Three people were wounded — two critically — when gunfire broke out Saturday at Monroeville Mall around 7:35 p.m. The mall was evacuated, store by store, and placed on lockdown while police scoured the complex in a fruitless search for the shooter.
The shootings took place inside the ground floor of Macy’s. “It was a targeted shooting,” said Monroeville Police Chief Doug Cole at a news conference Saturday night. “We have many leads and we are following them up.” He said one gun was involved and that probably two shots were fired.
Two of the victims, both males, ages 20 and 60, were in critical condition at Forbes Hospital in Monroeville. The third victim, a 47-year-old woman, was at the hospital with non-life-threatening wounds.
The 20-year-old was the target of the shooter; the second man and the woman were bystanders in Macy’s, Chief Cole said.
No one had been taken into custody, but police said they had a detailed description of a male suspect. They planned to review security camera images in the “hope they’ll be a big help” in tracking down the shooter, said Lt. Andrew Schurman, head of the Allegheny County police homicide unit.
Jesse Miller, a spokesman at Forbes Hospital, said the trauma unit there was on lockdown while the suspect was at large.
A hostess at Winghart’s, a restaurant beside Macy’s, said that a man later identified as the 60-year-old’s brother, came rushing into the bar, saying that his brother had been shot inside Macy’s. The man said his brother had been shot in the knee and thigh.
The incident brought a heavy police response, including state police, Allegheny County sheriff’s deputies and about a dozen other police departments from around the region. Police had completed a search of the entire mall by about 9 p.m. and heavily armed officers were seen leaving the mall shortly later.
Lt. Schurman described the shooter as a light-skinned black male in his late teens, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall, wearing dark clothing with writing on his shirt.
The shooting is the third incident at Monroeville Mall within the past two months. A brawl broke out Dec. 26 at the mall when a mob of more than 1,000 teens and young adults swarmed the shopping center and multiple fights broke out. The incident reportedly was spurred by social media.
Monroeville Mall management deemed the chaos “an isolated incident,” but decided in the ensuing days to heighten mall security, with an increase in the number of off-duty police officers.
A week later, a robbery occurred at Harbor Freight Tools in the mall annex, and a suspect was taken into custody by Monroeville police.
In light of Saturday’s shooting, Monroeville Mayor Greg Erosenko said he planned to meet with mall management by Monday to talk about future security measures. He couldn’t speak to details of the plans and said because the mall is private property, he can only advise, not mandate security changes. Stacey Keating, a mall spokeswoman, could not be reached for comment.
At Saturday’s news conference, Chief Cole said authorities are aware of a “pattern” of incidents at the mall and said, “We’re not sure why that’s occurring.”
Tony Norman, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who was at Barnes & Noble outside the mall at the time of the shooting, said the store announced a lockdown at about 8 p.m. People were not allowed to come into the store, but were able to leave, though strongly advised against it.
“People were running toward the bookstore trying to get in, and they wouldn’t let people in,” he said.
Jeannette native and ex-NFL quarterback Terrelle Pryor tweeted that he was at the mall when the shooting occurred.
“. . . Was just in monroeville mall and just saw 2 ppl get shot,” he tweeted. “They are letting guns go in there.”
In the mall movie theater, patrons reported that at first they were advised on the public address system that fire had broken out at the mall, then they were told there had been a police incident.
Torsten Ove: tove@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1510. Mahita Gajanan: mgajanan@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1964. Associated Press contributed.
First Published: February 8, 2015, 1:29 a.m.
Updated: February 8, 2015, 5:06 a.m.