Nine killed on Perry Street leave a community trauma for Erie
By Daniel Okafor · Reporting from New York ·
A gunman killed nine people on Perry Street before taking his own life, turning a private domestic dispute into a community trauma for Erie.
The gunman who killed nine people in Erie committed a slaughter that no adjective can soften. He turned a residential block into a graveyard and then took the only exit that avoided a courtroom. By killing children, he did not just end lives. He destroyed the peace of Perry Street. The gunman is wrong for the carnage, and the community is left to carry the weight of his final act.
The geography of a massacre
The violence began Friday night. According to Erie News Now, officers responded to the 700 block of Perry Street around 5 p.m. after calls reported shots fired outside. Two women lay dead in the street.
Witnesses told police the gunman ran into a nearby house, as reported by WTAE. Police secured a warrant and entered the home at 722 Perry Street. Inside, they found multiple bodies, including two small children.
The gunman died inside the house from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police Chief Rick Lorah called it a "horrific scene." He said there was a large loss of life both inside and outside the residence. Mayor Daria Devlin said her thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.
What answers remain?
This massacre shares the mechanism of the Columbine High School massacre. In both cases, the attackers killed multiple victims, including children, and committed suicide to end the attack. This is not a random sequence of events. It is a specific choice to ensure the shooter is the final arbiter of the event.
The mechanism is the same whether the setting is a high school or a house on Perry Street. The shooter uses a weapon to erase a group of people and then erases himself. The result is a void where answers should be.
This tragedy is not private
An advocate for the status quo would argue this was a private domestic dispute. They would say the violence stayed within a single residence and its curb. They would claim it is a tragedy of the home, not a failure of the state.
That argument fails. The 700 block of Perry Street is not a private vacuum. When children are found dead inside a house, the crime becomes a public record of failure. The violence spilled into the street where two women were killed.
WJET reported that the scene was so disturbing that responding officers required support. Chief Lorah said the circumstances are "deeply disturbing." When a crime is this large, it ceases to be a family matter. It becomes a community trauma.
The facts of this case will likely follow a known path. As seen in the Wilkinsburg mass shooting in Pennsylvania, authorities will likely release the identities of the victims and the suspect within days. Those records will likely reveal a history of domestic disputes at the Perry Street residence.
The city will now have to deal with the aftermath. Following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the city established long-term psychological support for first responders. Erie will likely need the same. Chief Lorah has already noted the difficulty of the scene for his investigators.
The gunman used a weapon to end nine lives and his own. He left a neighborhood to wonder why children died in their own home. The evidence suggests that the identities of the victims will soon reveal a domestic motive. The city will spend weeks organizing vigils along the Perry Street corridor. The only certainty is that the 700 block will never return to what it was before Friday at 5 p.m.