Nine people are dead, including at least two children and the man police believe shot them, after a mass shooting at a home on Erie, Pennsylvania’s east side Friday evening. Police say all of the victims were killed before officers arrived.
“I have not seen anything like this in my 28-plus years,” Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah said. “I’m not sure that the city of Erie has ever seen the loss of life and the devastation that we just witnessed,” the AP reported.
What happened in the Erie shooting?
Police got a ShotSpotter alert and 911 calls around 5 p.m. Friday about gunfire near East 7th and Perry streets. Officers found two women dead outside a home on the 700 block of Perry Street. Witnesses told police they saw a man firing a gun before he went into the house, NBC News reported. More victims, including children, were found inside.
SWAT officers surrounded the home while police worked to figure out whether the shooter was still a threat. The suspected gunman was found dead inside 722 Perry St. with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The city said Saturday that no shots were fired after police arrived, and that bangs some neighbors heard were flash-bang devices used by officers, Erie News Now reported.
Who were the victims?
Police haven’t released names, ages or how the victims were connected to the shooter, and haven’t discussed a motive. “The loss of life is devastating, and the circumstances we are working through are deeply disturbing,” Lorah said. City officials scheduled a news conference for 4 p.m. Saturday to release more details. Gov. Josh Shapiro said he offered Mayor Daria Devlin his administration’s “full support.” “My heart breaks for this family,” he said.
Anyone affected who wants to talk to a counselor can call Crisis Services at 814-456-2014.
The BeezLoop Take
We don’t know yet what led to this, and the early details point to something inside one family or one household, which is the kind of mass killing that rarely gets national attention for long. That’s a mistake. Many of this country’s mass killings happen at home, where the victims know the shooter, and they get far less attention than public attacks.
Erie’s police got there within minutes and it didn’t matter, because the killing was over before they arrived. That’s the hard truth about most of these cases: the chance to stop them comes much earlier, in the warning signs family, friends and courts see first.
The open question: what did people around this household know, and when?
Also on BeezLoop: a Massachusetts mother was shot dead in her kitchen with her 13-year-old home, and a Bronx mother was pushed from a 15th-floor balcony while holding her baby.
Sources: Erie News Now · Associated Press via ABC7 · NBC via WRAL · WFMZ · KHOU (video)
