Calls for change come in after shooting death of 17-year-old Isaiah Anderson
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A small memorial is growing outside a market in Pittsburgh's Allentown neighborhood after a 17-year-old boy was shot and killed Monday.
Isaiah Anderson was killed in broad daylight while standing on the sidewalk outside of Adan's Market 2.
"We heard like 20 some shots go off. We looked out the window and he was just lying there," witness Shayla Schmuck said.
The owners of the market wouldn't give KDKA a copy of its surveillance but showed a video of the shooting. It shows Anderson standing outside of the market with another person when a car drove by and opened fire. Both people then dropped to the ground.
Police said Anderson was pronounced dead at the scene. Another man was also shot. He is in critical condition. A woman is also recovering after being shot in the leg.
Schmuck told KDKA that she had just walked back from a nearby park when she saw Anderson before he died. Schmuck said she went to high school with Anderson but graduated two years earlier.
"He was nice. He was really funny. He didn't pick on anybody at school," Schmuck said.
Monday's shooting was the second shooting to happen in front of the market in less than a year. Earlene Clancy said her heart shattered when she heard about Anderson, saying she lost her son, Izeyah Clancy, last May.
Clancy said her son and Anderson were friends.
"He came out of the market store and just got shot in the street not knowing the suspects and them not knowing him. It's like not this is like an easy target to just shoot someone," Clancy said.
She wants to see the market shut down, saying it is the root of the problem behind the violence.
"It's a prime target for violence and we are fed up. We are angry," Rev. Eileen Smith said, executive director for South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace.
Clancy received help from Pittsburgh's Coalition for Peace after her son died.
"The kids flock there for various reasons and they're not made to leave, loitering, that sort of thing. It's a prime target for violence," Smith said.
Clancy said there haven't been shootings anywhere else on Warrington Avenue except for in front of the market.
"It just don't add up anymore with this place. It just needs to go," Clancy said.
Clancy and Smith said they sent letters to the mayor, chief of police and other leaders in hopes of closing the store.
"How many more Isaiahs are there going to be before this stops?" Smith said.
Police said the shooting on Monday was an ambush and retaliation but did not further elaborate. So far, no arrests have been made.
As for last year's shooting, U.S Marshals arrested Clinton Miller as a suspect in the case about a month after the shooting.
