PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh police scrambled to a ShotSpotter alert just to find out that they were responding to part of the city’s targeted deer culling program.
Now, police are saying that they were never told about it and neighbors said they weren’t either.
Chief Investigator Rick Earle got a tip about this and started looking into it.
He obtained Ring doorbell camera video that showed gunfire in Beltzhoover just after 2 a.m. on Monday.
Percina Grier: Heard three at one time and then I think two more at one time.
It caught Percina Grier off guard.
Grier: Oh, I need to duck on the floor, get under the bed, or what?
Earle: You were scared?
Grier: Yeah, I was scared.
Minutes later, her doorbell camera captured police arriving. More came and frantically began searching the park just across the street.
Grier: They were going down, running down the hillside with their flashlights and whatever else they had.
She said they eventually left, but she never heard what they were going until Channel 11 told her.
Earle: I guess you’re just learning from us. It was sharpshooters with the USDA shooting deer.
Grier: I just hope they’re as sharp as they say they are.
11 Investigates has learned that USDA sharpshooters working in McKinley Park set off a nearby ShotSpotter on two separate days and police, who responded both times, had no idea they were there.
Pittsburgh Public Safety Information Officers Emily Bourne said the sharpshooters were used in Frick and Riverview parks last year to help control the deer population and this year the program expanded to McKinley.
Bourne: We had a slight kerfuffle with some just internal communications going from one arm of public safety to the other, just where this information didn’t trickle down to our officers.
Bourne said the sharpshooters work overnight when the parks are closed, shoot only in designated areas, and rely on thermal sensors to verify targets. Most are former military members.
Bounre: They shoot from a great distance, a once-inch target, 100% accuracy, three times in a row.
She says the sharpshooters use sound suppressors. She says this is the first time it’s set off a ShotSpotter alert.
Bourne: We haven’t had this be an issue in the past, but also three might be a supersensitive sensor in this area or they were just in a different part of the park, so it triggered that sensor two nights in a row.
While the city issued news releases about the sharpshooters, some neighbors say that at a community meeting last year, they reluctantly agreed to allow archery hunters, but not rifles.
“Okay, we’ll use bows and arrows and come to find out ... they’re using guns and we didn’t even get told about it,” resident Steven Coley said.
Channel 11 did find at least two signs posted around the park about targeted harvesting, but no mention of sharpshooters or rifles.
Neighbors say it’s too close for comfort.
Grier: I know not to try to go out in the park at that time of the night because my dog, she liked to go out.
Coley: We do need to narrow the herd down, but at what cost? I don’t know.
The city maintains that there was ample publicity and notification about the sharpshooters.
They say the program is winding down now, but will continue next season.
All of the deer meat is donated to local food banks.
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