March for peace in Homewood brings out crowd against recent city violence
A church in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood held a ‘Prayer for Peace’ march on Good Friday as violent crime spikes in the city.
This is the 12th year that the House of Manna Faith Community on Frankstown Road has held the event. This year, a crowd of people marched from Homewood to East Liberty for peace.
“Our communities are beat down, but on Easter, we look at that as the Resurrection Day,” Rev. Cornell Jones said. “So, we're looking at the resurrection of the community.”
The homicide rate is ahead of what it was last year, according to Pittsburgh Police. Chief Scott Schuber marched with the group and said that no one wants to live in a community that’s scared to walk down the street.
“They’re upset. They're frustrated that this level of violence is going on,” Schubert said. “It's unacceptable for all of us and as Pittsburgh police, we're going to do everything we can to help work with community to bring that violence down and to make our community safer that's our priority.”
One organizer said people from almost every neighborhood in Pittsburgh marched with them on Friday to send a message to the community.
“We want the community to know that we don’t want violence in our community,” Toya Jones said. “We stand for peace. We're going to be walking and we're going to be praying letting everyone know as a Black community we want peace in our community and for our children.”