- APMarch 8, 2012: Police block the rear entrance to the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic on the University of Pittsburgh campus after a shooting.
PITTSBURGH – A
man armed with two semiautomatic handguns entered the lobby of a
psychiatric clinic at the University of Pittsburgh on Thursday and
opened fire, killing one person and wounding several others before he
was shot dead, apparently by campus police, the mayor said.
Six people were wounded by the man's
gunfire, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said. A seventh suffered unspecified
injuries but wasn't shot, officials said.
The mayor stopped short of confirming the
gunman was fatally shot by at least one University of Pittsburgh police
officer who responded. But he confirmed "police acted admirably and did
engage in gunfire."
"There's no doubt that their swift response saved lives today," Ravenstahl said.
Shooting witness Gregory Brant said he was
in a waiting room on the first floor of the clinic building when
pandemonium broke out Thursday afternoon.
"We heard a bunch of yelling, some shooting, people yelling, `Hide! Hide!" he said. "Everyone's yelling, `Stay down!"'
Brant, 53, and six other people, including a
young girl and her parents, barricaded themselves inside the waiting
room. But he said they did not feel safe because there were doors with
windows along adjacent walls.
"The way the room was arranged, if he (the
gunman) had gone to either window and would have seen us in there, he
could have done whatever he wanted," Brant said.
The group crouched in a corner, hoping the
gunman wouldn't see them as he went past, Brant said. The men in the
group decided on the spot that if the gunman entered the room, they
would rush him.
"We were kind of sitting ducks," Brant said. "Luckily, he didn't see us in there, and we didn't make eye contact with him."
Brant estimated the ordeal lasted 15 or 20 minutes.
One of the injured was a police officer who
the mayor said was grazed by a bullet. Officials didn't say if that
officer shot the gunman, whose identity and relationship to the clinic,
if any, weren't disclosed. The injured people included employees and a
visitor, said Dr. Donald Yealy, chair of emergency medicine at the
university's medical school.
A SWAT team was on the scene shortly after
the shooting. A street was blocked off, and the area thronged with
police. Most students are on spring break, though offices and buildings
have been open.
Neighboring buildings were placed on lockdown for hours after the shooting, police said.
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
spokesman Paul Wood said initial reports about a possible second gunman
and a hostage situation at the clinic or at nearby UPMC Presbyterian
hospital were unfounded.
UPMC and law enforcement officials declined
to speculate on a motive for the shooting and said authorities were
still sorting out which bullets from which guns inflicted which wounds.
The medical center said it was treating five
patients, including two who had undergone surgery. Two others were
treated and released. All were expected to survive.
The clinic, Western Psychiatric Institute
and Clinic, is located in the city's Oakland neighborhood, a couple of
miles east of downtown, and is affiliated with the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center and one of several affiliated hospitals
adjacent to the university campus. Other schools are nearby, including
Carnegie Mellon, Carlow and Chatham universities.
Pete Finelli, who lives two blocks from the
clinic and once worked there as a student nursing assistant, said
security guards are always at the part of the building where it the
shooting is believed to have occurred, on the ground floor.
Patient rooms are on the upper floors, he
said, but anyone on the first floor would have to be someone being
either admitted or discharged.
"The only place a person would be on the first floor is the emergency room," he said.
Pitt sent out email and text alerts shortly after 2 p.m. to warn people of the shooting.
"An active shooter has been identified at
Western Psychiatric Institute. Several injured," the alert said.
"Possible second actor in Western Psych. Lockdown recommended until
further notice. If safe to do so, tell others of this message."
Lawton Snyder, executive director of Pitt's
Eye and Ear Foundation, said he and two other staffers were locked down
about a block away, in a building that connects to the clinic. He said
it was unnerving.
"Obviously I'm terribly sad for those
injured. We're just hoping everybody's OK and things are resolved
quickly and that they can apprehend those who are responsible," he said.
Patient Kevin Bonner, who was staying on the
building's ninth floor, several floors above the shooting scene, said
there was a normal atmosphere there, with patients in the common room
listening to music, watching TV, drinking and eating snacks. Bonner said
no one at the hospital had told them what was going on.
He said he had been napping and awoke to hear an announcement on the intercom: "Bronze Alert on the first floor."
"I didn't think I was hearing my ears right until I looked out the window" and saw police cars and a sniper, he said.
The alert and lockdown ended Thursday
evening, but the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center asked that
people avoid the clinic while the investigation into the shooting
continued. People were free to go when and where they pleased at the two
network hospitals nearest the clinic, UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC
Shadyside, which also had been locked down earlier in the day.
UPMC chief executive Jeffrey Romoff said the
health network was "deeply, deeply saddened by today's events" and
expressed "deepest sympathy to the victims and their families."
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