A drive-by shooting outside Westinghouse High School this morning riddled the building with bullets and left one 10th grade student fighting for his life at a Pittsburgh hospital, police said.
Pittsburgh Public Schools police chief Robert Fadzen said the incident happened as students were arriving for school at 7:45 a.m.
Police gave this account: The 16-year-old male student was 20 feet from the Monticello Street entrance of the school when he exited a car. Another car, with the rear passenger window rolled down, pulled up beside him. The student exchanged words with someone in the back seat, then turned and walked toward the school. The shooter fired five shots from an assault rifle from the open car window, and the student was hit in the leg and buttock.
Security guard Ty Harrell heard the shots and pulled the wounded student into the building, Fadzen said.
School police recovered five shell casings. Police were reviewing security cameras mounted at the school's entrances to get a better look at the car, which was described this morning as a silver Chrysler or Plymouth with tinted windows.
"We expect our children to be safe," Pittsburgh police chief Dominic Costa said after he arrived on the scene.
The school was locked down shortly after the shooting, but Fadzen said parents were being given the option of picking up their children, if they wanted to.
John Jackson said he heard about the shooting from neighborhood kids and went to Westinghouse High to pick up his son, John Jackson Jr., 15, although classes were scheduled to continue today.
Police did not identify the victim this morning, but said he lived in the 7200 block of Idlewild Street in Homewood. Students at the scene said he lived on Race Street.
The student was in critical condition this morning and undergoing surgery at UPMC Presbyterian, police said.
The last student shot outside a Pittsburgh school was Keith Watts, who was killed March 16 2005, as he sat in a car outside Carrick High School. Watts's shooting was believed to be part of an ongoing feud between the St. Clair and Beltzhoover neighborhoods.
