Pittsburgh to track gun violence data with help from ‘Everytown’ grant

Paul Guggenheimer | Monday, May 3, 2021 6:31 p.m.

Tribune-Review

Gun violence is on the rise in Pittsburgh and city officials are coming up with a variety of ways to combat it.

Legislation being introduced to City Council Tuesday would accept a $200,000 grant from Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country, to support the hiring of a Gun Violence Data Fellow.

That person would be in charge of collecting, organizing, analyzing and interpreting information related to gun violence, including homicides, aggravated assaults, shots fired, gun arrests and officer-involved shootings, according to Tim McNulty, communications director for Mayor Bill Peduto’s office.

“This money would be used to hire a data expert to advance the studies of the of use of guns in the city,” said McNulty. “We already track that stuff, it’s in our annual reports, but this will give an even deeper dive into the data.”

Two weeks ago, Pittsburgh Public Safety leaders released numbers that showed homicides year-to-date were up 80% compared to the same time last year, and non-fatal shootings were up over 90% over the same time-frame.

McNulty said city officials are extremely concerned about the spike in gun violence in the city over the past few months.

“Why it’s happening, we can only speculate,” McNulty said.

“We just can’t accept it in Pittsburgh,” said Peduto.

Adam Garber, executive director of CeaseFirePA, said it’s important for cities like Pittsburgh to look at innovative ways to end the epidemic of gun violence being seen throughout Pennsylvania.

“In places like Pittsburgh we’ve seen a huge surge in gun violence recently and I think additional data to understand where the violence is happening, what’s causing it and, therefore, how to reduce it is a critical step in treating the public health crisis that this is,” said Garber.