Mt. Washington neighbors say same teens keep breaking into cars
Is the juvenile criminal system broken? Some people who live in the neighborhoods of Mt. Washington and Duquesne Heights think so.
"People have fear. People don't want to come outside no more. We don't have the community we used to have," said Marlene Masucci.
Back from the spectacular views of Grandview Avenue, the streets of Mt. Washington have long been lined with well-kept homes and tightly-knit neighbors. But in the past six or seven months, folks there say they've been terrorized nightly by small groups of juveniles breaking into cars and committing other crimes.
"They're taking money, they're taking credit cards, they've taken guns. There have been guns in these cars," Masucci said.
Car break-ins, stolen cars, two shooting incidents -- neighbors point the finger at five teenagers they say they know by name and have identified for police, supplying them with videos and pictures of the suspected juveniles in action. Marlene Masucci is one of more than a half dozen victims KDKA-TV's Andy Sheehan has spoken with but the only one willing to speak on camera. She says police tell her their hands are tied.
Masucci: "They know who they are and there's nothing they can do. And that's what police are telling the residents of Mt. Washington."
Sheehan: "Because they say there's no place to put them?
Masucci: "No place to put them."
The Shuman Juvenile Detention Center has been shuttered for the past year and a half and Pittsburgh and other police departments have complained there's no place to detain juveniles charged with anything less than homicide. A private company has put in a bid to reopen the facility but the county and the state are now at odds on who should pay for the renovations. And so it sits, boarded up.
Despite that, in a statement, Pittsburgh police say they aren't giving juveniles a pass around the city or on Mt. Washington, saying, "Police are aware of the concerns of Mount Washington residents and are working to mitigate the problem. This includes deploying specialized details to specifically prevent these thefts."
And though police say they have arrested one of the juvenile suspects multiple times, Masucci says if that's the case, she's seen no evidence.
Sheehan: "So it's a broken system?"
City Council President Theresa Kail-Smith: "And the residents are caught in the middle."
Kail-Smith says in addition to the closing of Shuman, police are short on officers while fighting an explosion in youth gun violence and crime. Non-homicide juvenile arrests in Allegheny County jumped 21 percent last year from 498 to 607 with the biggest increases in assaults and felony gun and theft charges. But Kail-Smith says despite the burden, police need to tackle the situation on the mount.
"They have the evidence, they have a lot of people talking about it, a lot of people reporting and it seems to me that this is an issue that needs to be addressed and I have escalated it up to the mayor's office so they know there are some concerns here," she said.
But for now, Masucci says the juveniles have no fear. In fact, just a few nights ago, she says she confronted two breaking into a car.
"You know what they did? Gave me the finger and laughed at me and just kept doing what they wanted to do. And I was like, 'you know what? 'It's gonna stop.'"
But even if police do make the arrests, there's virtually no place to detain the juveniles. Currently, there are only 14 juvenile detention beds in all of southwestern Pennsylvania and that won't change until there's some agreement on Shuman.
