Highland Park residents call on Pittsburgh officials to close nearby police firing range

A Highland Park community group called on Pittsburgh officials Tuesday to shut down the city police force’s nearby open-air firing range, calling the sound of gunfire emanating from the 40-year-old facility “a public health issue.”

“We want (police) to get their training but it’s not a comforting sound — it’s what a mass shooting would sound like,” said Stephanie Walsh, president of Highland Park Community Council. “We don’t view this as a police issue. We view this as a public health issue.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Ed Gainey responded Tuesday afternoon by saying his administration is “firmly committed to allocating funds in the 2024 budget to begin design work on a new shooting range.”

“This is a problem that has existed for nearly 40 years, and one that does not have an immediate short-term solution,” Gainey spokesperson Maria Montano said in a statement. “The design and build-out of a new facility will take time and until that is completed, we still have to make sure that our officers are trained to the best of their ability so they can help keep our city safe.”

Pittsburgh public safety officials Tuesday declined comment, forwarding questions about the firing range, on the eastern hillside above Washington Boulevard, to the mayor’s office.

Under former Mayor Bill Peduto, Pittsburgh officials planned to construct a new public safety facility at the 168-acre Lincoln-Lemington property that previously housed the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System. Federal regulations require that property be used only for public safety and emergency response.

In 2019, the federal government approved Pittsburgh’s request to acquire the property through a “public benefit conveyance” at no cost to the city. The VA System closed the complex in 2013 and shifted medical services to the University Drive campus in Oakland and the H. John Heinz III Medical Center facility in O’Hara.

LISTEN: Sound of gunfire from Pittsburgh police’s open air firing range. Highland park residents call the noise, which can be heard in parts of the east end, ‘a public health issue.’ ⁦@TribLIVE⁩ pic.twitter.com/DUFQSs3fvz

— Justin Vellucci (@JVTheTrib) May 9, 2023

Pittsburgh City Council at least twice used money earmarked for the project for other purposes. That cash, though, was only a fragment of what could have been needed for the multiyear project. Officials previously estimated the project would cost more than $100 million, and city officials said in 2022 that inflation and rising material costs would translate to an added $1 million or more beyond original cost expectations.

Councilwoman Deb Gross Tuesday distanced herself from council’s previous support for the Peduto administration’s new public safety facility.

“We don’t need 200 acres to have a firing range,” Gross, who attended the community group’s press conference, told reporters. Gross drew parallels between the Peduto administration’s public safety center and “Cop City,” a controversial police and fire services training center under construction near Atlanta.

The $90 million construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is underway on an 85-acre plot owned by the City of Atlanta in South River Forest in Georgia. Since 2021, that project has faced opposition. Protestor Manuel Esteban Paez Teran was fatally shot by police near the site in January 2023, and other protestors were arrested in late 2022 and early 2023 and charged with domestic terrorism offenses.

Gross said Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt has been “more friendly” to the idea of a smaller public safety operation.

“This administration is taking this request seriously and I appreciate that,” she said.

Montano said the city police force schedules time for its officers to train at other facilities in the region whenever possible, and they also restrict police academy hours. Walsh, the community activist, said there are firing ranges city police can use in Monroeville and McCandless.

“If people hear gunfire outside of business hours on weekdays or on holidays, we encourage them to contact the city so that we can investigate,” Montano said.

Some residents said gunfire can be heard as early as 7 a.m. some days and as late as midnight.

In March, gunfire was heard in Highland Park on 19 of 23 weekdays, sometimes for up to six hours at a time, Walsh said. The gunfire also can be heard in parts of Larimer, Lincoln-Lemington, Belmar and Morningside.

A Highland Park resident circulated a petition opposing the open-air firing range in the park, and plans to submit it to city officials. That resident, Joy Katz, said no other city in the United States with a population of at least 300,000 people has a firing range in a residential area.

“Doesn’t Pittsburgh care as much about its residents as Cleveland does?” asked Katz, 58, a writer, editor and teacher who has lived in Highland Park for eight years.

Katz also lamented that gun violence is pervasive and the sound of gunfire can be alarming.

“There’s no community that’s untouched by it,” Katz said. “This is just like any other neighborhood, and we suffer the same way every other neighborhood does.”

Not everybody was on-board Tuesday with the Highland Park Community Council’s call to close the Highland Park range.

Highland Park resident Tim Tracy turned out to the press conference holding a hand-made sign reading “Protect the vulnerable, support police training!”

He said he never finds the sounds of gunfire “particularly disruptive.”

“I got the email, and I was afraid there were a lot of people advocating for the police not to train,” said Tracy, 35, who has lived in Highland Park for five years. “I want nothing more than to keep giving police the tools they need.”