A school van Thursday morning became the fourth school vehicle to be shot at in the city in the past year.
The bullet pierced the door of the vehicle, which was carrying four children to the McNaugher Special Education Center at 7:15 a.m. as it passed Reed Roberts Place in the Hill District, said Ebony Pugh, spokeswoman for Pittsburgh Public Schools. No one was injured, and no arrests had been made as of last night.
The bullet hit the driver's door and then ricocheted without fully penetrating the metal of the door, Pugh said. The bus driver drove to Mellon Arena after the shooting to determine if the students were injured.
School police checked the area but didn't find the shooter. They believe the bullet came from the direction of Roberts Street in the Lower Hill District.
The children's parents were notified, Pugh said. The ages of the children on the bus were not available.
It was the fourth school bus or van shooting since February 2005.
On April 22, a yellow-and-black minibus taking five students to McNaugher, a North Side school for troubled and special-needs students, was hit by two shots as it passed the Northview Heights public housing complex near the school.
Dontail Allison, 16, a student at The Academy, a program for juvenile offenders in Hays, was charged in that shooting.
Police said Allison opened fire on the McNaugher bus after someone aboard made an obscene gesture toward him. Authorities said they didn't know whether that was the only motivation for the shooting or whether it might have been in retaliation for a shooting a day earlier.
In that incident, Allison was one of six passengers on an Academy bus that was fired on by a hooded gunman. The bus driver and a student suffered minor injuries. No one has been arrested in that shooting.
McNaugher serves 121 students in grades three through 12.
Keith Watts Jr., 16, a former Academy student, was killed March 16, 2005, after leaving Carrick High School. Watts had been the target of an ambush on an Academy van in February 2005 when gunmen fired at least 15 rounds into the van as it stopped to drop Watts off at his grandmother's home. No one was injured, but Watts was released from the Academy for his own protection and that of other students, officials said.
Schools police Chief Bob Fadzen was not available for comment yesterday.
