PITTSBURGH — The Community Empowerment Association held a meeting Tuesday evening to address the ongoing violence in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood, calling the current situation a “state of emergency in the black community.”
Last week, a woman, a 12-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy were all shot while attending a vigil in Homewood for another young man who was killed during a shooting.
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"This is a public health emergency,” Rashad Byrdsong, with the Community Empowerment Association, said.
Byrdsong said the goal of the association’s meeting Tuesday was to find ways to make the community safer.
"We have to get the community involved. There's some personal responsibility we have to do. We can't continue to wait for other people to solve our problems,” Byrdsong said.
Some in Homewood have already taken steps to promote peace.
Last spring resident Celeste Taylor helped start a community garden on Monticello Street, where last week’s shooting took place.
She said she hopes residents will work together to make it a safer environment and allow the garden to serve as a symbol of stability.
“Today, there could be a shooting, but still the infrastructure and groundwork will be laid to care about the victims and also the shooters. We want them off the street,” Taylor said.
Residents said they hoped to find common ground and help solve the ongoing crisis.
"We cannot reinvent the wheel, but (we can) look at the elders and youth together to find a solution to our problem,” Homewood resident Essence Howze said.
The director of Community Empowerment Association hoped to establish a community council to maximize the neighborhood involvement.
As for last week’s shooting, Pittsburgh police said it remains under investigation.