Gun violence in Pittsburgh: Exploring why shootings are happening
Mayor Ed Gainey was holding a community meeting in the North Side Thursday night to share updates on the "Pittsburgh Plan for Peace," his vision for preventing violence in the city.
In this Pittsburgh's Action News 4 report, we focus on three communities, starting with the North Side and surrounding neighborhoods where Pittsburgh police say 70 shootings have been recorded this year. In those incidents, 16 people were killed.
In the city's Homewood neighborhood, eight people were killed in the 28 shootings in that neighborhood.
And in the nearby city of Duquesne, 12 shootings were recorded and six people were killed. That's where our story begins.
Watch the full report in the video above.
Another funeral was recently held at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church of Duquesne. This year alone, a funeral is held there every other month for someone gunned down in the community.
Luena Coward shared how deeply she feels the sting of death.
"I lost the first one, then I lost the second one and now I lost the third one," she said. "I feel like all is gone."
All three of her sons were killed by gunfire between 2001 and 2012. All died before their 20th birthday.
"Every time I buried each son, I feel like a part of me was going down with them," she said.
"It's a pain. I feel like I have a three-life sentence."
The Rev. Archie Perrin performed the eulogy for Coward's three sons. He has also eulogized many more people killed in Duquesne.
"I believe, to a large degree, it started in the 1990s with the gangs," Perrin said.
"Moving through that, it just got worse, not better, simply because it became accepted," he said. "Now it has become a way of life, and that's a huge problem."
But why? Why is the culture of gun violence raging through some of Pittsburgh’s communities?
Several people weighed in for this report. They include a group of seventh- and eighth-grade students in the Duquesne City School District, a youth wrestling coach in Homewood, and a teacher and counselor at The Pittsburgh Project in the North Side.
Gunmen walked up to Destiny of Faith Church in Brighton Heights and started shooting during a funeral last month. JaVon Howse was there.
"At the time, the streets were kind of in uproar, so I knew that going to the funeral, there was always a possibility that something could happen," Howse said.
Howse is a counselor at The Pittsburgh Project, along with Ash-Shahadah McEachin, a teacher. The nonprofit, after-school organization in the Perry South neighborhood has a mission to develop children to become future community leaders.
Based on their interaction with youth, Howse and McEachin share what they believe provokes gun violence.
"I don't think that shooting someone is that much of a big deal. Like, I think it's something that they just, they know it's an option for them. 'If I don't like this or I don't like that, I can shoot them,'" Howse said.
"It's a way for them to get attention. It's a way for them to feel like they're somebody. I feel like, through their eyes, they see it almost as an accomplishment because they did something that people will remember them for," McEachin said.
McEachin also says some teens in low-income households are easily persuaded to use guns to hustle for the next dollar.
"It gets reinforced through television. It's being reinforced in music. That's how they know to achieve financial resources, when there are other opportunities and options out there," she said.
In the Duquesne City School District, seventh- and eighth-graders at the "community circle" express how they're impacted by gun violence around them and why it's happening.
"It makes me feel nervous that I can't go someplace without hearing gunshots or seeing people die," one student said.
"If you're in an argument, they just bring up a gun. Most teens just do that, or they'll shoot you or something," student Dae-Mere Johnson said.
"Social media gets into their head, letting social media take over them, people not living in the proper household," student A-Ryah Scott said.
"They'll just see social media, and if they see another person doing it, they'll think that's fun and they'll do it themselves," another student said.
Molly Means, with the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, leads the teen discussion.
"Violence is a lot like a disease, right? It's like an epidemic," Means said. "Once violence enters a community, it multiplies, and it spreads really, really quickly."
Many communities wrestle with the consequences of gun violence.
"We can help you become better young people, better young men, better young women and leaders," Justin Perkins said.
Perkins believes he has a grip on the crisis in Homewood: Consume kids with wrestling before they're consumed by the streets.
"You have to be disciplined, you have to be accountable, you have to be self-sufficient and you have to have integrity," he said.
Perkins says nearly 80 of his friends have either been killed or incarcerated in shooting incidents. He runs the Westinghouse Youth Wrestling program to save as many children as possible.
"Clap your hands if you're happy to be here," Perkins told the kids in his group, who responded by doing just that.
It's the same approach in Duquesne, where mental health and self-esteem building are among the tools they're giving kids.
Pittsburgh's Action News 4 was there as a teacher led a group of students in an affirmation: "I am smart. I am important. I am powerful. I can do anything I put my mind to."
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