Chief: Nothing at house indicated trouble before shooting

Pittsburgh’s police chief says an officer who went to a short-term rental property where a party was going on shortly before gunfire broke out, killing two youths, saw nothing to suggest it was anything other than an ordinary noise complaint

Pittsburgh Party-Shooting (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Pittsburgh's police chief says an officer who went to a short-term rental property where a party was going on shortly before gunfire broke out, killing two youths, saw nothing to suggest it was anything other than an ordinary noise complaint.

Chief Scott Schubert told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in an interview Tuesday morning that video indicates that the vast majority of the 200 or so people at the party didn't arrive until after the noise complaint call had been placed.

“It’s my understanding that there was nothing that would have alerted” an officer “that there was more to it,” Schubert told the newspaper. There were also no other noise complaints between the initial call and the gunfire, he said.

Police said Monday in a statement that at about 11 p.m. Saturday, the officer had asked for the homeowner and then asked a man who came downstairs to turn the music down, which was done. The police statement said “the habitable and visible part of the house where the party was held is on the second floor, out of view of the door.”

About 90 minutes later, shortly after 12:30 a.m. Sunday, some kind of altercation occurred at the party — where the “vast majority” of people were minors — and gunfire ensued both inside and outside “and potentially back and forth,” Schubert told reporters Sunday. Bullet casings found at the scene indicated handguns and a rifle were used, he said, and police believe there were multiple shooters.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said Jaiden Brown and Mathew Steffy-Ross, both 17, were killed. Eight people were treated for gunshot wounds, and others were injured trying to escape, including two who broke bones jumping from windows and one person hurt after a car was “shot up,” Schubert said.

ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection and alert system, indicated more than 90 rounds were fired, and Schubert said “we know there was a lot more than that between inside the structure and outside.” He declined to say Tuesday whether any suspects had been identified.