11 Investigates has obtained new crime stats from 2024 that show Downtown Pittsburgh is still a hot spot.
Chief Investigator Rick Earle discovered good and bad news in the data.
Earle asked Mayor Ed Gainey about data that shows Zone 2, which covers downtown to the Hill District to Lawrenceville, led the city in calls for police service. It’s the third year in a row that Zone 2 has had the most calls.
“Downtown is safe. Downtown is not a situation where you have homicides every day, every month; it’s not like that,” said Mayor Gainey on Tuesday morning.
Gainey is proclaiming on Tuesday what he’s been saying for months now. That Downtown is perfectly safe and that people have returned to the city.
He said restaurants are crowded again, and so are the theaters in the Cultural District.
Of the 31,008 calls that came in from Zone 2, half of them came from Downtown. 64% were citizen-initiated calls, and the other 36% were officer-initiated. 39% of those calls, or 3,705, were higher-priority calls, and 41% of the calls, or 3,928, were lower-priority.
Earle: Does it still concern you?
Mayor Gainey: All crime concerns me.
Earle: Does it indicate it’s a hotbed of crime?
Mayor Gainey: No, no, it doesn’t mean it’s a hotbed of crime. The amount of restaurants that have been packed every single weekend. The Arts and Cultural District, that has been packed every weekend.
In 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zone 3, which includes the South Side, Mt. Washington, and Allentown, among other areas, led the city in calls for service. Zone 2 actually ranked fourth in 2019.
The Mayor said the opening of the Downtown Public Safety Center more than a year ago, along with the 20 or so officers who patrol Downtown every day, has played an important role in providing public safety.
Police did acknowledge a recent uptick in groups of young people fighting, shoplifting and causing chaos in the Market Square area Downtown.
Earle also spoke with Commander Tim Novosel, who oversees Zone 2, including the Downtown Public Safety Center.
Earle: Does this indicate there’s still cause for concern when it comes to crime?
Commander Novosel: You say concern, but I wouldn’t say concern. This is one of the most proactive police areas in the City of Pittsburgh.
Novosel’s zone also had the most arrests in the city, at 1,934. Of those arrests, more than half were made in the Downtown District and majority were for drugs and disorderly conduct.
Earle: Does that indicate you guys are doing the job?
Novosel: Yes, I would say that’s exactly what it means. The officers respond to the calls, they see something wrong with all the activity and they arrest people.
“We put a lot of effort and resources in cleaning up downtown,” Gainey said.
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