Less than an hour into Easter Sunday, nearly 100 gunshots sent hundreds of young people – many of them teenagers – running through the streets of Pittsburgh‘s North Side.
At least 50 shots were fired inside a three-story house on Madison Avenue at Suismon Street, authorities said, and as many outside. Some rained down from above, smashing the windows and windshields of several cars in a lot across the street. Shards of glass littered the street, sidewalk and parking lot.
“It was a scene of war,” said Chris Rosselot, who has lived on nearby Rue Vinial for 15 years.
The scene, said Police Chief Scott Schubert, was chaotic.
About 200 people were inside the house, rented as Airbnb, when the gunfire began. The sheer volume of shots sent partygoers scrambling. Some chose to jump out of the windows. Officers who arrived on the scene first were greeted by the sound of more gunfire and victims trying to flee, Schubert said.
“You had people running away, just trying to get out of there,” Schubert said. “You had officers and medics trying to deal with the victims they found. We would be informed that there was a victim in this place around here. There were several scenes, and it was very complex and very chaotic.
When the shooting stopped, two teenagers were dead and eight others were shot and wounded, Schubert said. Five others were injured trying to escape the melee.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victims as 17-year-old Matthew Steffy-Ross of Pitcairn and 17-year-old Jaiden Brown. No address was given for Brown.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “Here we are, Easter, and we have several families, two who won’t see a loved one and others who will – how can you even have a holiday when your child has been involved in something traumatic like this -this? And all the others who were at the incident. It’s traumatic. »
Pittsburgh police provide update on fatal mass shootings at AirBnb party https://t.co/6lZm93VAqM
— Megan Guza (@meganguzaTrib) April 17, 2022
No arrests were made on Sunday evening.
Four Pittsburgh public school students were among those injured, district spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said.
All schools in the district will operate under a modified lockdown on Monday, which means no one can enter a campus without an appointment. Acting Superintendent Wayne Walters said the decision was made out of caution.
“So many families have been affected by the (Sunday) tragedy,” he said. “Our hearts go out to the families of lost loved ones and to all who are experiencing grief and trauma during this time.”
Ballistic evidence indicates there were multiple shooters, Schubert said. The circumstances under which people were shooting were unclear. He said the evidence suggests there were handguns and at least one long gun.
“It’s our top priority to find out who did this and get them off the streets,” he said.
Paramedics transported some of the injured. Others arrived at various hospitals in private vehicles, Schubert said. The police also took some of the victims to the hospital.
Schubert implored anyone with information, photos or videos from the party to come forward. Some did, he said. Anyone with photos or videos can upload them online at ccudata2.quickconnect.to/sharing/uwOEfECnP.
Bullet holes abound
Hours after the shooting — after police vacated the scene and picked up evidence markers, leaving balled-up yellow duct tape and stickers marking the bullet holes — Rosselot headed home.
He said he spoke to a man who told him he was renting the downstairs apartment from the Airbnb and was coming back to pick up some items.
The man told Rosselot that he and his children left the Airbnb at 11:30 p.m. Saturday because the party upstairs was getting too chaotic. The man said he called the police at the same time.
According to Rosselot, when the man returned to the unit, he said he found bullet holes in the wall.
Nearly two dozen bullet holes could be seen in buildings on the corner of Turtle Way and Peralta Street, more than 100 feet from the house.
A red building on Peralta and Turtle had about 16 apparent bullet holes on its side, including one in a second story window.
Opposite this red building, another residence in Peralta had at least five visible holes in the front, including one in a first-story window and another in a second-story window.
The owners of the Peralta Street home told the Tribune-Review that their second-floor tenant was shaken because a bullet hit the quilt on his bed. The owners did not reveal their names, fearing reprisals, but said video from a Ring camera on the residence’s first floor captured the scene of the shooting and was sent to Pittsburgh police.
Mitchell Wilston, 30, lives a few doors down from Madison and Suismon’s property.
He said that at 11 p.m. Saturday, the area was packed with people and cars, and a line of people were waiting to enter the party. He said he noticed a police presence but no effort to disperse the party.
“It was chaos,” he said.
Police scanner audio indicated a dispatcher dispatched officers to the scene around 12:39 a.m.
An officer spoke up and noted, “Be advised, there’s a really big party at 900 Madison Avenue that we checked out earlier.”
Wilston said he and his wife left the scene at 11:30 p.m. to go downtown for a rally and were not home at the time of the shooting.
Sunday morning, they saw blood on one of their cars parked on Suismon.
Emily Mallon, who lives near the scene, said she heard the gunshots clearly. She said she thought it was fireworks at first, but then saw at least two dozen people fleeing the Airbnb. She said they scattered in different directions. Some ran for help at Verdetto, a bar not far from the house.
She said the initial chaos lasted about two minutes.
“It was a frenetic scene,” she said.
Mallon said she knew the property was rented out as an Airbnb and had hosted parties, but she said nothing had reached that scale. The neighborhood, she says, is generally quiet.
Jared Stelmach also heard the gunshots from his home on Peralta Street. He described what unfolded as chaos.
“A lot of people were screaming and a lot of cars were driving away,” Stelmach said. “People were booking it.”
Glasses, a jacket and several shoes were strewn around the stage.
Across the street from where the shooting occurred, a shattered second-story window was left open. Another window was also broken.
Airbnb: Tenant banned for life
Ben Breit, an Airbnb spokesperson, said only adults are allowed to book a property and parties are supposed to be strictly prohibited.
The person who booked the house where the shooting occurred will be banned for life, Breit said, and the company “will consider all legal options to hold that person accountable.”
“Our hearts go out to everyone affected, including the loved ones of those who lost their lives, the injured victims and neighbors,” Breit said.
Allegheny County real estate records listed the owner of the multi-lot property as 900 North Group LLC, which has a landlord’s address in Whitehall, about 10 miles away.
It was not immediately clear to whom the property had been rented.
Mayor asks for help amid violent spring
Mayor Ed Gainey, who came forward on a platform of reducing community violence and bridging community-police relations, urged anyone with information to come forward.
“We are using all available resources to find those responsible for this incident,” he said in a statement. “Thank you to the community members who have already shared their information and, if you know something, say something.”
Gainey, who continues to self-isolate after testing positive for covid-19 on Friday, said he plans to call a meeting with community members and public safety officials to discuss ways to combat the violence in the city.
“It is essential that we come together now to help reduce the violence that is happening now as we begin to do the long-term work to end the culture of violence that enables the senseless loss of life that we are experiencing today. today,” he said.
Sunday’s deadly incident is the latest in a series of violence that has plagued the city as spring wore on.
At around 2 a.m. Saturday, Marshall-Shadeland police heard gunshots and chased an SUV into a hospital parking lot where they found a shot man in the backseat. He died in hospital. Later that morning a man was stabbed in Garfield. Another man was arrested during this incident.
Around 2:30 p.m., three people were shot near Singer Place in the East Hills. A ShotSpotter notification around 10:30 p.m. ended on Saturday, leading police to a man who had been shot in the street near Center Avenue and Addison Street in the Hill District.
A man was shot in the stomach in Homewood South on Wednesday. A day earlier, a triple shooting in the Hill District injured three men. At around 11:45 p.m. Monday, a man showed up at a Pittsburgh hospital with a gunshot wound. He said he was shot in the Hill District but gave no further details.
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