3 Dead, 4 Injured in Pittsburgh After ‘Medical Situation’; Victims Wearing Orange Bands

Pittsburgh police investigators gather outside an apartment building on the city's South Side where police say multiple people are dead and others are hospitalized in what they're calling a "medical situation" in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Sept. 22, 2019. (Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

At least three people died and four were hospitalized in Pittsburgh after an undisclosed “medical situation.” The victims were wearing orange wristbands.

In a statement on Sept. 22, Pittsburgh Police said they are investigating the case.

Five of the victims were discovered inside an apartment, one was discovered in an elevator, and the other was found on the street, Pittsburgh officials said in a statement. It’s not clear where the other two were found.

Police said all of the victims were wearing orange wristbands.

“All of the victims are wearing orange paper bands on their wrists,” police said in a statement.

Police said they asked about information about an event or party where orange wristbands were being used.

“Police have identified two venues that were using orange wrist bands last night,” the statement said.

At around 7:30 a.m. Sunday, police said they were responding to the incident, CBS Pittsburgh reported.

South Side Works City Apartments in Pittsburgh, where some of the victims were found (Google Street View)

The conditions of the victims hospitalized range from serious to critical condition, officials said, CNN reported.

The report, citing the city’s Public Safety director, said that some of the victims were found in Southside Works City Apartments.

Police are investigating into the possibility that the deaths and hospitalizations were due to drug overdoses, ABC News reported. But police said no drug paraphernalia was discovered in the apartment.

The South Side Flats area, where the victims were discovered,  includes a number of bars, restaurants, and stores, USA Today noted.

One of the victims was 33 years old, and the others are around the same age, the report said.

Police didn’t say what the cause of the death was.

Anyone who has information about the party or event they attended should call the police at 412-323-7141.

Other details about the incident are not clear.

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.