Nearby gunfire disrupts youth football at Pittsburgh park; organizers raise questions for city police

By Bob Mayo

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    PITTSBURGH (WTAE) — Lincoln Youth Sports says it asked last Tuesday for a Pittsburgh Police presence at Chadwick Park for Sunday’s youth football game for 12-year-olds in Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar.

It says the Zone 5 Pittsburgh police commander confirmed officers would be there. But the group says police didn’t arrive for the event until 911 calls about people on the street with guns by the park entrance opening fire on each other.

“I guess their intended target, he was being shot at and I guess he started to return fire. There was a whole shootout up here. At first, I thought it was fireworks. I came up, I peeked around. The next thing I seen, a whole crowd of people running, kids screaming, mothers crying, fathers frantically looking for their child. So it was just a scene of mayhem up here,” Aaron Strader, vice president of Lincoln Youth Sports, told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4.

Strader says there may have been as many as 20 shots fired. That gunfire did bring a police response.

Some parked vehicles were hit by the gunfire. Fortunately, no people were hit by the bullets.

The trauma of what happened is taking a toll on kids and parents.

“To see our kids that we coach every day, even the kids from other teams, crying. in tears. Two of them said they don’t want to play football no more,” Strader said.

Strader says Mayor Ed Gainey and Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt were expected to meet at the park with concerned parents at 6:30 p.m. Monday. It was not clear whether evening rain would force a postponement of the meeting.

Pittsburgh Public Safety deputy public information officer Amanda Mueller responded to Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 via email, writing, “We are looking into this. However, the issue will be addressed with the community this evening at a meeting in Chadwick Park.”

Strader said, “My goal is like, OK, this happened. Now what can we do to move forward to prevent it from happening again? Because there’s nothing we can do to undo it. Because emails have been reached out — ‘How can we make this right, what can we do?’ The damage is already done.”

Strader says having police presence at youth sports events is an opportunity for building bridges with the community.

“I try to get them to engage with the community, like, talk to the kids and just develop a relationship. So they were supposed to come. They said they were going to come. They didn’t come. That was Tuesday that this email and correspondence went down, and the game was Sunday,” Strader said. “Just their presence and being around, not only does that bring safety to the community and the parents and the kids, it’s just a good show of unity. It’s a good show of force.”

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