Survey: Many at-risk youths in Allegheny Co. lose family to gun violence

A teenage girl whose sister was gunned down one Saturday night last year.

A boy shot in the back at 17 who had to relearn to walk.

They are among the children and young adults whose voices were heard in a recent survey focused on Allegheny County’s at-risk youth.

The 400 young people surveyed have been overwhelmingly touched by violence, specifically gun violence. Some have witnessed gun violence in person. Many have lost one or more family members to gun violence. Nearly all say they are concerned that they or someone in their family will become a victim of violence.

The Greater Pittsburgh Coalition Against Violence and CeaseFirePA education fund partnered to conduct the survey with the help of two dozen youth-oriented community groups and programs. Most of those surveyed were from Pittsburgh Public Schools, while about a third were from a mix of charter, cyber and private schools or universities. Other districts represented included Penn Hills, Woodland Hills, Clairton, Urban Academy, Sto-Rox and McKeesport.

Tim Stevens, president and executive of the Black Political Empowerment Project, said times have changed drastically since he grew up on the Hill District’s Wylie Avenue in the 1950s.

“I knew of not one child killed by violence. I didn’t know one young adult who was killed by violence,” Stevens said Wednesday at a news conference at B-PEP’s offices on Wylie.

In Pittsburgh so far this year, at least 10 children aged 18 or younger have been killed in homicides. Three others between the ages of 19 and 21 have been killed. Across the rest of Allegheny County, seven people 21 or younger have been killed by gun violence.

Nearly half of survey respondents said they’ve personally witnessed at least one incident of gun violence.

More than half — 57% — said they’ve lost at least one family member to gun violence.

For 17-year-old Cierra Guest, of Forest Hills, it was her sister.

“She was my mentor, my biggest supporter — almost my mom for a while,” she said.

Jasmine Guest, 24, was shot and killed May 22, 2021, as she rode in the passenger seat of a friend’s car on the Parkway East.

“I shouldn’t have to be here, because a 17-year-old woman should be worried about college, getting my career started,” she said. “Yet I’m here advocating against violence.”

She pleaded for adults to listen to young people.

“I want to emphasize how important it is to respect and hear the youth when they are asking for it,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to beg. We shouldn’t have to plead for you guys to listen to us.”

A majority of those surveyed — 86% — say they are concerned they or their family will be impacted by gun violence.

Some have already experienced it themselves.

Keith Malizio, 19, of Pittsburgh, said he was shot in the spine when he was 17. He said he’s had to learn to walk again, and he was using crutches when he spoke to those gathered at B-PEP headquarters.

“I was in the streets real bad,” he said. “You don’t get a reward for being in the streets.”

The survey also revealed that 84% of young people feel that little to nothing is being done to address the violence in their neighborhoods and schools.

That’s despite the flood of promised reforms and the spotlight that’s been shined on the issue, said Richard Carrington, founder and director of Voices Against Violence.

“We’re flooding the city with money right now. We’re flooding this county with money right now. And nobody feels as if anything’s being done,” Carrington said.

Josh Fleitman, the Western Pennsylvania manager for CeaseFirePA, cited the survey results as a reason for legislators to act.

He called the epidemic of violence a “manmade catastrophe.”

“We are witnessing the mass traumatization of a generation, with long-term individual and societal consequences,” he said.