Police follow footprints in snow to find gun outside Pittsburgh Westinghouse Academy

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Police confirmed to Channel 11 that a gun was found outside of Westinghouse High School today. Today’s discovery has happened on the heels of a very violent past several weeks for Pittsburgh Public schools.

Pittsburgh Public schools says the school’s security staff found the weapon after following footprints in the snow where a student was seen just prior to entering the school. The gun was found in an alley behind a home on North Murtland Avenue.

The student was never seen with the gun, so there have been no arrests and no one has been detained. But this latest incident is now one of many disturbing occurrences at Pittsburgh Public schools across the area.

This incident comes on the heels of a violent week for Pittsburgh Public Schools. Less than a week ago Pittsburgh Police were called to Oliver Citywide Academy where 15-year-old student Marquis Campbell was shot in a van outside the school.

On January 20, a school employee suffered a serious wrist injury and a second was injured after a fight inside Carrick High School.

On January 21, a brutal fight at Brashear High School left one student motionless in the hallway of the school and later transported to the hospital.

We reached out to the Mayors Office, Pittsburgh public schools, and the President of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers for their response to this latest incident and what they say needs to be done to put an end to this violence. The Mayors Office referred us to Mayor Ed Gainey’s comments on the subject from last week.

The president of the teachers Federation, Nina Esposito-Visgitis, told us that the continuing stress of the pandemic has certainly exacerbated incidences of violence.

Her statement goes on to say “Community Leaders, Parents, Educators and Policy Makers must work together to turn this negative tide around immediately — making sure that our schools are well resourced with trained mental health and resiliency specialists and support personnel so that teachers can teach and students can learn.”

Three days ago in a virtual press conference with interim school superintendent Wayne Walters, the mayor did say that he has instructed Pittsburgh police to go out there and find out what’s going on.

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