Mass Shooting Near Pittsburgh

[Content Note: Guns; death; racism.]

Last night, there was a mass shooting in Wilkinsburg, PA, in which five people were killed:

Five people are dead and three people are hurt after a mass shooting in Wilkinsburg Wednesday night, Allegheny County Police said.

...Authorities said four women and one man were killed. Three of the women and the man were pronounced dead at the scene. The fourth woman was pronounced dead at UPMC Mercy hospital.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office identified the victims as 35-year-old Jerry Shelton, 37-year-old Tina Shelton, 27-year-old Brittany Powell, 25-year-old Chanetta Powell, and 26-year-old Shada Mahone.

Jerry Shelton, Brittany Powell, and Chanetta Powell were siblings.

...According to authorities, the shooting happened during a backyard party/cookout at 1304 Franklin Avenue.

Police said the ballistic evidence on the scene leads investigators to believe that two different weapons were discharged from two different people. Shots were fired from an alley to the rear of the home.

Police said partygoers appeared to attempt to run into the home, at which point a person on the side or backyard adjacent to the house fired at the back porch.

Lt. Andrew Schurman of the Allegheny County Homicide Unit said all four people who died at the scene passed away on the back porch.

Schurman said at least two gunmen were involved, but no one was in custody. A motive wasn't immediately known.

My sincerest condolences to the family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues of the victims. One of the women who was killed was the mother of five children.

I don't know if media attention is actually a good thing for the surviving victims and loved ones of those killed following one of these incidents. But if the fact that there is shockingly little attention being paid to this mass shooting is troubling to the survivors, then I extend them my sympathy for any pain that indifference may be causing them, too.

This morning, Eric Boehlert noted that CNN had mentioned the shooting "once in 10 hrs. during same time CNN has mentioned 'Trump' 109 times."

Part of the reason for the apathy is that we are just becoming horrifyingly inured to mass shootings in the United States. Another part of the reason is almost certainly because some or all of the victims were black.

It isn't clear yet why the shooting happened, but there is a distinct possibility, given that so many of the victims were related, that this is yet another mass shooting that was related to domestic violence.

I don't know what else to say. I am grieving over this act of heinous violence. And I am grieving for a nation in which such an act has become routine enough to ignore.