INNOCENT BYSTANDERS JACQUELYN MEHALIC AND BETTY AVERYTT DIED AS A RESULT OF A SHOOTING ON THE NORTH SIDE, OCT. 15.
Mayor Gainey is fed up with the gun violence plaguing Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey stood before the entire City of Pittsburgh on Monday, Oct. 17, and proclaimed that he could never fathom losing his mother to gun violence.
But two nights earlier, two Pittsburgh mothers did lose their lives to gun violence, an apparent senseless shooting that took place on the North Side, the mothers just innocent bystanders waiting at the bus stop near the Giant Eagle and Sunoco.
Betty Averytt, 59, and Jacquelyn Mehalic, 33, were the two mothers killed as the 20 gunshots were fired from across the street near a park towards the gas station, and vice versa. Pittsburgh police said the shooting was due to an altercation at the Sunoco gas station just seconds earlier.
“I couldn’t imagine what that feels like,” Mayor Gainey said at the Oct. 17 news conference. “Four kids that don’t have a mom.” The mayor was speaking specifically of Mehalic, who had four children. Averytt was a mother and a grandmother. “And there’s no reason that anybody should want those type of killers on the street. We don’t. We want to get them off the street as soon as possible, because anybody who would not take any value in a life is not someone that needs to be on our streets. We know that somebody knows something.”
PITTSBURGH MAYOR ED GAINEY
Mayor Gainey pleaded with the community to call police with information on who was responsible for the shooting. A third person who died in the shooting was a 20-year-old man, John Hornezes. Police are unsure if he had a role in the actual shooting. A fourth person was shot in the leg and was treated at Allegheny General Hospital, a few blocks away.
Mayor Gainey said that there has been an increased response from the community when it comes to providing suspect information to the police, and that there have been “many” suspects taken off the streets because of that information. But in this specific shooting case, the mayor said, “help us now. Help us now.”
The mayor added: “Let’s talk about the number of guns on our street. We have too many guns on our street. More of our young people can get guns quicker than you can get a bag of chips out of the grocery store.”
Mayor Gainey also seemed perturbed that the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center, which is now closed, was closed “without a plan B.”
Shuman is under the control of Allegheny County, and a few weeks ago, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said the county is looking at all parties interested in running a juvenile detention center. So far, no takers.
The closure of Shuman means that juvenile offenders who are arrested have no place to go. Pittsburgh Police leader of major crimes, Commander Richard Ford, had anger in his eyes as he discussed the increasing number of juveniles who are back on the streets after Pittsburgh Police have arrested them for a crime.
“Something’s wrong with our system when have people that continually can go outside and perpetuate more violent crimes,” he said.
Commander Ford added: “Unfortunately, the police cannot do everything. We can’t control people’s tendency to carry firearms. Conflict resolution that’s going to be resolved with gunfire is going to result in innocent victims, their lives cut short for absolutely no reason whatsoever. There needs to be accountability on all sides,” he said, including the police, District Attorney’s office, judges, and Allegheny County.
For Mayor Gainey, much of his message as he campaigned to become Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor was a stoppage of the gun violence that has been plaguing Pittsburgh’s Black communities for decades. While no one expected all the violence to cease immediately just because he became mayor, the mayor is more than disgusted that seemingly every day, he’s waking up to news of another shooting, another killing. There have been just as many homicides in the City of Pittsburgh this year as in 2021, but 2022 still has two and a half more months left.
“We need us to come together,” Mayor Gainey said. “The entire city must come together to deal with this violence. We need government, community leaders, non-profit leaders, business leaders, media leaders. We need everybody because it’s the only way we’re going to solve this.”
About Post Author
