Pair of Saturday shootings in city injure 7

Police officer among those hit by gunfire

Pittsburgh turned violent once again early Saturday, as two separate incidents saw seven people — including a Pittsburgh police officer — hit by gunfire.

In that incident, Pittsburgh police were called to the 300 block of Brownsville Road in Knoxville about 5:25 a.m. for reports that multiple shots had been fired. When officers arrived, a statement from Allegheny County police said, they spotted 21-year-old Julian ReeseKrasausky running from the scene. Police followed on foot and Reese-Krasausky fired a handgun, the bullet striking the protective vest covering the officer’s chest, the statement said.

The officer was taken to a hospital for evaluation. No further information about the officer’s condition was available Saturday. His name was not released.

Reese-Krasausky, of Pittsburgh, was apprehended and officers found he had a gunshot wound in his shoulder. Detectives determined that he was wounded in an incident outside a Knoxville after -hours club called The Lobby, at Bausman Street and Ibis Way.

The county police statement said a 25-year-old woman and a 57year-old man sustained gunshot wounds in their legs in addition to the wound sustained by Reese-Krasausky.

The man and woman, whose identities were not released, were taken to hospitals, and both were in stable condition, county police said. Reese-Krasausky also was taken to a hospital for treatment of his wound, which detectives believe was sustained in the incident outside the club. He also was listed in stable condition.

There was no evidence that any of the officers involved fired a weapon, county police said. And no other suspects in the incident had been identified.

Police were consulting with the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office to determine charges for Reese-Krasausky. Court records show that in 2019, he pleaded guilty to simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and fleeing an officer. And in February, he pleaded guilty to felony firearms charges and reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor. The 2022 conviction resulted in two concurrent sentences of probation totaling five years, records show.

The weapon Reese-Krasausky fired at police appeared to be privately manufactured, police said without explaining exactly what that means.

About two hours earlier, Pittsburgh officers responded to South 12th Street between East Carson and Sarah streets on the South Side, after ShotSpotter detected multiple shots fired in the area.

A short time later, a woman with a gunshot wound to the leg showed up at the Zone 3 Police station on East Warrington Avenue, where she was treated until medics transported her to a hospital, a Pittsburgh police statement said.

Two additional women suffering from gunshot wounds then showed up at a hospital, police said. One had been shot in the hand, and the other was shot in the leg. Their identities also were not released.

The South Side has been plagued by an uptick in gunrelated violence in 2022, to the degree that Mayor Ed Gainey made an early-morning visit to the area two weeks ago to get a feel for the dynamic there. Mr. Gainey also held a community meeting there on June 14, promising residents he would address the ongoing problems.

“Do we have challenges? Absolutely,” Mr. Gainey said during the meeting. “But like this city has always done, because of the grit that we have, we will meet every challenge with the expectation of making it better.”