”
The post went on to say that if the police department is not an option, and someone is struggling with grief, overwhelming sadness or thoughts of self-harm, help and support is available by calling or texting the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 (in the U.S. and Canada) anytime, day or night, to speak with someone for free and confidential support.
The post generated well over 100 comments, many of which offered sympathy and prayers to Alberto’s family. Other posts on the topic generated dozens more comments.
“This breaks my heart,” one post read. “That young man didn’t deserve to be made to feel that was his only option. May he rest in peace & May his family heal.”
The boy’s great aunt, Jami Michelle Alarcon, said the police department’s social media post was done with the family’s blessing. She said she and her niece, Alberto’s mother, knew her son was having some difficulty. They believed that was connected with his father’s own suicide, which occurred three years ago, and some bullying incidents that had taken place.
“He was depressed,” Alarcon said of Alberto. “We want people to understand that if you see these signs – the depression, or maybe they are sad – don’t ignore it.”
Alarcon said she and her niece thought Alberto was doing well for the most part. “Every once in a while he would go through a rough patch, and he would have a hard time dealing with things,” she said. “But we didn’t know it was that bad. He didn’t feel he could talk to us, but we had no idea.”
Alarcon said some of the things that investigators uncovered after Alberto’s death “lead us to believe there was more bullying than we knew about. It was more severe than he talked about. He shut himself down. He started thinking about his dad. His dad used this as a method of getting away from his problems, too. Unfortunately, Alberto felt this was the only way he had.”
Alberto and his family had only lived in McKees Rocks for about a year before his death. Alarcon said her niece had been trying to reconnect with her father, and an ancestry service led her to Pittsburgh. She came and visited two years ago “and fell in love with the place,” Alarcon said. The family, which had been living in Georgia, bought a home in McKees Rocks despite being warned that it might prove to be challenging.
“People said it was a bad place to live,” Alarcon said. “Sure, it has problems like any other place. But we’ve been surrounded by nothing but warmth and love.”
That warmth and love first manifested itself through an organization called Welcome to the Table, a project founded by Marlene Banks and her son, Ed Pierce, a community liaison with the Sto-Rox School District. Welcome to the Table began in 2018 to provide weekly meals to upward of 40 community residents. After a pause during COVID-19, when volunteers prepared “Grab & Go” hot dinners, the sit-down dinners returned in 2023.
Welcome to the Table is where Alberto’s family first met the Banks and Ed and Natalie Pierce, and they’ve been regulars at the weekly dinners for the past several months. Alarcon said she and her family were introduced to Banks at a local carnival and she invited them to the Table.
“She said to just come and meet everybody and enjoy everybody,” Alarcon recalled. “She said it’s not a soup kitchen – it’s everybody’s kitchen. We fell in love with it.”
Ed Pierce, whom Alarcon said has “taken the reins” in helping the family contend with all that’s needed done since Alberto’s death, said he recalls seeing young Alberto at Welcome to the Table.
“My impressions were that he was a great kid,” he said. “He always seemed to be happy. He loved playing out front with the other kids at times.
“I just didn’t see the problems there. He lost his father to suicide three years ago. Some things don’t heal right away, and we carry so much on us.
“Without having the right people to talk to, to help work things out, sometimes trauma starts trauma.”
Pierce said his mother is taking Alberto’s death particularly hard.
“To my mom, they’re family,” he said of Alberto’s mother, great aunt, siblings and cousins. “She’s really upset.”
That family-like relationship is what led Alarcon and her niece to reach out to the Pierces for help in the wake of Alberto’s death.
“They look at us as family,” he said. “Since they called, we’ve been doing what we can and reaching out to get help from anyone you can think of.”
Pierce said Alberto’s mother, Elizabeth Salazar, is questioning whether she could have done something to prevent what happened.
“We’re praying for her,” Pierce said. “She still has kids to raise.”
Pierce said the family made a conscious decision “not to hide from what happened” to young Alberto.
“They want to share with the community – share with the world – that it’s important to find someone to talk to,” he said. “She wants the world to know -- don’t try to carry these things on your own. There are people here to help.”
Pierce said Salazar, Alarcon and their family were wise to seek help from those in the community. “They know enough to not try to do things on their own,” he said. “It’s going to be a heavy time. You need the community to gather and be a part of this.”
Pierce said that after the family makes funeral arrangements and takes care of a few other things, a GoFundMe account will be started – not just to help cover immediate costs but to help in the weeks and months to come.
“We still have other kids we have to wrap our arms around,” Pierce said of Alberto’s siblings and cousins. “That’s one great thing about this community, Sto-Rox -- they will get their arms wrapped around them.
“If anything good can come out of this, it’s to show that this community is amazing and they’re here for each other.”
Alarcon said she has been heartened by the support the family has received since Tuesday night, and that support will likely keep them in McKees Rocks despite what happened. She said friends and strangers alike have offered to help, with several of them calling a local funeral home to provide donations to help cover Alberto’s funeral costs.
“We don’t even know some of the people,” she said. “But we have definitely felt the love.”
Alarcon said it’s not just fellow residents who have provided support. She said she appreciated the way first responders took care of the situation in the aftermath of Alberto’s death.
“They were very professional, but each one of them told us before they left how sorry they were,” she said. “I watched grown men cry. They’re not heartless – they’re humans. And it really showed.”
Alarcon said in the end, she and her niece hope that youngsters in the community – and the community at large – can learn from their family's devastating personal loss.
“We want other kids to know that we love them all,” she said. “We’re here – we’re here to listen. And we all want them to be OK.”
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