Downtown shooting sends lunchtime crowds diving for cover
Gunfire erupts on 5th Avenue
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
By Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
At first, workers along Fifth Avenue's busy Downtown business corridor thought the bang was something innocuous, a firecracker, perhaps, or a backfire.
When they realized it was something far more sinister -- gunfire during lunch hour in the heart of Downtown -- they didn't wait to be told what to do.
People jammed into the backs of stores. They locked doors. They hit the floor. Some worried about being taken hostage.
Outside, between Market and Wood streets, two armed men, guns raised, ran down Fifth Avenue toward Liberty Avenue, one chasing the other. A victim lay on the street in the opposite direction on Fifth, bleeding from a leg wound.
One of the suspected gunmen was arrested late last night. He was identified as Arabo Allen, 22, of the Hill District.
Allen faces charges of aggravated assault, criminal attempted homicide, carrying a firearm without a license, and recklessly endangering another person, said Pittsburgh Police Lt. Scott Schubert.
"We had a lot of people in here. I closed the door. We panicked," said Donna Bryant, 48, a co-manager of Candy-Rama, across the street from the shooting. "People in here, they were really upset. They can't believe it happened at 1 o'clock in the afternoon."
It was brazen. It was unnerving. For a few moments, it was as if Downtown had been transformed into the Wild West.
"I'm in shock," said Patricia Lowery, 45, of Homewood, who works at Penn Wigs and Fashions, down the street from the shooting scene.
Shootings Downtown are rare, but yesterday's incident marked the second this month. The first took place July 4 at Point State Park, where two teenagers were wounded during a dispute between groups from Northview Heights and the Hill District shortly before the fireworks display. Two men have been arrested.
In yesterday's case, the spark for the fight was apparently an old dispute between two men over a woman; the confrontation appeared to be a random, unplanned encounter.
The suspected aggressor was leaving Mr. G's clothing store in the 200 block of Fifth Avenue just before 1 p.m. when he crossed paths with a man from Duquesne. They exchanged words, and one jostled the other.
Shirts were lifted, guns were displayed. Witnesses said about four or five people were involved.
The men agreed to discard their weapons to fight, said Deputy Police Chief William Mullen, who happened to be in the area and responded to the scene with major crimes Lt. Kevin Kraus.
Police believe the man from Duquesne put down his gun, but the other man reneged. Instead of dropping his weapon, Mullen said, the man fired.
He didn't hit his intended target, though. His bullet struck someone who was with the man, reportedly a twin brother. The 24-year-old victim, whom police refused to identify, is in stable condition at Mercy Hospital.
Paul Waddell, who works across the street, watched things unfold from the doorway of The Headgear hat shop."He just raised it up and fired right up the street, like it was nothing. He was bold enough to stick around for 30 seconds and taunt the guy he shot," Waddell said. "There were five or six guys all running around."
Witnesses said the victim ran across the street and up the block toward Wood Street, where he collapsed near the CVS. Santana Luster, 19, of the North Side, said she left the shop where she works, Street Wear, to help the wounded man.
"This is regular for me. I see this all the time," Luster said, referring to the North Side. "But Downtown in broad daylight?"
The last time it did was the morning of Jan. 3, 2003, when Michael Lahoff of Castle Shannon was shot and paralyzed on the seventh floor of the Smithfield-Liberty parking garage.
Before that, two men traded four shots on a Friday afternoon in April 1995 in the 300 block of Fifth Avenue.
Workers yesterday complained that they see few, if any, police officers in the area on a regular basis. One officer is assigned to a foot patrol in Market Square and the surrounding streets, and bicycle officers and marked police cars also patrol the Golden Triangle.
"This is like a random incident," Mullen said. "We don't have that during the day Downtown."
Mayor Tom Murphy's spokesman, Craig Kwiecinski, acknowledged concern over yesterday's shooting and the one on Independence Day.
"The mayor's office is obviously monitoring these incidents very closely," he said. "While we are concerned, Pittsburgh continues to be one of the safest cities in America."
Official crime statistics for 2003 are not yet available, but last year, police said, statistics showed the city was 10th safest among the 50 largest cities in the nation.
The number of serious crimes in Pittsburgh drifted slightly downward in 2002 for the second year in a row, but drops in several categories were offset by marked increases in rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults.
City Councilman Sala Udin, who represents Downtown, echoed the sentiments of people working in his district.
"I'm really concerned that it seems to be getting more and more brazen, where young people are armed to the teeth and so willing to take the risk of shooting someone in broad daylight," Udin said.
At the same time, he said, he was heartened by a recent initiative to team federal agents with Pittsburgh police to crack down on gun violence.
Gunfire erupts on 5th Avenue
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
By Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
At first, workers along Fifth Avenue's busy Downtown business corridor thought the bang was something innocuous, a firecracker, perhaps, or a backfire.
When they realized it was something far more sinister -- gunfire during lunch hour in the heart of Downtown -- they didn't wait to be told what to do.
People jammed into the backs of stores. They locked doors. They hit the floor. Some worried about being taken hostage.
Outside, between Market and Wood streets, two armed men, guns raised, ran down Fifth Avenue toward Liberty Avenue, one chasing the other. A victim lay on the street in the opposite direction on Fifth, bleeding from a leg wound.
One of the suspected gunmen was arrested late last night. He was identified as Arabo Allen, 22, of the Hill District.
Allen faces charges of aggravated assault, criminal attempted homicide, carrying a firearm without a license, and recklessly endangering another person, said Pittsburgh Police Lt. Scott Schubert.
"We had a lot of people in here. I closed the door. We panicked," said Donna Bryant, 48, a co-manager of Candy-Rama, across the street from the shooting. "People in here, they were really upset. They can't believe it happened at 1 o'clock in the afternoon."
It was brazen. It was unnerving. For a few moments, it was as if Downtown had been transformed into the Wild West.
"I'm in shock," said Patricia Lowery, 45, of Homewood, who works at Penn Wigs and Fashions, down the street from the shooting scene.
Shootings Downtown are rare, but yesterday's incident marked the second this month. The first took place July 4 at Point State Park, where two teenagers were wounded during a dispute between groups from Northview Heights and the Hill District shortly before the fireworks display. Two men have been arrested.
In yesterday's case, the spark for the fight was apparently an old dispute between two men over a woman; the confrontation appeared to be a random, unplanned encounter.
The suspected aggressor was leaving Mr. G's clothing store in the 200 block of Fifth Avenue just before 1 p.m. when he crossed paths with a man from Duquesne. They exchanged words, and one jostled the other.
Shirts were lifted, guns were displayed. Witnesses said about four or five people were involved.
The men agreed to discard their weapons to fight, said Deputy Police Chief William Mullen, who happened to be in the area and responded to the scene with major crimes Lt. Kevin Kraus.
Police believe the man from Duquesne put down his gun, but the other man reneged. Instead of dropping his weapon, Mullen said, the man fired.
He didn't hit his intended target, though. His bullet struck someone who was with the man, reportedly a twin brother. The 24-year-old victim, whom police refused to identify, is in stable condition at Mercy Hospital.
Paul Waddell, who works across the street, watched things unfold from the doorway of The Headgear hat shop."He just raised it up and fired right up the street, like it was nothing. He was bold enough to stick around for 30 seconds and taunt the guy he shot," Waddell said. "There were five or six guys all running around."
Witnesses said the victim ran across the street and up the block toward Wood Street, where he collapsed near the CVS. Santana Luster, 19, of the North Side, said she left the shop where she works, Street Wear, to help the wounded man.
"This is regular for me. I see this all the time," Luster said, referring to the North Side. "But Downtown in broad daylight?"
The last time it did was the morning of Jan. 3, 2003, when Michael Lahoff of Castle Shannon was shot and paralyzed on the seventh floor of the Smithfield-Liberty parking garage.
Before that, two men traded four shots on a Friday afternoon in April 1995 in the 300 block of Fifth Avenue.
Workers yesterday complained that they see few, if any, police officers in the area on a regular basis. One officer is assigned to a foot patrol in Market Square and the surrounding streets, and bicycle officers and marked police cars also patrol the Golden Triangle.
"This is like a random incident," Mullen said. "We don't have that during the day Downtown."
Mayor Tom Murphy's spokesman, Craig Kwiecinski, acknowledged concern over yesterday's shooting and the one on Independence Day.
"The mayor's office is obviously monitoring these incidents very closely," he said. "While we are concerned, Pittsburgh continues to be one of the safest cities in America."
Official crime statistics for 2003 are not yet available, but last year, police said, statistics showed the city was 10th safest among the 50 largest cities in the nation.
The number of serious crimes in Pittsburgh drifted slightly downward in 2002 for the second year in a row, but drops in several categories were offset by marked increases in rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults.
City Councilman Sala Udin, who represents Downtown, echoed the sentiments of people working in his district.
"I'm really concerned that it seems to be getting more and more brazen, where young people are armed to the teeth and so willing to take the risk of shooting someone in broad daylight," Udin said.
At the same time, he said, he was heartened by a recent initiative to team federal agents with Pittsburgh police to crack down on gun violence.
