‘This is our town’: Pittsburgh officials plead for end to violence, plan gun tracking unit as crime rises – By Zoe Stratos and Emma Skidmore (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) / June 25 2021
A day after President Joe Biden announced new efforts to stem a rising national tide of violent crime, law enforcement officials in Pittsburgh held a news conference to discuss a similar rise here in gun violence and its impact on victims. Through the hymns and encouragement of people there to witness the emotion, Pittsburgh police Chief Scott Schubert spoke:
“You shouldn’t have a 6-year-old girl shot in a car. You shouldn’t have an 18-year-old man shot outside of his family’s business. You shouldn’t have a 15-year-old shot multiple times in front of his house. This is done. We’ve got to get through this together and fix this, and the only way we can do it is we got to rely on one another. This is our town. This is our home.”
Pittsburgh has seen a 55% increase in homicides compared to last year from January to June. A gun was the weapon of choice in 93% of those homicides, with 29 of the 31 killed due to gun violence, said Assistant Chief Lavonnie Bickerstaff at the conference on Thursday.
The two police officials were joined at the Center for Victims on the South Side by Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich and Matthew Varisco, a special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
