Reputation for crime

Wilkinsburg, a borough of 2.3 square miles hugging Pittsburgh’s east side, has earned a reputation for crime over the past decades. The police department, with 24 fulltime officers, responds to about 15,000 calls a year, an average of almost one per person. It averages 1,000 arrests and about six homicides per year.

The same number that died in one night a year ago.

Wilkinsburg police Detective Michael Adams was on patrol with the car window down only a few blocks away when he heard the gunfire. He reported to dispatch and headed for Franklin Avenue.

Still unaware of what was happening, he entered the area slowly, without his emergency lights on. As he rolled down Franklin Avenue, he saw a man getting into a car. The man’s manner was casual enough, but Detective Adams still made a note of the license plate. It would prove to be a break in the case.

Shortly after spotting the man driving away, Detective Adams heard the shrieking of a woman who had been wounded and the crackle of the police radio alerting officers to multiple 911 calls. He was the first on the scene.

“The bodies were still moving, but they were dead,” he said of those on the back porch, recalling a nightmarish image that he is able to compartmentalize as “part of the job.”

“There’s no benefit in dwelling on it,” he said. “You can’t let it affect you and what you have to do. I’d say that’s true of everyone in this department. Every officer here has seen a homicide, I’d say, within their first year on the job. We’re

The neighbors along Franklin Avenue come together all the time, sometimes just passing on the sidewalk, other times sitting on a porch. On Thursday, some of them will come together in front of the Knapp house to commemorate the oneyear anniversary of the shootings.

“The vigil is for the living, in support of one another as much as it is to remember those who have passed,” said Julie Knapp, 39, who was running an errand when the shootings occurred. Sitting in her living room, which still bears the scars of two bullets that were shot into the house, she said it never occurred to her to move.