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[h=4]5 dead in 'calculated' shooting at backyard party in Pa.[/h]Two gunmen opened fire on a party at a Pittsburgh suburb home
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Five people were killed and three others injured when gunfire broke out at a backyard party in Wilkinsburg, east of Pittsburgh. USA TODAY
A woman reacts at the scene of a deadly shooting in Wilkinsburg, Pa., March 10, 2016. P(Photo: Michael Henninger, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via AP)
The ambush-style killing of five people at a backyard<span style="color: Red;">*</span>party in a Pittsburgh suburb was a "calculated, brutal" operation, the Allegheny district attorney said Thursday, according to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>local media reports.
Five people were killed and three injured when two gunmen opened fire late Wednesday on more than a dozen people attending a party or<span style="color: Red;">*</span>cookout at a home in the working-class community of Wilkinsburg.
Lt. Andrew Schurman of the Allegheny County homicide unit said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>four people were found dead at the scene<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and the fifth died at a local hospital.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Two men were in critical condition and a woman was stable, according to police.
Allegheny County executive Rich Fitzgerald said Thursday that the Wilkinsburg community is "filled with grief, shock and anger this morning. We share their grief and offer them our support in the days and weeks to come."
Police said the gunmen barged into the party and began firing.
"The murders were planned, calculated, brutal," Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala<span style="color: Red;">*</span>told<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Pittsburgh's WPXI-TV. He said there were 15 people in the backyard when a shooter armed<span style="color: Red;">*</span>with a .40-caliber handgun approached from the alley and began shooting.
Zappala told<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that police believe there were one or two intended targets, and that a relative of the victims might have been one.
“I heard about 30 gunshots, it was just a constant,” Jackie Johnson-Pendleton, a neighbor,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>told<span style="color: Red;">*</span>KDKA. “When I came out, people were screaming and running and bodies were lying on the front porch. People’s lives taken like that at the drop of a hat, it’s just insane and it needs to stop.”
Schurman said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said the shots were fired from two<span style="color: Red;">*</span>locations but police don’t believe anyone at the party fired back.
"Partygoers appeared to try to run into the residence, at<span style="color: Red;">*</span>which point<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a person on the side or backyard adjacent to the residence fired at the back porch," Schurman said.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"All four of the individuals who died at the scene died on that back porch."
Police investigate the scene after a deadly shooting Wednesday, March 9, 2016, in Wilkinsburg, Pa.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Michael Henninger, AP)
As ambulances and police cars converged on the scene, neighbors<span style="color: Red;">*</span>gathered on the street, some of them sobbing and saying they lost family members, the Associated Press reported.
The victims were identified as siblings Jerry Shelton, 35, Brittany Powell, 27, and Chanetta Powell, 25; and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Tina Shelton, 37, and Shada Mahone, 26, according to the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office.
Kayla Alexander, a local resident,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>told WPXI-TV she was walking home when she heard two dozen shots<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and saw people running from the area. She said authorities weren't allowing her to get to her home on Franklin Avenue, a usually quiet street<span style="color: Red;">*</span>lined by two-story brick houses built in the early 1900s.
A woman is held back as police respond to the scene of a deadly shooting in Wilkinsburg, Pa., March 10, 2016.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Michael Henninger, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)
James Boyd, 70, has lived in a home three doors away from the shooting for 24 years. He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the gunfire “went on for almost a minute.”
“I thought it was maybe the pipes bursting. But then we realized it was gunshots. We’ve had trouble in this neighborhood before but never this close to home,” Boyd said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
In 2001, the Allegheny County community of 15,800 people, was<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the scene of another fatal<span style="color: Red;">*</span>rampage when<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a gunman went on a lunchtime shooting spree at two fast-food restaurants, killing two people and wounding three, according to The New York Times.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Ron Taylor, the 39-year-old gunman<span style="color: Red;">*</span>who left a suicide note, surrendered after a standoff and was later convicted. He is currently on death row in Pennsylvania.
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