This Week’s Top Agenda Items
- Council and community celebrate success of violence prevention in Pittsburgh Public Schools
- Money for new detective dedicated to investigating car thefts accepted
- Council to continue funding K9 unit with $30,000 over three years
Council and community celebrate success of violence prevention in Pittsburgh Public Schools
- Council held a May 14 Post Agenda meeting to hear from a wealth of students from Pittsburgh Public Schools as well as community adults about the continuing success of the Safe Passage program
- Assistant Director of Public Safety Jones touted the program's effectiveness:
- 27% decrease in total discipline events
- 25% decrease in major discipline events such as fighting
- 14% decrease in unique student involvement in violence
- 7% decrease in violent offenses
- In 2024, zero homicides between youth ages 13-17 (“amazing”)
- There have been two deaths in 2025 as a result of gun play, but not gun violence
- Youth Safety Ambassadors have a 100% graduation rate
- The program views violence as a disease and approaches it from a public health lens. It operates on four foundational pillars:
- Detect and interrupt violence before it escalates
- Identify and treat high-risk individuals by providing targeted support and intervention
- Change community norms to shift attitudes and behaviors around violence
- Provide identities that offer young people a sense of purpose and belonging beyond violent influences
- Youth Safety Ambassadors receive training in mediation and form relationships with each other and peers to interrupt violence in and out of school. They also receive support from mentors to make the most of their time in Pittsburgh Public Schools.
- Student intervention is considered more effective and impactful than adult intervention according to Molly O'Malley-Argueta, principal of Perry High School
- Identified students can be connected to services as varied as crisis intervention to employment
- Safe Passage Coordinators (adults) receive automatic alerts about high-risk students and altercations outside of school, so they can be immediately addressed before they proliferate
- Safe Passage is built on collaborations between Pittsburgh Public Schools, the City, and local nonprofits, including Lifestyle Solutions, One Nation Mentoring, Auberle, Operation Better Block, among others. They receive additional funding through the BUHL Foundation.
- Taili Thompson, Director of Operation Better Block Violence Prevention, calls it one of the most comprehensive collaborations the City has ever undertaken
- Originally piloted at Perry High School in 2021, the program is also now implemented at Taylor Allderdice High School, Arlington PreK-8, Brashear High School, Obama Academy 6-12, Westinghouse High School, and Milliones UPrep 6-12
- The 94 Youth Safety Ambassadors receive a $200 a month stipend from Operation Better Block
In their own words:
- Nina Sacco, Assistant Superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools: “The level of violence that is prevented at times is—you’re talking about life and death situations sometimes.”
- Alishiah Campbell, senior at Perry High School: “[Teachers] see that we can change. People always think, like, ‘I don’t see no good in them,’ but everybody has good in them. Everybody could change and make a way.”
- Marquia Lowry, coordinator for Arlington, University Prep, Westinghouse, and Allderdice: “They’re viewed as lost causes and they’re really not. There’s so much potential, so much talent that I get to bear witness to every single day working in these schools. And they are making drastic change. I give them the space to be them, and sometimes that’s all they need to feel the hope, to feel the love, to feel the encouragement, to work the model, and to be amazing individuals because they all truly are.”
- Jaheim Jeffries, Taylor Allderdice High School [finding year]: “There’s no such thing as a lost cause in the school because if you’re waking up each morning and showing up for school, you can’t be a lost cause.”
Councilmember takes:
- Councilmember Warwick pointed out that the reality in Pittsburgh is the disparity in true understanding of gun violence between communities like where she lives compared to where Safe Passage participants live. Ten people in the room affirmed they had lost a family member or close friend to gun violence. Nine had experienced more than one loss.
- Of the program: “What we have been seeing here in Pittsburgh over the past two or three years is this commitment to reimagining how we do public safety.”
- Councilmember Gross: “It feels like a new Pittsburgh…You’ve created really, really big solutions for what were really, really big problems.”
Money for new detective dedicated to investigating car thefts accepted ★
- Councilmember Kail-Smith expressed frustration that a previous, similar grant to hire dedicated officers to auto theft went unused and wanted assurance that this money would be
- The previous officer dedicated to the task retired in January. The Bureau has since placed two part-time officers in the unit.
- According to a KDKA report, Brookline, Carrick, Knoxville, Beltzhoover and Sheraden experience the highest number of car thefts
- Councilmember Gross wanted to know if the money would provide the necessary support to deal with an abundance of abandoned vehicles
- Acting Chief Devine said there is a plan in the “very near future” to have a “vehicle blitz” that would clean up as many abandoned vehicles as possible. They will prioritize streets that need more immediate removal for safe passage.
- The Police Bureau will release another PSA about frequently stolen vehicles and have talked about doing another round of providing clubs to residents as needed
- Acting Chief Devine said most vehicles are stolen by juveniles for joyriding and that scrapyard surveillance/chop shop tracking aren’t needed
- These funds are from the Pennsylvania Auto Theft Prevention Agency and will pay for the salary of one detective, overtime, equipment, and vehicles.
Council to continue funding K9 unit with $30,000 over three years
★ ★
- The K9 unit consists of 15 dogs that are trained in specialties like missing people, narcotics, explosives, and electronic equipment (discarded/hidden hard drives and phones)
- Councilperson Kail-Smith noted that the K9 unit is the only time she sees kids in her district running to police officers instead of away from them
- She expressed remorse that the Mounted Patrol is being disbanded, which had also helped bolster relationships with her district’s youth
- Council voted on two bills to allow the Police Bureau a choice between breeders if needed because of availability. Spending would not exceed $30,000 total over three years regardless of breeders used.
- It costs $9,500 to buy a dog from a breeder. The force typically only buys 1-2 dogs per year to replace dogs that have aged out or are otherwise no longer fit for service.
