3 people shot at mall; unclear if shooter captured or sought

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

3 people shot at mall; unclear if shooter captured or sought
| February 7, 2015 | Updated: February 7, 2015 9:35pm

MONROEVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Three people were shot at a Pittsburgh-area shopping center on Saturday night and were taken to a hospital, and the mall and the hospital's emergency room were placed on lockdown.

It was unclear whether the shooter was captured or had escaped, said Monroeville Mayor Gregory Erosenko, who had only sketchy details shortly after the 7:45 p.m. shooting. He said his police chief was at the scene.

The three victims were taken to Forbes Hospital with gunshot wounds, hospital spokesman Jesse Miller said. One was in stable condition, he said, and he couldn't release the conditions of the other two.

Detectives told the hospital to lock down its emergency room until they were certain the Monroeville Mall shooter had been captured, Miller said.

Pennsylvania native and ex-NFL quarterback Terrelle Pryor tweeted that he was at the mall, a short drive east of Pittsburgh.




Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/3-people-shot-at-mall-unclear-if-shooter-held-or-6069024.php

[Divernan]

1. I was just in Monroeville volunteering in the VITA tax program this afternoon

And actually lived in Monroeville back in 69-75 when this mall opened. Like many malls, it's gone downhill in recent years. It's located at the terminus point of the Parkway East, connecting it quickly to Pittsburgh, of which Monroeville is considered a suburb, and also near an exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, i.e, easy to get to from many other communities.

Interestingly, this story was quickly covered and reported upon by the Scaife-subsidized Tribune-Review, but still (2 hours later) has not been reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

This was the mall which saw a social network inspired gathering of an unruly mob (estimated at 1,000) last December 26, with police called in for riot control from 5 adjoining jurisdictions, the mall forced to close 2 hours early, and special buses provided to ferry workers home. Several young men were hospitalized for injuries resulting from fist fights. Fortunately, no gunfire was involved, unlike tonight's incident.

The One Percent, which has expressed concerns at Davos about social revolution by the proletariat, is just damn fortunate that young, underemployed Americans are too undereducated to direct their social media inspired gatherings/brawls at corporate headquarters or homes of CEOs.
http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/7452861-74/mall-cole-chief#axzz3MwQ8fHz9

BRAWLS ERUPT AT MONROEVILLE MALL

Police from several communities were called when a half-dozen fights erupted in the Monroeville Mall on Friday afternoon and evening after an estimated 1,000 juveniles and young adults responded to social media calls to come to the mall, the police chief said.

Two males required hospital treatment after being injured in fights that began erupting about 5 or 5:30 p.m. and continued sporadically until mall officials decided to close the shopping venue early, Chief K. Douglas Cole said.

It is not known what sparked the violence between crowds of young people, most of them estimated at being between the ages of 14 and 19, the chief said. He said there was no advance warning of the coming problems and police did not know about the social media postings until later.

“Mall security began noticing lots of young adults and juveniles about 4 or 4:30 p.m.,” Cole said. “Why they came we do not know, but mall security estimates there about 1,000 kids. They were pretty adamant about that.”

One video posted on social media shows at least a dozen people, most of them young women, punching, gouging and kicking each other. The violence started about 3:30 p.m. when a man and a woman were arrested for a domestic dispute that was unrelated to the later chaos, the chief said.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/7452861-74/monroeville-erupted-immediate#ixzz3R7pTdV23
Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

[Divernan]

2. Officers from 14 other communities plus FBI agents responded.

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Terrelle Pryor of Jeannette sent out at least two messages on the social messaging website Twitter, saying that he was at the mall during the shooting. “Didn't see who was shooting, saw two people drop, though! I was looking but 10 more shots went off and was getting closer to me. Then I ran.”

Mall spokeswoman Stacey Keating said the shooting occurred in Macy's and was contained there, though she provided no details. A manager at Macy's declined to comment and referred questions to a spokeswoman who did not return messages.

Shoppers said people picked up their children and ran when they heard gunshots. Some parents were separated from their kids. Police carrying shotguns responded to the scene.

Fourteen departments responded, including officers from Monroeville, Allegheny County, Munhall, Plum and the Allegheny County Sheriff's Department. FBI Special Agent Gregory Heeb said several agents responded to help evacuate patrons and

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/7731692-74/mall-police-monroeville#ixzz3R7uIvy6i
Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

[NYC_SKP]

3. Recommended. (nt)

[blue neen]

4. Here's an interesting quote:

"Four on-duty police officers have been stationed in the mall on Friday and Saturday evenings at the mall's request, Monroeville Mayor Gregory Erosenko said."

“I would have thought that having four officers there would have deterred any incident like we saw (Saturday),” Erosenko said."

Um, Mayor Erosenko, four officers obviously is not a deterrent.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/7731692-74/mall-police-monroeville#ixzz3R85QTMeQ
Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

[Divernan]

5. Monroeville has been a nest of local govt. corruption

The scandals back in the 70's, when I lived there were (1) the volunteer fire companies were holding parties in the local fire hall featuring strippers, auctioning of a prostitute and ending with auction winner having sex w/said prostitute on a table to the cheers of the assembled men; (2) multiple daytime rapes occurring in the huge parking lots surrounding the Monroeville Mall, but being covered up by the police at the instruction of local officials to avoid deterring housewives from shopping at the Mall during the daytime; and (3) the then boro solicitor told me that Monroeville was known as having the most corrupt town council in Allegheny County.

That was some 40 years ago. During the past several years the Police Dept/Mayor/boro council have been embroiled in very messy fights involving illegal actions by the good ole boys in the police and volunteer fire depts. and triggering investigations by Pennsylvania's Attorney General and the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services and ending up in federal court cases.

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/east/2014/07/15/Former-police-chief-sues-Monroeville-as-whistleblower/stories/201407150135

The former chief triggered a federal investigation in 2012 after hearing concerns that Monroeville firefighters were gaining unauthorized access to protected law enforcement and medical information in the municipality’s computer-aided dispatch system.

Mr. Pascarella’?s suit describes how an employee who cooperated with his investigation explained that police dispatchers who were also fire department volunteers manipulated the dispatch system’?s security settings so data could be inappropriately accessed by firefighters.

Whether breaches really occurred and who was to blame for them became key questions debated by the mayor, solicitor and council members. Monroeville’?s elected officials broke into two factions — those who supported Mr. Pascarella and those who supported police Chief K. Douglas Cole, who was demoted, fired and then reinstated.

Separate investigations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the state Attorney General’?s office have found that there was unauthorized access to dispatch center records.

Then there was the Monroeville rookie cop, who left his "duty belt" (containing a loaded Smith & Wesson .45-caliber gun, a stun gun, flashlight, radio and two magazines of ammunition holding 10 bullets each) ON TOP OF - not INSIDE OF - but ON TOP OF - his pickup truck, in the parking lot at the borough building, while he went into the police dept. to change out of his uniform at the end of his shift.

Police Chief Steven Pascarella said the officer placed his duty belt, with the items attached, on his truck as he changed in the police department parking lot for his drive home. Pascarella said the officer realized the belt was missing when he arrived home.

The pickup headed from Monroeville onto the Parkway East, traveling past UPMC Mercy hospital and around a bend, then across the Liberty Bridge toward the officer's home.

Pascarella says the belt contained a loaded Smith & Wesson .45-caliber gun, a stun gun, flashlight, radio and two magazines of ammunition holding 10 bullets each. The officer's belt and some of the attached items, according to Pascarella, were found along the route home, but the officer's service weapon and Taser are missing.

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/03/15/officer-injured-during-monroeville-incident/

Given the local officials' corruption and police ineptitude, it's no surprise that there's a whole lotta drug dealin' goin' on.

– An officer was injured during an incident Friday He was not seriously injured, but fell to the ground during a scuffle with a suspect. According to the Monroeville police chief, heroin and a handgun were both thrown out the window of a car of a drug suspect on the run.

Police say the drugs and gun were thrown out in the back parking lot of the Monroeville Mall where a detective busted up a drug transaction going down around lunchtime Friday.

“We’ve had continuous problems with hand-to-hand narcotic sales in vehicles throughout the (Route) 22 corridor, including the mall,” said Chief Pascarella.

[blue neen]

11. I had heard about some of this disgusting corruption, but not all of it.

It's terrible. What's the matter with Monroeville? I know that sounds like the title of a book, but that little city is a mess. Do you think there was too much development there at too fast of a pace?

[gelsdorf]

6. 17 YO arrested this morning about 3 AM

Details still developing

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Here are some links with the update story

http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-gunman-large-motive-unclear-mall-shooting-pittsburgh/story?id=28808030
http://www.wtae.com/news/active-shooter-situation-at-monroeville-mall-police-searches-underway/31156026

[onehandle]

8. Guns are handy.

I was at a mall in Pennsylvania yesterday.

On the other side of the state.

Moar guns.

[rgbecker]

9. Probably Radical Islamist terrorists....

not.

[Cryptoad]

10. ahhhhhm to long for the Good ole days

when it was every few years that one of these crazy shoooters jumped off into the abyss... no its every few hours.....

[hack89]

12. You would have to go back 50 years to find lower rates of violent crime

including murder rates.

[Divernan]

13. Alleg. County DA told M-ville Mall IN 2013 it needed to up security

Buth the Mall owners/management have done fuck-all nothing!

At this point, I'd say it's up to Macy's to install and man metal detectors at all its entrances, both from the parking lot and from the Mall interior. Macy's is cash-strapped and has been closing down some of its stores, so I doubt they'll go for that. I wouldn't set foot in any operation in Monroeville Mall after 12 noon. When working with research projects in crime-ridden areas, we found that the criminal element stayed up late, and was rarely on the streets before noon.

After the flash mob riot last December, the Mall instituted a toothless no-guns-in-the-mall "policy". But there was NO technology put in place to enforce that. It was, if you will, an "honor" policy. When reading the comments about the recent shooting INSIDE Macy's, I came across one guy who said he was glad he had his concealed carry gun with him "to protect my wife." How fortunate no do-it-yourself, armed vigilantes didn't pull out their pieces and start firing as well.

Now the cheapskate geniuses running the mall have announced that anyone under 18 must be in the company of someone age 21 or older. Again, this is a toothless "honor" policy, so lacking in detail as to be laughable, if it were not lethal. For example, how many "under 18's" can a single over 21 person "accompany"? The announcement says, "parent or guardian" COME ON! What nitwit wrote this? Probably that joke of a police chief, Monroeville's very own Doug Cole. Because, folks, how do they define guardian? It should read, "Court appointed guardian."

Zappala (the county District Attorney)said Sunday that in late 2013, his office warned Allegheny County Council that drug dealers had been moving their activities out of Homewood and Wilkinsburg and into Monroeville, driven out by pressure from police and investigators.

Working under contract with Zappala's office, John Hudson of Monaca-based Security Consulting Solutions Inc. reviewed security at the mall and recommended that management install license-plate reading technology at three entrances to the mall parking lot, which could keep records of who comes and goes and could alert law enforcement if anyone arrives who is a known or wanted criminal, Hudson said. But nothing of the proposed $105,000 project was installed, he said.

“I do not believe any money has been invested in that regard,” Zappala said. “Now, I've got three people who were shot (Saturday) night. I want to know — I'm going to know — exactly what they're going to do; I want to know that technology is either going to be utilized or what their safety plan is, because we're not just going to react to violence.”

Zappala said similar combinations of cameras and license-plate readers at The Waterfront in Homestead, Munhall and West Homestead have helped solve a couple of crimes in the past five years, and a system was installed at The Waterworks mall in response to a kidnapping there in 2007. But Hudson could not say whether license-plate readers might have prevented Saturday's shooting.