Leaders urge peace with gun buyback event
Deadly Homewood shooting cues action
After a shooting in Homewood that left two dead in November right outside the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross, and just ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, city and state officials on Friday encouraged community members to help promote peace by surrendering their weapons in a gun buyback event to take place at the church Monday.
Pittsburgh police Chief Scott Schubert and other officials spoke
Friday at the church to promote the buyback, which will go from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. “No questions will be asked” upon the submission of weapons, church leaders said.
Anyone who wishes to surrender their guns will be paid up to $100, depending on the type of guns. The weapons will be processed and eventually destroyed, Chief Schubert said. Monday’s event strives to honor the late civil rights leader, who has often been hailed as the “apostle of nonviolence,” officials said Friday.
“This is an important, important event that we’re having in this community,” said Sylvia Wilson, president of the Pittsburgh Public School District school board. “If we could save any lives whatsoever, that is very critical. We actually had children who didn’t want to go to school because they were afraid to walk in their own community . ... This should be nothing that anyone should ever have to experience.”
A few years ago, fourth graders at Lincoln Elementary School grew “tired” of the violence in the community and decided to host a march, she said. Second through fifth graders also joined.
More than 75% of the young pupils said they knew someone who had died because of guns, Ms. Wilson added.
Lavon Sizemore, 29, of Swissvale, and Kierra Eddisha Harris, 26, of McKees Rocks, were killed Nov. 13 outside the Episcopal church at the corner of Kelly and Collier streets in Homewood.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office said Mr. Sizemore died at the scene from gunshot wounds. Officers found him on the ground next to a vehicle, and Ms. Harris was found nearby in the street with gunshot wounds to the neck and chest, officials said. She later died at UPMC Presbyterian. Police have yet to charge anyone in the case.
The Episcopal congregation has been “shaken” by the violent act, Ms. Wilson said. The deceased woman attended the church, and her son sometimes participated in a summer
program there, Ms. Wilson added.
The shooting was “too close to home,” said senior parishioner and former Pittsburgh Urban League President Leon Haley.
“The reverend called to tell me about it early in the morning on Sunday [in November], and of course I was quite [struck] by the fact that it was so close,” Mr. Haley said. “When he mentioned it in the sermon, there was an ‘aw’ in the congregation. I suspect in some of them a fear ... and that’s the thing that worries us most.”
But the location of the shooting is not what’s most concerning, he said. “If we don’t do something about the cycle of gun violence, it just continues to escalate.”
Although in its first year of hosting the buyback, the church is planning other programs to further address economic and violence issues, Mr. Haley said. Holy Cross — in partnership with city police, the Episcopal Lutheran Alliance and Homewood Ministries — is accepting donations to fund the buyback.
About $3,000 had been raised as of Friday morning, officials said.
Last year, Pittsburgh saw a total of 37 homicides — a 35% decrease from what police reported in 2010. The same total was also reported in 1998, police said. But while data shows the city is pushing forward in decreasing its homicide total, Allegheny County as a whole is struggling to see similar trends, according to county police.
“Homicides have gone down since 2014,” Chief Schubert said Friday. “We’ve seen a dramatic decrease due to a lot of hard work between our officers and the community. At the end of the day, one homicide, one person getting shot is too many, and we know that over 90% of our homicides are committed with firearms.”
Rev. Torrey Johnson, the head priest at Holy Cross, was not present Friday, but said in a statement that more than 85% of black homicide victims are killed by guns.
State Rep. Ed Gainey, DLincoln-Lemington, said the buyback is a “great opportunity” to educate youth about other historic trailblazers who were like Martin Luther King Jr.
“Let’s talk about some of the great non-violence movements we had from Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, to everybody that’s helped make America great,” he said. “... So as I see Holy Cross stepping out of the four walls and going to the corner, you’re telling the corner that we got a better day to look forward to.”
Pittsburgh police will provide security for the buyback to help ensure the surrendered weapons are “clear and safe coming in,” as well as properly disposed of afterwards, Chief Schubert said.