Mayor Ed Gainey meets with North Side community to discuss safety concerns
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — The area around the Sunoco gas station on the North Side where Saturday's mass shooting happened has been a hotbed of crime, drug activity and gunplay.
Neighbors have been imploring the city to crack down on crime at the gas station and the adjoining park. All summer long, the dealers claimed the park for themselves and gunplay followed.
"There are so many drugs going on out here," North Side resident Richard Mignella said. "I can walk down East Ohio Street, every day I see it, passing around back and forth. It's unbelievable."
On Monday, Mayor Ed Gainey was at Allegheny Commons to see for himself and hear their concerns. Police say since July 1, they've made 87 arrests in the area and confiscated 16 firearms. But Gainey says despite the best efforts of police, the drug dealers have returned.
"It's not that they haven't cleared it out. Let me be clear, they have cleared it out," he said. "Over and over again, but they come back."
Some residents KDKA-TV spoke with raised concerns about a nearby homeless encampment, saying some buy drugs in the park.
Gainey says he'll be meeting with the owners of the adjoining Allegheny Commons-East apartment complex to determine if some residents there are responsible for the drug trade. But he says the war on drugs here and across the country has failed and the city is looking for new answers.
"We keep saying it's illegal, but we got more drugs on the street so we need a different solution," Gainey said.
But residents are looking for those answers now.
"The North Side needs to be better than this," Mignella said. "We haven't been this way for 30 years. We need to bring it back."