‘Before you’d have fistfights ... now you see guns.’
Recent shootings have South Side residents, business owners on edge
Claire Pro has lived in Pittsburgh for 15 years, but early Friday morning was the first time she’d heard gunfire.
Her third-floor windows were open to let in fresh air overnight when she and her husband heard sirens coming up and down South 18th Street around 1:30 a.m. in the South Side Flats. Through neighbors on social media, she learned there were three shootings right down the road.
Later that evening, a Homestead man was killed in another shooting just up the road in the South Side Slopes near Quarry Field around 6:45 p.m. No one has been charged in that incident.
The South Side is known for its nightlife, particularly the stretch of bars and clubs along East Carson Street. But according to one neighborhood merchant, the behavior of weekend revelers has become more violent than it used to be.
Nizar Sandi, who has owned Nick’s Imports on East Carson Street for 23 years, said he’s felt a greater unease for his safety since the bars began opening up to more people as COVID-19 vaccinations increased.
“We used to have 10 times more [people] than this and it was safer,” he said.
But Mr. Sandi, who also lives in the neighborhood, said the crowds he is seeing are acting differently than the typical college students who populate the street on weekends.
“Before you’d have fistfights, which is normal, you know — kids. But now [if there’s] a problem here, you see guns.”
In the shootings where Ms. Pro heard the gunshots, three people were critically wounded, and police charged a 15-year-old from Clairton with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and other offenses. The teen’s name has not been released.
It became a waiting game for Ms. Pro and her family.
“So then I came downstairs, got my daughter ... [and] put her in our bed in the back of the house,” said Ms. Pro, 32. “And then we, like, turned up the AC as loud as we could so we couldn’t hear the sirens and I just refreshed Facebook and waited for the 4 a.m. news.”
“I can honestly say that is one of the first times I have felt fight or flight when these things kind of
down here,” she said.
Ray Thompson, who for 30 years has lived near the field where the man was killed, said he heard the shots go off and saw several police cars fly by. What struck him was that the shooting happened relatively early in the evening and during daylight.
“I went to the back door and looked,” he said. “That field was full of kids and they were like roaches, they were just running every which way.”
City law enforcement officials called a news conference Friday to discuss what they called a concerning escalation of violence in the neighborhood.
“We are having serious problems. It doesn’t matter if the officers are there or not, there is just ongoing violence,” Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said Friday.
“We diverted a situation where an officer potentially could have been shot [Friday], or other individuals being shot with the officer’s weapon or the individual’s weapon.”
Many of the people visiting East Carson Street on Saturday evening said they felt comfortable during the daytime, but night was a different story.
“We were told to get out before night,” said Haylie Medoff, 28, of Los Angeles, who was in town visiting friends and family.
Others who were out Saturday said they were starting their evening on East Carson Street, but when it got late they would move to bars on the North Shore or in Lawrenceville.
“Once two o’clock hits, get out,” Shawn Graham, of the South Side warned.
However, Mr. Graham said he “felt fine” even in light of the recent shootings.
“All the gun violence, it’s not just random,” he said, adding that he thinks it’s usually between people who know each other.
Scott Johnson, who owns the Three Rivers Vintage shop, said there has been a lot of good happening in the neighborhood, like new businesses opening. B
But the rise in violence, he said, is a national problem that can’t just be pinned down to the South Side, which he believes is still a relatively safe place.
“When you start hearing that, people think it’s unsafe down here 24 hours a day, so nobody wants to come down here,” he said.
“And it’s not that it’s completely unsafe down here,” he added. “I would still walk through these streets at 3 in the morning going from the bar to my car or whatever, but it’s just that one or two bad apples that come down to cause trouble deliberately.”
For Ms. Pro, who lives with her husband and young daughter, the recent problems are just another thing that could drive families away from the neighborhood that she loves.
She acknowledges, though, that gun violence it is a national problem that occurs in cities across the country.
She said that on the same day three people were shot near her home, her neighbors brought home a newborn baby.
“Families are one of the biggest exports out of the South Side,” she said. “And then that’s the kind of stuff that just like, when you bring home a new baby and you’re sitting there, your only thought is, ‘I have to leave.’ ”
But for some visitors to the South Side, Saturday evening was business as usual on East Carson. Bars and nightclubs were spilling music — and people — into the sidewalks.
“I’m not going to let something like that keep me away from anywhere,” said Darci M. of West Mifflin, who was in the South Side on Saturday for a margarita and mimosa bar crawl.
“I think it’s sad, but I’m not going to let it stop me from supporting the businesses in my area.”