Mike Kelsey held his unit’s door shut with a kitchen knife early Friday morning while gunfire erupted just outside, and by the time police arrived they would count more than 80 shell casings scattered across the parking area of a short-term rental in St. Louis’s Central West End. Kelsey and his family had traveled from Illinois so his daughter could receive medical care, and they were staying near West Pine and Newstead when the shooting began around 1 a.m.
The rapid-fire volley left Kelsey’s wife’s Toyota 4Runner with 15 bullet strikes, enough damage that the vehicle was considered a total loss, according to First Alert 4. Kelsey’s Tesla also took bullet holes, and its onboard cameras captured a person getting out of a car along with muzzle flashes lighting up the night. Other vehicles parked nearby sustained bullet damage as well, and the family itself was not hurt.
People Upstairs Tried To Get In
The building held two separate short-term rental units run by different hosts, and Kelsey said he had no contact with whoever managed the unit upstairs. As the gunfire continued, people staying in that upstairs unit ran from the property and tried to get into Kelsey’s unit, prompting him to hold the door shut with a kitchen knife while his family waited out the chaos inside, per the same account. Kelsey’s own rental host, by contrast, stayed in contact with him throughout the ordeal.
A 19-year-old man told police he had been leaving an Airbnb party shortly after 1 a.m. when the shots were fired; he was grazed in the ear and arrived at a hospital in stable condition, St. Louis police reported. Witnesses described the shots as rapid fire in succession, and whoever was firing drove off roughly 20 seconds later. The next morning, Kelsey found about a dozen additional shell casings that investigators had missed, and police ultimately recovered shell casings from both .45 caliber and 9mm ammunition.
A Family’s Reason For Being There
The Kelsey family had booked the Airbnb specifically for its proximity to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where their daughter needed a neurosurgeon and spine surgeon for her procedure. The hospital anchors a 186-acre medical campus about a mile south of the shooting scene and serves as the primary adult teaching facility for Washington University School of Medicine. Kelsey’s daughter underwent surgery and was later discharged; the family had booked the rental specifically to be near the hospital for her recovery before moving to another Airbnb for the rest of their stay…