The optics have not been good for downtown Pittsburgh over the past few years. A Golden Triangle still left largely vacant by the work-from-home class even after the Covid pandemic passed has been plagued with story after story of the seedy side of urban center life:
Open air drug dealing and use. Public urination and defecation. Random attacks, some brutal, on the homeless and the few office workers brave enough to too often run the gauntlet of incredibly aggressive panhandlers.
Then came the stories of roving gangs of youth, the latest coming two Sundays ago in the nearly reconstituted Market Square. Forty juveniles brawled for an extended time in what became a pepper-spray battle, first among the brawlers and then with police. We should be thankful it wasn’t a gun battle.
Some of the Market Square improvements were vandalized. And it happened just over a month before the NFL Draft unfolds in town, bringing an estimated half- to three-quarters of a million football fans to the erstwhile City of Champions.
Indeed, the now long-running optics are quite unsavory. But using the word “optics” implies things aren’t as bad as they seem. Which more than a few moneyed movers and shakers have latched onto in an attempt to pooh-pooh the severity of it all.
As one of myriad examples, we are being asked to pay no attention to a woman walking from her office building to meet her husband after work, being sucker-punched by a 9-year-old, then further attacked by a group of juveniles.
It’s no hyperbole to say the Golden Triangle is an unpredictable environment that all too regularly, in certain micro-environments, grows out of control.
And as the Tribune-Review reported Thursday last, the statistics are backing up the reality of the Golden Triangle unrest.
“Since Jan. 1, crime has climbed 50 percent Downtown through March 4 compared to the same time period a year ago, with 642 crimes reported, up from 426 the prior year.
“Aggravated assaults Downtown have more than tripled to 13 in that period compared to four during the same stretch a year earlier. Robbery reports have dropped. Theft is up; car thefts are down.”
But, the Trib also notes, “Nobody has been murdered Downtown since Jan. 19, 2023, when a man was gunned down outside the Wood Street ‘T’ station.”
But for the grace of God go we, we can only suppose given the regular mayhem.
There is a new mayor in town. A new police chief, too. Indeed, city police patrols have been beefed up. And, egads, a radio report has it that two cops were seen walking the beat the other day Downtown.
Are we worried about chaos breaking out when the NFL Draft begins on April 23? Not really, considering the draft is classified as a “national security event”; federal law enforcement will have the area covered like a Super Bowl champion secondary, in addition to city, county and state gendarmes.
But that doesn’t magically eliminate the underlying problems that thus far have eluded public safety officials struggling to get a handle on matters. And there remain concerns that, just perhaps, the criminal justice system is not acting in the full measure it should against these hardly petty common criminals.
But do know this: There can be no promotion and execution of effective public policy without a deep and broad foundation that supports no-nonsense public safety.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
