Mike Kelsey held his unit's door shut with a kitchen knife early Friday morning while gunfire erupted just outside, and by the time police arrived they would count more than 80 shell casings scattered across the parking area of a short-term rental in St. Louis's Central West End. Kelsey and his family had traveled from Illinois so his daughter could receive medical care, and they were staying near West Pine and Newstead when the shooting began around 1 a.m.
The rapid-fire volley left Kelsey's wife's Toyota 4Runner with 15 bullet strikes, enough damage that the vehicle was considered a total loss, according to First Alert 4. Kelsey's Tesla also took bullet holes, and its onboard cameras captured a person getting out of a car along with muzzle flashes lighting up the night. Other vehicles parked nearby sustained bullet damage as well, and the family itself was not hurt.
People Upstairs Tried To Get In
The building held two separate short-term rental units run by different hosts, and Kelsey said he had no contact with whoever managed the unit upstairs. As the gunfire continued, people staying in that upstairs unit ran from the property and tried to get into Kelsey's unit, prompting him to hold the door shut with a kitchen knife while his family waited out the chaos inside, per the same account. Kelsey's own rental host, by contrast, stayed in contact with him throughout the ordeal.
A 19-year-old man told police he had been leaving an Airbnb party shortly after 1 a.m. when the shots were fired; he was grazed in the ear and arrived at a hospital in stable condition, St. Louis police reported. Witnesses described the shots as rapid fire in succession, and whoever was firing drove off roughly 20 seconds later. The next morning, Kelsey found about a dozen additional shell casings that investigators had missed, and police ultimately recovered shell casings from both .45 caliber and 9mm ammunition.
A Family's Reason For Being There
The Kelsey family had booked the Airbnb specifically for its proximity to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where their daughter needed a neurosurgeon and spine surgeon for her procedure. The hospital anchors a 186-acre medical campus about a mile south of the shooting scene and serves as the primary adult teaching facility for Washington University School of Medicine. Kelsey's daughter underwent surgery and was later discharged; the family had booked the rental specifically to be near the hospital for her recovery before moving to another Airbnb for the rest of their stay.
Kelsey said he has video showing the shooter and is pushing for justice and any information that could help investigators, telling the outlet he wants answers. He noted the company listed as owning the building uses a California post office box, leaving him with few ways to reach anyone directly responsible for the property. Airbnb said its safety team investigated the incident and maintained that it was not directly connected to the Airbnb reservation itself, according to the company.
Enforcement Gap Behind The Violence
The shooting lands amid a broader regulatory tangle over short-term rentals in St. Louis. The Board of Aldermen passed a bill in February requiring hosts to pay a 3% tax per nightly stay and obtain a business license, a measure that took effect under Ordinance 72095 after Mayor Tishaura Jones signed it, according to the City of St. Louis. Half of that revenue flows into an Affordable Housing-License Fee Fund, with the rest split between tenant support and eviction legal defense, per Lewis Rice.
But the city's more comprehensive safety framework — which would cap operators at four un-occupied property permits and require two-night minimum stays — remains frozen. That ordinance has been legally paused since April 2025 amid an ongoing court injunction tied to host litigation, the city has confirmed. St. Louis continues to face that lawsuit over its short-term-rental regulations, meaning officials currently cannot enforce local emergency-contact requirements or occupancy limits while the case proceeds.
Airbnb has maintained a permanent global ban on parties and open-invite gatherings since June 2022, and the company has reported that its ban combined with machine-learning screening cut party reports by more than half nationwide since 2020, with party allegations turning up in fewer than 0.06% of U.S. bookings in 2024. Even so, unauthorized bookings tied to gatherings keep surfacing in St. Louis. In April, a jury convicted a 21-year-old man of second-degree murder and other felonies in a fatal October 2023 shooting at an Airbnb party in Gravois Park, and in December 2024 a shooting at another short-term rental party left a 17-year-old critically injured after witnesses at the scene refused to cooperate with detectives.
District 5 detectives are investigating Friday's shooting and are asking anyone with information to contact them at 314-444-0001 or to reach out to CrimeStoppers. Police have not announced any arrests in connection with the shooting as of Friday's report.
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