Post-fireworks shooting concerns city, Downtown merchants

Some Downtown business owners said Tuesday they worry a shooting on the Fourth of July is part of a pattern of violence that scares off potential customers, but Pittsburgh officials sought to counter those fears, casting it as an isolated incident.

“It's very sporadic, but I feel like the public learning about shootings in this area certainly deters families from coming down here, and that's a concern for our business,” said Kevin Segal, general manager of Proper Brick Oven & Tap Room.

Four people were wounded shortly after the city's fireworks display ended about 10:30 p.m. near Seventh Street and Liberty Avenue near the Wood Street T Station — about two blocks from Segal's restaurant.

He said it's a scary situation.

A woman was shot in the head and was in critical but stable condition, police said. A man, a boy and a 15-year-old girl were shot in the leg. No arrests had been made as of Tuesday night.

Business owners complained about the more common occurrence of large groups of young people congregating near the Wood Street T station. They said the kids are, for the most part, harmless.

“There's no concern for safety,” said Jess Rodabaugh, a manager at Pittsburgh Popcorn on Liberty Avenue. “They're just children being annoying.”

Police Chief Cameron McLay, at a news conference, said large Downtown events present unique security challenges.

“I was at the shooting scene last night, and a number of my officers said ‘Chief, this pattern has been going on for years. What are we going to do?' ” McLay said.

“We will get large groups of young kids from all over the city who use public transit to come Downtown,” he said. “We know from prior experience that these young groups will sometimes have conflicts with one another. Sometimes, there will be gang associations, and we will predictably have fights.”

McLay said, “We're always debriefing what we did, looking at what worked and what didn't, and we're going to retool how we did this.”

Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1 President Bob Swartzwelder said the city has gotten to the point where there are not enough officers to staff large events.

“These are events that cannot properly be staffed while you're still trying to staff the regular city streets. It's an absolute staffing fiasco,” Swartzwelder said.

McClay would not say how many officers were working Downtown at the time, but he said there were officers on hand “both to manage the crowd and to patrol the central business district.”

Mayor Bill Peduto lamented that a police presence is no longer a deterrent, despite a quick response.

“(Officers) were there within moments of the shooting itself. They were able to respond and stop a major fight that was occurring earlier,” he said. “At the same time, it's not that it will be a deterrent to stopping incidents that can happen. Most likely this was a targeted event. It wasn't a random shooting.”

Assistant Chief Thomas Stangrecki said it does not appear the victims were involved in arguments before the gunfire, though he noted that officers reported a juvenile with what appeared to be a firearm in his waistband. The boy took off and tossed the object — later found to be a pellet gun — in a planter on Liberty Avenue.

McLay said police are aware of a “common theme” that often accompanies large Downtown events in which young people from all over the city attend and use public transportation — often the Wood Street station — to get home.

He described the difficulty for officers responding to such a chaotic scene: “Large groups — 50, 100 or more — of kids running around the central business district. They would fight with one another for a few moments, officers would show up, the kids all begin to flee,” he said.

Peduto said that phenomenon is not new.

“I think if you go back all the way to the 1980s, you'll see that there were incidents that occurred,” he said. “The difference is in the 1980s, kids didn't have guns.”

In 2010, fights broke out near the Wood Street station during the city's Light Up Night celebration. The fights happened during the search for a shooter who opened fire on a man near Seventh and Smithfield streets.

Officers and police dogs broke up the fights, and one man was bitten by a dog. Four juveniles were ultimately charged with disorderly conduct.

Several fights broke out near the same station during Light Up Night festivities in 2011, and in 2012 a woman was shot in the buttocks near Market Square during Light Up Night.

Other incidents have centered around the Wood Street station.

On May 30, 2015, a group of white men assaulted Kevin Lockett, a black man, as he got off the train among throngs of people leaving last year's Kenny Chesney concert. In December, Port Authority officers struggled with a teenager observed tampering with escalator equipment at the station. Other teens jumped in, and the scuffle ended with two arrests.

Swartzwelder said the police bureau has dwindled to a size capable of handling only the basic service calls it receives.

“Requests for special events permits are multiplying daily — when you add events, you need to add personnel,” he said.

Peduto said he'd leave such a decision up to McLay and his command staff but noted that if police officials think more officers are needed to patrol that specific area, “We'll find a way.”

Tribune-Review staff writer Bob Bauder contributed to this report. Megan Guza and Michael Walton are Tribune-Review staff writers.