1 dead in South Side Slopes shooting near youth football field

One man died early Friday evening in a shooting near a youth football practice in the South Side Slopes, authorities said.

The shooting happened near Quarry Field off of South 18^th Street less than 12 hours after Pittsburgh Public Safety officials held a media conference to discuss an uptick in violence on the city’s South Side, a nightlife hot spot. That shooting, about 1:30 a.m. near East Carson and South 18^th, left three people wounded and a 15-year-old charged with attempted homicide.

A half mile away at the field, which is a part of South Side Slopes Park, someone shot a man multiple times just adjacent to a field where dozens of children were playing football.

Chief Scott Schubert was patrolling the South Side because of the recent spate of violence. He said he received a ShotSpotter alert and headed toward the scene. He heard the injured man was being driven in a white SUV.

Chief Schubert confirms the shooting, which happened near Quarry Field, was fatal pic.twitter.com/EKHj07LpPZ

— Megan Guza (@meganguzaTrib) July 23, 2021

“I saw that vehicle going around stopped traffic, I turned around and ended up pulling the car over here,” Schubert said at the secondary scene near the intersection of Josephine and 21^st streets. “There was one person shot inside the vehicle. The officers – I can’t believe the work they did trying to save the person.”

The man, identified by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office as Darian Simpkins, 29, of Homestead, died at the scene.

“It’s concerning – the level of violence that’s going on in the city of Pittsburgh and the number of people that are carrying guns,” Schubert said. “Here once again, by an area where kids are playing football, to have somebody shot is unacceptable. This has to stop.”