15-year-old to stand trial in shooting that injured 3 outside Pittsburgh high school football stadium

A teenager will stand trial on charges connected to a shooting outside a high school football game that injured three other teens.

Charles Lawshe, 15, was charged with three counts of attempted criminal homicide in the shooting that injured three teens.

Surveillance video shown in Pittsburgh Municipal Court on Wednesday shows the moment teens get into a fight before shots are fired outside George K. Cupples Stadium on the city's South Side after the Westinghouse and University Prep football game. In the video, an arrow points to the alleged shooter, who runs away as the crowd scatters.

Lawshe's attorney, Casey White, said the victims' injuries were all to the lower extremities and that should have made a difference in getting his client's charges dropped.

"It is my position whether or not you believe my client was the shooter or not that this person did not have the specific intent or the malice to commit criminal homicide," White said.

Instead, a judge held the charges after hearing from nearly 10 witnesses from the prosecution and seeing the surveillance video from before, during, and after the shooting. Detectives said it shows Lawshe wearing all black, matching the shooter's description, walking with three other people down East Carson Street towards Cupples Stadium from various angles before they eventually reach the stadium. 

Video then captured a fight shortly before the same teen in all black emerged with a firearm and opened fire. None of the videos shown in court had audio.

Police said they identified Lawshe as the shooter after identifying two of the three others walking on East Carson Street as students at Carrick High School. A counselor at the school and the principal testified in court that Lawshe was their student. Both said officers showed them screenshots and that they didn't recognize anyone except for Lawshe, with the principal saying she wasn't 100% sure until detectives played the video. She said when she saw the video, she said, "Oh my God, that's Charles."

However, White questions these accounts.

"She said one thing here today. Was it consistent with what she said to law enforcement in the school?" White said.

White also said he has a lot of concerns about an officer testifying that a person matching the description of the shooter was detained in the area of Carson but later released.

"I was not permitted to dive too deep into it, given the constraints of a preliminary hearing here in Pennsylvania, but I look forward to the opportunity to exploring that option once discovery is made available," White said.

Lawshe remains at Allegheny County Jail without bail. White said he will address bond at a later date. He understands that his client hasn't had any misconduct in custody.