October in Pittsburgh is not on pace to see record violence but several high profile cases in recent weeks have sparked debate among, and demands for action by, city council members.
“And now you’re hearing about innocent bystanders being shot — this is not OK,” said Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith at Wednesday’s council meeting. “We have got to sit down together, stop coming up with all these ideas we think will work and let’s really sit down and have a real conversation with the public, with our communities, with our residents about what really needs to happen in the city.
“Because whatever we’re doing isn’t working,” she said.
As of Wednesday, there had been seven non-fatal shooting incidents in the city in October. While that puts Pittsburgh on pace for nearly a dozen such incidents before the month is through, it would still be far from the most violent months the city has seen.
But Ms. Kail-Smith’s comments come just a few days after three people were killed and a fourth was wounded in a shootout Saturday on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Police have said two women killed in the gunfire were simply waiting at a bus stop.
The same night, a man was shot in the chest after an altercation devolved to gunfire on the city’s South Side. One person was shot and wounded Tuesday morning in Homewood, and two people were injured in a shooting 12 hours later near Carrick.
In the last seven days of September, there were six shootings that killed three people, according to reports from the Department of Public Safety.
Ms. Kail-Smith said constituents have demanded answers and action in response to the violence.
The informal discussion, which took place after council had completed all agenda items during its standing committee hearing Wednesday but before the meeting was adjourned, offered insight and a sense of urgency but no concrete solutions.
“I wish I knew all the answers,” Ms. Kail-Smith said. “I just want the public to know it is something we’re discussing, it is something we all care about and this is something we want to address.”
Councilman Ricky Burgess, whose district includes, among other neighborhoods, Homewood, Garfield, Larimer and East Liberty, said no overnight solutions are realistic.
He did, however, point to long-term investment not just in neighborhoods that are home to concentrated levels of poverty, but the neighbors of those communities as well.
“The idea that you want to build housing in the middle of blight and put people away from amenities is absolutely nuts,” he said.
He pointed to the 2014 award of $30 million in federal funding for the city’s Larimer neighborhood. He said the investment in East Liberty — particularly the development of Bakery Square and other amenities walkable from Larimer — helped secure that funding for neighboring Larimer.
“There is a relationship that we can foster between affluent communities and their neighbors that are less affluent that are transformative for both communities,” Mr. Burgess said.
First Published: October 19, 2022, 8:52 p.m.
Updated: October 20, 2022, 11:41 a.m.