Erie, Pennsylvania, Shooting Killed Nine Including the Gunman, Not Nine Victims

Nine people are dead after a Friday night shooting at a home on Perry Street in Erie, Pennsylvania, and the number most headlines lead with counts the gunman. Police said he killed eight people, including children, before taking his own life, which means eight victims, not nine.

• Where and when: Police were called to Perry Street around 5 p.m. Friday after witnesses saw a man firing outside a house and then going inside.
• Who: Two women were found shot dead in the street. More victims, including children, were found inside, along with the gunman.
• How it ended: After a standoff with Erie police and SWAT, more shots were heard inside the home. The gunman died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, and police say there is no ongoing threat to the public.
• Not known: The gunman’s name, the victims’ names and ages, how many children died, the weapon, and why he did it.

Why the Count Keeps Moving

If you read the first wave of coverage, you saw “9 killed” in one headline and “9 dead” in the next, and the difference matters. The earliest local reports called it nine victims, and a reader would reasonably take that to mean nine people the gunman murdered. Police later said he killed eight and then himself.

The wire copy is not tidy either. The Associated Press, in its early account, listed two women in the street and five more people inside, a breakdown that adds up to fewer than the total it gave. Counts in the first hours of a scene like this are assembled from scanner traffic, officers on the ground and a chief who has told reporters he will not discuss everything his officers found. They get revised.

We think the right way to write it, until the county coroner publishes names, is the way police framed it: eight victims, one gunman, nine dead. Folding the shooter into the victim count is a small error, but it makes the attack look bigger than the facts support and it makes the people he killed a less precise number.

Chief Rick Lorah has said investigators will not speculate about a motive, and has called the circumstances “deeply disturbing.” That is the honest position this early. What we will be watching for next is the names, the number of children, and whether the gunman had any prior contact with police, because those are the three things that turn a body count into an account of what happened on that block.