Shooting at Airbnb rental party site kills teens

Police were looking for suspects and appealing for witnesses to come forward after two young men were shot to death after a large party in Pittsburgh degenerated into a barrage of gunfire early Easter Sunday, police said.

Eight more people suffered gunshot wounds, while another five were injured as they attempted to flee the scene. The two who died were under 18, and the other shooting victims included a 14-year-old, according to local authorities.

“It's heartbreaking,” the city's police chief, Scott Schubert, said at an afternoon news conference. “How can you even have a holiday when your child was involved in something traumatic like this?”

He said there was evidence of multiple weapons at the scene.

“It is our top priority to find out who did this and get them off the street,” he said.

The incident is the fourth mass shooting to occur within the last week and the third over the weekend. Just a day earlier, nine people were shot at a crowded South Carolina mall in Columbia, and then at least nine others were shot at a club in rural Hampton County, South Carolina. On Tuesday, 10 passengers were shot inside a subway car in New York City.

The shootings are an example of what some believe is a recent national spike in violent crime. Murders have increased nearly 40% since 2019, and other violent crimes, which include shootings, are also on the rise. Experts are pointing to multiple possible factors that could explain the upswing, including the pandemic, lost confidence in police and a surge in gun sales.

But officials said one clear factor in Pittsburgh was the large, apparently unsupervised, party. Many of those attending were underage.

The chaotic scene in Pittsburgh began around 12:30 a.m. at an Airbnb rental in the East Allegheny neighborhood, also known as Deutschtown, on Pittsburgh's North Side, the department said in a statement Sunday. About 200 people were at the party, according to the statement.

Pehri Faulkner, a resident in the neighborhood, said she had been one of the first people to call 911 when the shooting occurred.

Faulkner and her sister had returned home after a night out around 11:45 p.m. to see teenagers lined up in droves waiting to enter the Airbnb. A couple of them informed Faulkner and her sister that there was a party going on, and attendees were being charged $5 to enter.

Not too long after Faulkner returned home, the crack of gunshots and sounds of panic echoed from outside. “There were cars everywhere, people running everywhere, screaming hysterically,” she said. “We couldn't even hear how many gunshots.”

On Sunday, neighbors came out to clean blood from their cars. Shattered glass, bullet casings and articles of clothing that partygoers left behind while fleeing were strewn across the street.

“It's one of those things that you don't think is going to happen on your doorstep,” Faulkner said. “It's pretty crazy to have witnessed the whole thing and see it happen right in front of us.”

Evidence at the scene suggests that there had been multiple shooters, according to authorities. The gunshots began after an altercation at the party, authorities said.

“As many as 50 rounds were fired inside, prompting some partygoers to jump out the windows, sustaining injuries such as broken bones and lacerations,” the statement read. “Several more shots were fired outside the home.”

Emergency personnel took some of the gunshot victims to local hospitals, with others arriving at hospitals independently.

Detectives were interviewing witnesses and reviewing video footage, the department said.

During the afternoon news conference, officials described East Deutschtown, which is divided by a highway, as a neighborhood that had been run down and poorly maintained before becoming increasingly gentrified. The mass shooting incident followed a fatal shooting Saturday in another North Side neighborhood about 4 miles away.

“Even though there are drugs and some prostitution in the area, it's not generally known as one of the major trouble spots in the city,” Cara Cruz, a public information officer for the city's public safety department, said.

Faulkner described the area as relatively safe.

“I'm very active in the neighborhood; I walk around all the time with my dog,” Faulkner said. “I've never not felt safe around here.”

Ed Gainey, who was sworn in as Pittsburgh's first Black mayor in January, criticized the city's lack of “meaningful legislation” to curb gun violence, hinting at pending action in a statement Sunday.

“It is critical that we come together now to help reduce the violence currently happening while we begin to do the long-term work of ending the culture of violence that is enabling the senseless loss of life we are experiencing today,” the mayor said.