Two men were in critical condition and a woman was stable, police added.
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The five adults killed were African-Americans aged between 25 and 37 years.
Detectives surrounded the house and were using flashlights and police dogs to search the area.
“They basically herded people to a position in the yard”, Zappala told ABC affiliate WATE, saying that one of the shooters had an AK-47 style gun.
Zappala said investigators have been able to rule out some possible motives.
Evidence at the crime scene pointed to two shooters who used an AK47 automatic rifle and a. 9 millimetre handgun, he said.
He and his father, Carl Morris, said a black Labrador retriever that had been shot in the tail ran to their house after the shooting.
Five people, all of whom were related, were killed and three others were seriously wounded.
After gunning down their victims, the suspects fled, police said. “And they also attended the cookout”, Jessica Shelton, who had two daughters and a son killed in the shooting, said Thursday.
“It looks like right now they were all fleeing toward the backdoor of the residence when the second gunman fired from the side of the yard”, he said. Her youngest child is a 12-year-old boy, he told WPXI-TV.
Wilkinsburg is a borough east of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County and has about 15,800 residents, according to U.S. Census data.
Four died at on the back porch, while another woman died at a hospital, the police statement said.
“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.
Schurman said the gunmen barged into the party and opened fire in an ambush-style attack. 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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Allegheny County police say the cookout was taking place at the rear of a home on Franklin Avenue when the gunmen appeared just before 11 p.m. The other died at a hospital. A motive wasn’t immediately known.
