Tackle the crime
A civic leader’s plea requires immediate attention
Mayor Bill Peduto can cite all the data he wants about the size of the police force and his commitment to community- oriented policing, but if crime is still a threat to the Cultural District’s vibrancy, none of it means a doggone thing.
When the head of the city’s most important cultural organization says crime near his theaters is “alarming” and reaching a “tipping point,” that’s a signal for Mr. Peduto to try harder.
In a letter to Mr. Peduto pleading for help, Kevin McMahon, CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, said the July 4 double shooting in Katz Plaza wasn’t an isolated incident but part of a crime wave that includes aggressive panhandlers, drug overdoses, lewd acts in alleys, rowdy youths and public intoxication. One of his employees was assaulted recently, he said, and others have been harassed by teenagers.
Mr. McMahon complained that he hasn’t seen much of a police presence and wondered why the city isn’t taking full advantage of the free office space the trust makes available for a police sub- station in the Cultural District.
The call for a substation, by the way, came three years ago during the last round of complaints about escalating crime Downtown. Sadly, public safety in the Cultural District and Market Square is a recurring concern that Mr. Peduto’s administration cannot, or will not, stay on top of.
In 2016, another July 4 shooting, this one at the Wood Street T station that injured four people, was followed days later by a stabbing in Market Square and then by a series of fights involving young people at the end of August’s regatta. Months later, at the request of merchants, the
Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership tried to discourage loitering and other problems in Market Square by removing tables and chairs after lunchtime each day.
Then, as now, police emphasized that they were doing a lot to maintain order. In response to Mr. McMahon’s letter, Mr. Peduto noted that city crime rates are down, that the police force is bigger than it’s been in 15 years and that he’s demonstrated a strong commitment to communityoriented policing and crime prevention programs.
But those things aren’t paying dividends in Mr. McMahon’s neck of the woods. As one of the city’s showpieces, a tourism magnet and a center of significant public and private investment, the Cultural District deserves the help Mr. McMahon is seeking. Mr. Peduto needs to huddle with his public safety team and design an intervention before the Cultural District loses the familyfriendly reputation that so many city and civic leaders spent decades building.