Gunfire erupted just after 10 p.m. Saturday at the intersection of Cross and Strauss Streets in Pittsburgh’s Perry South neighborhood, sending a woman to the hospital with a possible bullet graze wound to her forehead and ending with a man in handcuffs and a rifle in police custody.
Pittsburgh police officers responded to two separate ShotSpotter alerts indicating six rounds had been fired near the intersection, according to WPXI. Officers arrested a man in the area and recovered a rifle at the scene, then transported him to the Allegheny County Jail, per the Pittsburgh Public Safety Department. Police have not clarified what charges the man could face.
The human toll of the shooting emerged separately from the arrest scene. Two women showed up at the Zone 1 police station, located at 1501 Brighton Road in the city’s California-Kirkbride neighborhood, and one was found to have a forehead injury that may be a graze wound. Medics took her to a hospital, where she was listed in stable condition, the report notes.
Sensors Caught the Gunfire Before Anyone Called 911
The rapid police response was made possible by Pittsburgh’s ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot detection network, which processes loud impulse noises through machine algorithms and human reviewers to alert dispatchers and officers’ mobile devices within 60 seconds of gunfire, according to CBS News. Public Safety officials have noted that more than 80% of gunfire incidents in the city are never called in via 911, making the sensor network the primary trigger for a response like Saturday’s. The city first deployed the system across three square miles in 2014 before expanding it in 2018 to cover 18 square miles across all six police zones, an operation that now costs taxpayers $1.2 million annually, per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette…