Shootings that took place within a three-day period, leaving four teenagers wounded and one male dead, have many in the Black community fed up and calling for an urgent ceasefire.
Less than an hour after the shootings were reported, Facebook news feeds were full of comments, some even comparing Pittsburgh to Chicago, which had more than 400 homicides last year.
The weekend filled with gunfire began on Aug. 8 when an 18-year-old female was shot in the head and neck at the intersection of Kelly and Sterrett Streets, in Homewood. There were reportedly between 30 and 40 shots fired. She was taken to a local hospital. At last check she was in critical condition. Her status was could not be confirmed as of this publication’s deadline.
Then in the streets of downtown Pittsburgh, around 11 p.m., a teenager was shot while at the intersection of William Penn Place and Seventh Street. He was taken to a local hospital.
On Saturday, Aug. 9, a 17-year-old was shot in the hip, and a house and two cars were riddled with bullets when someone opened fire on Rochelle Street in Knoxville. The boy was driven away from the scene and then later transported by ambulance to a local hospital.
Pittsburgh police have made no arrests in connection with these shootings.
Gunfire continued a day later, on Aug. 10, when 37-year-old Anthony Robertson, of McKeesport, was shot around 5:30 p.m., in broad daylight, at the Harrison Village housing complex in McKeesport while he sat outside. He was taken to UPMC McKeesport, where he died less than an hour later.
There have been other reports that the incident was in retaliation for a shooting that took place last week. No one has been charged in Robertson’s homicide.
Then, only minutes later, a 17-year-old male was shot during an apparent robbery while walking near the Cliffview Apartments, on Ice Plant Hill Road, in North Versailles. The suspect was later apprehended by North Versailles police after he fled the scene, leaving his shirt behind, and being seen on a nearby camera shirtless.
These incidents took place just days after Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and other public safety officials held a press conference to address the city’s homicides, and after a 15-year-old witness to the shooting of a pregnant girl was fatally shot.
LeRoy Powell was killed, Aug. 6, in the 1000 block of Crawford Avenue, just two blocks from his Duquesne home, in what is believed to have been an ambush. Reports say he ran outside after receiving a phone call.
Powell had testified the week before against Eric Taylor, the teen accused of shooting DaRae Delgado, 15, when she answered the door on May 26 at her Friendship Avenue home in Duquesne. She was shot multiple times, killing her 31-week-old son.
No one has been arrested in Powell’s homicide. To date, there have been more than 60 homicides in Allegheny County, many of them Black males under the age of 30.
