On Tuesday, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey was stretched thin. Events called him in two directions.
The funeral for slain McKeesport police Officer Sean Sluganski was scheduled for noon at St. Albert the Great Church in Baldwin. It was just a few hours later that he was speaking with media in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood.
Whether Gainey was at a church or outside a school, the problem was the same — and all too familiar. Someone had been shot.
In Homewood, it was four students — three boys and a girl — who were shot outside Westinghouse Academy.
Shot outside a school? It sticks in your head like a tune that you struggle to place. It rings a depressing bell for a reason. In January 2022, Marquis Campbell, 15, was shot outside Oliver Citywide Academy in Marshall-Shadeland on the North Side.
Campbell died. The four victims in Homewood suffered non-life-threatening injuries; they were shot in their hands and extremities. The relief that is felt in the shooting being non-fatal is, in itself, a tragedy. How have we gotten to a point where four children shot outside their school has a bright side?
Everything about Tuesday’s events plays like a terrible rerun. Sluganski’s funeral comes five weeks after the death of Brackenridge police Chief Justin McIntire, who likewise was killed in the line of duty. Both incidents came with a second officer surviving gunshot wounds.
It follows the skipping record of similar stories from 2022, in which person after person was reported killed by gun violence.
Our children are not safe. Not in cars with their mothers like De’Avry Thomas, just 18 months old. Not at a party like Matthew Steffy-Ross and Jaiden Brown, both 17. Not outside a grocery store like Kaari Thompson, 4. Not even just outside their schools.
Gainey has a plan to triple the number of police in Downtown Pittsburgh. He would like to open a new safety center. He said in April 2022 he wanted to see zero gun homicides in the city.
Ten months later, that goal seems further away than ever.
This is not just a Pittsburgh issue. It extends across the region, state and nation. Headlines from the Michigan State shooting that saw three students killed and five wounded show that. They also show that, while there are plenty of thoughts and prayers and vigils, answers and ideas are in short supply.
Something needs to happen because the funerals and the news conferences are starting to come closer and closer together.
