Three men shot in Mexican War Streets

Police say one was in critical condition

Three men were hospitalized Tuesday night after being shot while sitting on a stoop outside a home in Pittsburgh’s Mexican War Streets neighborhoodon the North Side.

Police received a call about shots being fired near the corner of Arch Street and Alpine Avenue at 8:09 p.m.

While searching the area, investigators learned that three men had walked into nearby Allegheny General Hospital, all suffering from gunshot wounds, police said.

All three men are believed to be in their 20s. Police said one man was grazed by a bullet and was in stable condition. A second man also was in stable condition, but police didn't say where the bullet struck him. The third man, however, was in critical condition, police said.

Neighbors said the three were part of a group of about a half-dozen men who spent much of the day sitting on the five-step stoop outside a multiresidence building in the 1500 block of Arch Street. The men had been drinking and possibly smoking drugs since before noon, one neighbor said.

“They weren’t from around here,” the neighbor said. “They just camped out. They got so comfortable, some of them took their shoes off.”

Although there hasn’t been much violence in the neighborhood, the neighbor said, residents are usually afraid to chase people away, opting to call police instead, though he wasn’t sure whether police were called Tuesday.

The neighbor said he heard more than a dozen gunshots about 8 p.m. and dropped to the floor inside his home. The police Group Violence Intervention Unit was investigating.