Dozens of teens involved in street fight

EAST LIBERTY, Pa. — Dozens of teens brawling on the streets of East Liberty, right in the middle of traffic, last weekend were caught on video shot by a bystander.

Pittsburgh police told 11 Investigates that the fight between two groups of teens that had just come from an Sunday night event in Homewood broke out in the middle of Penn Avenue in front of the Target store.

The video sent to Channel 11 on Facebook shows about 50 kids blocking traffic and fighting in the middle of the street. The video shows several of them being either pushed or punched to the ground.

Mayor Bill Peduto said he hadn’t seen the video until 11 Investigates showed it to him Tuesday, but said he’s noticed an increase in violence stemming from social media.

“People calling each other out on Facebook or on Twitter, and then showing up at a location and something like this happens,” he said. “I’m not sure why we didn’t have intelligence beforehand, or maybe it just happened that way.”

Minutes after the fights broke out, multiple police vehicles moved in and broke it all up. Police said they monitored the teens as they moved them out of East Liberty.

Police tell 11 Investigates there were no reports of any injuries and there were no arrests.

Peduto said he'll meet with public safety officials Wednesday to look further into the incident, but also offered some perspective.

“I started working on City Council in 1995, and at that point, we would have welcomed something like that,” he said. “The amount of violence that we had in East Liberty didn’t involve fist being thrown, it involved bullets being shot.”

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