Petition renews push to silence a police shooting range in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh (KDKA) - People living near a controversial open-air gun range in the Pittsburgh's Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar neighborhood are sending an urgent message to city leaders.
Community members gathered at Highland Park on Tuesday to spread awareness about concerns about the gunfire coming from the shooting range. They also presented a petition which asks Mayor Ed Gainey's Administration to shut down the range as soon as possible.
Nearly 1,300 people have signed the petition. They said the sound of gunfire coming from the gun range can be traumatizing and they've had enough.
Joy Katz told KDKA-TV she hears the sound of gunfire all too often.
"It varies day-to-day… we can hear the gunfire in our bedroom with the windows shut," Katz said.
She lives in the city's Highland Park neighborhood, not far from the Pittsburgh police shooting range off Washington Boulevard.
"It's definitely affected our quality of life, our health, our mental health," said Katz.
Katz started a petition and quickly gathered nearly 1,3000 signatures from people in Highland Park and other East End neighborhoods. They said they're tired of hearing gunfire blasts at any hour 365 days a year.
"The people who live here and use the park want an end to the gunfire immediately," Katz said.
The open-air firing range has been a noisy concern for more than 40 years.
Stephanie Walsh is the president of the Highland Park Community Council president. She said it got renewed attention because more people were home during the pandemic and the recent spikes in gun violence. She said the loud bangs can trigger anxiety and fear and it's a public health issue.
"To raise public awareness, we do not view this as a police issue, it's a public health issue. It's not comforting to hear gunfire, even if you know it's coming from the police. It's very triggering," Walsh said.
In the petition, the community members urged Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey to find the money in the city's current budget to begin a planning process immediately for closing the gun range as soon as possible.
"We would like them to build a new enclosed facility that won't bother any neighbors," Walsh said.
Many members of the community are now making noise in hopes that the range will be silenced.
"It's also the rise in rise gun violence people are very sensitive to the issue we have children who hear this as they wait for their school bus then they go to school and have to live through active shooter drills," Walsh said.
"We want an end to the gunfire right now. We can't live in gunfire anymore. There are Tree of Life survivors in the neighborhood, and with jury selection is going on, people are very very tense," said Katz.
During a community town hall meeting last month, Mayor Gainey said that he did not have all the answers yet, but that he was working with leaders to come up with a course of action.
KDKA-TV reached out to the Gainey Administration for comment on the new petition and received this statement from his press secretary:
"The Mayor is firmly committed to allocating funds in the 2024 Budget to begin design work on a new shooting range that will ensure our officers are adequately trained to handle their firearms. This is a problem that has existed for nearly 40 years, and one that does not have an immediate short-term solution. The design and build out of a new facility will take time and until that is completed, we still have to make sure that our officers are trained to the best of their ability so they can help keep our city safe.
To mitigate issues for residents while we construct our new range, we schedule time for our officers to train at other facilities in the region whenever possible and we restrict Police Academy hours. If people hear gun fire outside of business hours on weekdays or on holidays we encourage them to contact the city so that we can investigate. The Highland Park Shooting Range will continue in operation at this time."