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At least 5 shot dead, including 4 women, after ‘ambush’ at Pittsburgh-area back-yard barbecue Police search for two attackers who they say opened fire near Pittsburgh, killing five
(35 minutes later)
At least five people were killed and three injured when a back-yard barbecue was attacked in a Pittsburgh suburb Wednesday night. Two of those injured are in critical condition. Police in Pennsylvania say they are searching for a pair of attackers who opened fire at a back-yard party in a Pittsburgh suburb Wednesday night, killing at least five people and injuring three others.
The mass shooting occurred just before 11 p.m. when a flurry of gunshots rang out over a quiet neighborhood of Wilkinsburg, Pa. No motive has been offered by authorities investigating the mass shooting, and no suspects have been publicly identified.
At least two gunmen fired from different angles at the party before fleeing on foot, according to Allegheny County Police. The Allegheny County Police Department said that a 911 call came in shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday about a shooting at a home in Wilkinsburg, a small borough just east of Pittsburgh.
No one has been arrested. Police said they found four people dead on the home’s back porch — three women and a man — and another four who were injured. All eight had been shot during what appeared to be a cookout in the back yard, authorities said.
Local television station WPXI described the mass shooting as an “ambush.”
“They were all fleeing toward the back door of the residence when the second gunman fired from the side of the yard, and they all seemed to get caught on the back porch,” said Allegheny County Police Lt. Andrew Schurman.
Four people died on the back porch, Schurman said. The fifth died at a hospital.
[Are mass shootings contagious? Some scientists who study how viruses spread say yes.][Are mass shootings contagious? Some scientists who study how viruses spread say yes.]
The shooting occurred on an unusually warm evening in the Pittsburgh area. A woman who was injured in the shooting died at a hospital. Two men who were injured were in critical condition, and another woman remained in stable condition, police said.
People had gathered in an enclosed back yard on Hazel Way when a gunman opened fire. As party-goers rushed toward the back door to flee, another gunman began shooting. Authorities said the initial evidence suggested that two people fired different weapons. They described a chaotic scene in which people at the cookout were trying to escape one attacker firing from an alley, only to run into a hail of bullets from another shooter.
Local resident Kayla Alexander told WPXI she was walking home from work when she heard about 20 gunshots, then a pause, before six more shots echoed over the neighborhood. “It looks like right now they were all fleeing toward the back door of the residence when the second gunman fired from the side of the yard,” Lt. Andrew Schurman of the Allegheny County police told reporters at a briefing. “And they all seemed to get caught on the back porch.”
Said Schurman: “We do not believe, at this point, anybody that was in that back yard or an attendee of the party fired weapons in return.” Local resident Kayla Alexander told WPXI that she was walking home from work when she heard about 20 gunshots, then a pause, before six more shots echoed over the neighborhood.
Hazel Way was littered with police evidence markers early Thursday morning. The markers were numbered to at least 40, suggesting the number of bullets fired upon the party. “This street is always quiet. There is nothing but kids on this street,” she said. “I’m shaken, so it’s pretty bad.”
The first 911 call came at 10:58 p.m., according to WPXI. Within minutes, more than a dozen police cars from various agencies and seven ambulances had responded to the scene. Photos from the scene showed a residential street littered with police evidence markers.
Alexander said she was shocked and scared by the spurt of violence. [“There’s really nowhere we’re safe out in the public — or at least that is the perception."]
“This street is always quiet. There is nothing but kids on this street,” she told WPXI. “I’m shaken, so it’s pretty bad.” This rampage is the latest in a series of shooting sprees that have shaken communities nationwide, coming just weeks after attacks in Hesston, Kan., and Kalamazoo, Mich. Since last year, mass shootings have erupted at locations as disparate as a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif.; a community college in Roseburg, Ore.; and a church in Charleston, S.C.
About an hour after the mass shooting, family members of the victims began to arrive. Wilkinsburg has about 15,000 residents, and is poorer than surrounding Allegheny County as well as the state, with one in five Wilkinsburg residents living at the poverty line, according to census figures.
A woman in a pink hoodie fell to the ground, flailing and screaming before being restrained by relatives. “Wilkinsburg is a community filled with grief, shock and anger this morning,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said in a statement Thursday. “We share their grief and offer them our support in the days and weeks to come.”
“My baby,” she shouted. “My baby.” (This post has been updated.)
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