Pittsburgh police said they are searching for several "strong suspects" and pleaded for the public's help in apprehending the young men who killed a Carrick High School student and wounded two others in a drive-by shooting outside the school.

J. Monroe Butler II, Post-Gazette Police cars gather at the intersection of Bausman Street, Brownsville Road and Hays Avenue the day after the shooting near Carrick High School. But there was none of the usual congregation of Carrick students changing buses; instead many parents made a point to pick them up from school. Click photo for larger image. Reward offered Pittsburgh Crime Stoppers has offered a reward of up to $1,000 for information about the shooting. Tipsters may call 412-255-8477 and may remain anonymous. Related coverage Fatal feuding seems to be over nothing more than turf Schools need permission to shield kids from threats A year of trouble, then a tragedy Previous coverage 16-year-old shot in car at Carrick High (3/17/05)

Investigators believe the men who opened fire Wednesday were spurred by a feud between groups of young people from Beltzhoover and St. Clair Village. But they said they had developed little information about the roots of that feud and could not explain why what should have been a mundane quarrel instead erupted into lethal gunfire.

Cmdr. Maurita Bryant, who supervises the investigations branch, said detectives have questioned many high school students and others from both neighborhoods since Keith Watts, 16, of Knoxville, was killed and two classmates were wounded.

Homicide and narcotics detectives, uniformed officers, Housing Authority police and Allegheny County sheriff's deputies also flooded the South Hills communities yesterday to conduct surveillance, reassure jittery residents and stave off retaliatory attacks.

Police made no arrests, however, and Bryant said their efforts to locate suspects and gather evidence have been hampered by people who are unwilling to tell what they know about the shooting. She said that includes the two surviving victims of the shooting, Carrick students Alfred Grimmitt, 17, and Raymond Dillard, 16, who were sitting with Watts in his Geo Tracker on Westmont Street.

"We do believe a lot of people know what's going on in the ongoing feud," she said. "But we're not getting a lot of cooperation. We're getting the feeling that these young men want to handle it themselves instead of letting the police handle it."

That reluctance may stem from fear or from "the code of the streets" that rules out talking to police, she said. But she said it is critical that police apprehend suspects quickly to curb the potential for eye-for-an-eye violence, particularly at Watts' funeral.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette A container of flowers were left at the site where Carrick High School student Keith Watts was fatally shot Wednesday. Click photo for larger image.

Grimmitt, an 11th-grader who was critically wounded in the arm and torso, is the nephew of Deron S. Grimmitt Sr., a Hill District man who was shot and killed by city police officer Jeffrey Cooperstein during a police chase in December 1998. Cooperstein was charged with homicide but acquitted in 2000 and subsequently retired.

Dillard, a 10th-grader who was grazed by flying glass, was adjudicated delinquent in juvenile court in March 2004 after a robbery and was sent to Harborcreek Youth Services, a juvenile facility in Erie County. Following his release in December, he spent four months attending programs at The Academy, a school and treatment center in the South Hills that Watts also attended briefly this year.

Dillard was released from The Academy March 10. His family and Grimmitt's family declined comment on the shooting.

Investigators would not say how many suspects they are seeking, or why they believe Watts was the intended target of Wednesday's shooting. Nor would they say if they believe the suspects and assault rifle used in that shooting were also involved in a failed attempt to ambush Watts as he returned home from The Academy last month.

Watts and his companions were shot at 1:40 p.m. after leaving classes and getting into his parked car. Relatives said he'd been planning to get a haircut before driving home from Carrick, where he was in the ninth grade.

Instead, he was felled by bullets fired from a teal green Hyundai Sonata that pulled alongside his car. That car was found Wednesday night, abandoned in the 100 block of Cleo Way in Beltzhoover. Police declined to identify its owner.

Mauritia Bryant

Bryant said police obtained only sketchy descriptions of the gunman and at least one other man spotted inside the Hyundai before it sped away. Police were reviewing numerous surveillance tapes from security cameras mounted at the school, but yesterday had found only images of the victims leaving school and the Sonata driving away.

Bryant urged a witness who was spotted standing near Watts' car to contact investigators, describing him as a white man in his early or mid-20s with a low-cut or balding hairline, wearing jeans, a light-colored shirt and hat. She also pleaded for calls from "good, supportive parents," relatives or girlfriends of young men who may have been involved or know something about the shooting.

"[Involvement in crime] ends two ways -- in jail or in the ground," she said. "Try to keep them out of the ground."

Watts' family said he had been trying to live a quiet, productive life since returning in January from a six-month, court-ordered stint at George Junior Republic, a residential school and treatment center in Mercer County.

But school police said they believe he sometimes may have sold marijuana because he often carried around a large roll of $5 and $10 bills. He was seen circling the school in his car before and after classes, but they said they never actually caught him possessing, using or selling pot.

City police said they haven't established a link to drug activity or a specific motive for the shooting beyond a neighborhood vendetta with hazy origins. But they are sickened by the extreme, violent response it provoked.

Police have pursued but haven't confirmed a story that the conflict may have started after a young man from one neighborhood was jumped by people from the other, Bryant said. Indeed, police said, Watts may have been targeted for no other reason than that he socialized with friends in St. Clair Village.