The two shooters believed to have been responsible for a deadly shooting at a suburban Pittsburgh home are still at large as investigators try to determine what led to the killings of five adults and one unborn child, including a pregnant woman.
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Lieutenant Andrew Schurman of Allegheny County homicide unit said the gunmen barged into the party and opened fire in an ambush-style attack.
Zappala said retaliation may be a motive or there may be some sort of drug connection.
Three women and a man were killed at the scene and another woman died at the hospital, Allegheny County police in a statement. Two men were in critical condition and a woman was stable, police added. Police say multiple people were killed in the shooting late Wednesday and several were injured. The other victims were identified as their cousins Tina Shelton and Shada Mahone.
“The victims had no chance”, said the Allegheny County police superintendent, Charles Moffatt.
A grieving woman is held back by a relative in Wilkinsburg, near Pittsburgh, after the shooting. “We’ve had trouble in this neighborhood before but never this close to home”, Boyd said. Three of them were from the same family, Moffatt said.
In addition to the fatalities, three people were wounded.
June Howard, 55, said she had been inside her house watching television when she heard gunshots.
“It doesn’t make sense to take people’s lives like that”, said Shelton, who had been at the party earlier in the evening. When she went outside, she said, she saw people screaming near the house.
“It wasn’t like he was just squeezing shots off randomly”, the prosecutor said.
All of the victims were hit by shots from the rifle, and none from gunfire from the pistol, which “looked like a distraction nearly”, said agent Chris Taylor, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Police said they found one pile of shell casings just outside the yard in an alley, where they believe the.40-caliber pistol was sacked, Zappala said.
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“Communities like Wilkinsburg – and other towns and cities across Pennsylvania like Pittsburgh, York, where I live, and Philadelphia – know all too well the horrific nature of gun violence in their neighborhoods”, Wolf said. She said authorities were keeping her from getting to her home on Franklin Avenue, which she described as a quiet street.
