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Spurred by a recent spate of shootings, Pittsburgh police Chief Dominic J. Costa will reassign four detectives to the city homicide squad to investigate non-lethal shootings.

Five people -- including a 16-year-old shot in the leg after leaving a high school basketball game at Mellon Arena -- were wounded in shootings in four city neighborhoods late Thursday and early Friday. That brings the toll to 11 people wounded in 10 shootings in the city over the past 10 days.

"It's the same old story: Rival neighborhood groups will argue and disagree, but instead of throwing punches like they used to, now they pick up a gun because they think it's cool to shoot a gun," Costa said. "These are mostly just kids involved in this stuff, but they're kids with guns. And that's a problem we have to deal with."

Police yesterday charged Brandon Alton, 21, address unknown, with shooting a man in the head Monday and sparking a car crash in Allentown that left two men hurt, one of them paralyzed. And Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala announced that the Horoscope Lounge in Garfield -- where a bouncer was shot Wednesday -- will be closed permanently because of its history of violence and drug dealing.

But officials say more steps are needed.

Costa said he and Mayor Bob O'Connor are working with federal and county authorities, school officials and transit authority police on ideas to stem the tide of violence.

Initiatives could include setting up an anonymous tip line for young people to call to report that someone has a gun, Costa said. Officials also are considering moving some Downtown bus stops, where more than 2,000 students gather each day while transferring between buses on their way home.

A 16-year-old boy was shot Feb. 21 along Sixth Street, Downtown, during an argument between two rival groups of Oliver High School students. Two suspects have been charged in that case.

Costa said he also is considering assigning police to visit city schools for a few hours a week to urge students to avoid gun violence. A similar effort at Wilkinsburg in the mid-1990s led to a sharp drop in school crimes, the chief said.

"We will never get all the guns out of the hands of kids," Costa said. "But we've all got to work together - the community, the parents, the schools, the churches and the police - to curb this violence."

One Vision One Life, a Hill District outreach group, is planning meetings Monday to address the violence in the Hill District, West End and South Side.

"We've got to help each other out, because this problem isn't going away,'' said the group's director, Richard Garland.

Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland who studies crime statistics and trends, said violent crime has become a way of life for too many youths.

"We have a very low threshold in this society for response to insult," Blumstein said. "They will shoot to kill people for things most of us would simply ignore."

Getting more cops on the streets would help, but more money and planning are needed, Costa said. In the meantime, reassigning detectives to the homicide squad will allow non-fatal shooting cases to remain in the hands of one investigator - rather than being directed to zone police.

There are about 180 police working across the city during the average 24-hour period, Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1 President Michael Havens Jr. said.

"It's not just a matter of having more bodies on the street," Havens said. "We need for the community to get more involved, and we need the parents to start taking some responsibility for what their kids are doing. They need to know what their children are up to, because the shootings will continue and the violence will go on unless everyone gets involved and takes this seriously. The police can't do it alone."

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