Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
NAACP plans hotline in wake of shootings
The organization today plans to announce a Tree of Hope countywide hotline and other services for families of victims of violence.
| For further information |
|
Services for families of victims: |
"I feel like we're going through deja vu with the violence in the community," she said.
Thirty-six homicides have been reported in the city so far this year. Many of the killings have occurred in primarily black neighborhoods in the Hill District, North Side and Homewood.
Last year, 43 people were slain in Pittsburgh. The annual average number of homicides in the city during the past 30 years is 50.
The NAACP contends black communities are hit the hardest with violence yet receive little assistance to cope with or prevent the losses. The organization hopes to change that with the Tree of Hope.
The program will bring law enforcement, health professionals, community agencies, religious institutions, memorial establishments and child psychologists together to provide social services and other types of assistance.
Although black people make up only 27 percent of the city's population, more than 50 percent of the killings in Pittsburgh during the last two years have involved black victims and a black perpetrator or suspect, police report.
The disproportionate number of black-on-black killings in Pittsburgh reflects similar national figures. Experts say drugs and alcohol contribute to many of the homicides, while local community leaders say there are a lack of jobs and educational opportunities that would give young blacks alternatives to violence, drugs and gangs.
National FBI statistics from 1999 show that in 93 percent of homicides where the victim was black, the perpetrator or suspect was black; in 85 percent of homicides with white victims, the perpetrator or suspect was white.
"Why are we killing each other?" asks Tim Stevens, president of the Pittsburgh branch of the NAACP.
"Why aren't we finding other ways to solve disagreements? Why do we go to the knife or the gun? This is not to say other folks don't kill each other. It just seems to be more prevalent in our community," Stevens said.
Alfred Blumstein, professor of management science and criminology at Carnegie Mellon University, contends that most killings are intraracial - people killing people of the same race.
"Blacks kill blacks and whites kill whites," Blumstein said. "Rarely do you see blacks killing whites and whites killing blacks. ... Most people kill those they are in contact with, which is often people like themselves."
Anthony Todd Carlisle can be reached at Tree of Hope offered for victims of violence, families acarlisle@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7824.
More Pittsburgh, Allegheny headlines
- Humar believes in being UPMC surgeon first, administrator second
- Defendant cooperates with DA in Meadows casino theft
- Planners need billions to rehabilitate roadways, bridges
- UPMC unit to increase use of organs from living donors
- Autopsy shows Hill District baby in bin was stillborn
- Cranberry couple under investigation in use of orphans' trust fund
- Fewer flights don't result in fewer authority workers in Allegheny
- UPMC Braddock closure plan upsets council
