Family grieves as mourners create memorial outside Strip District bar after deadly shooting

PITTSBURGH — Preeti Tuli broke down talking about the moment her 18-year-old son was shot in the back of the head outside her Strip District bar.

“I ran, and I got to the door and I look and I just saw my son on the ground. So I ran over and I’m just crying,” Tuli remembers.

>>>DETAILS: 18-year-old North Hills grad dead after shooting outside Strip District bar

She said her son, Ahmir, was on the honor roll and had just graduated from North Hills High School last year. He was helping remodel and manage the kitchen at ‘Preeti’s Pitt’ along Penn Avenue.

“This is supposed to be something I was supposed to pass down to my baby. Now I don’t have anything. I have nobody. I’m not going to have grandkids and that’s the stuff that I sit here and think about like you robbed me of that,” Tuli said.

Police are searching for 45-year-old Mark McLendon who also goes by Howard Hawkins. According to police documents, McLendon got into an argument with other people in the bar and security told him to leave. Investigators said he then came back and shot Ahmir Tuli outside the door.

“I want him to look me in the eye and tell me what my son did to deserve to get shot from the back and get a bullet into his brain where he was brain dead when he got to the hospital. What did my son do to deserve that?” Tuli said.

She said she’s closing the bar for a while but plans to reopen eventually.

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