Pittsburgh chief: Officer who responded to noise complaint at Airbnb party prior to shooting saw 'nothing unusual'

A Pittsburgh police officer who responded to a noise complaint at a North Side party less than two hours before a fatal shooting saw nothing that caused concern, Chief Scott Schubert said Tuesday morning.

“There was nothing unusual to indicate that something was wrong,” Schubert said. “We have some information that shows that a lot of these people didn’t come until after midnight.”

The shooting happened just before 12:40 a.m. at a rental unit in East Allegheny, a small North Side neighborhood that borders I-279. Authorities have said around 200 people were inside the rental, a multi-unit building at the corner of Suismon Street and Madison Avenue, and many of the partygoers were under age.

The gunfire – at least 50 rounds fired inside and just as many outside, police said – sent people running for cover, with some jumping from windows to escape. When the shooting ceased, two kids were dead: Jaiden Brown and Mathew Steffy-Ross, both of whom were 17.

On Monday, police officials confirmed that officers responded to a noise complaint at that address about 90 minutes prior to the shooting. An officer spoke with someone at the rental unit and asked for the resident, who came downstairs to speak to police, Schubert said. He was asked to turn the music down and warned of further consequences if police had to come back again.

One neighbor, though, said the party was crowded and raucous by 11 p.m. Mitchell Wilston told the Tribune-Review on Sunday morning that by 11 p.m. the night prior – about the time police arrived for the noise complaint – a line had formed of people waiting to get inside.

“There were like a million people” at the party, a female neighbor told the Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because police had told her not to discuss her surveillance footage with anyone else.

No arrests have been made, nor have police named any suspects.

In addition to the two teenagers who were killed, nine others were wounded by gunfire. Authorities initially reported in the immediate aftermath Sunday that nine others were injured, though they updated that number to eight later in the day. They corrected the number of gunshot injuries back to nine on Tuesday.

Five others were injured trying to escape the gunfire.

With so many people at the party, police have set up a link for witnesses to upload any videos and photos they might have from inside the rental. Videos have surfaced on social media the purport to show the melee inside the rental when the shooting began.

“The lack of humanity of those who were pulling the trigger,” Schubert said in regard to what goes through one’s head upon seeing that footage. “I’m thankful, grateful, that more people weren’t shot, more people weren’t killed.”

Friends and family mourned the loss of the two teenagers: Steffy-Ross, a student at Phase 4 Learning Center in East Liberty, and Brown, a Woodland Hills High School student.

“Our hearts go out to the victims and their families, but there are a lot of people that were in there and, thankfully, more weren’t killed,” Schubert said. “I hope those who were there reach out and I hope they get the help they need for the trauma they experienced.”

Related:

• Friends, family grieve loss of 2 teens killed at North Side house party
• More details emerge in Pittsburgh party shooting
• Pittsburgh City Council looks to regulate Airbnb