Pittsburgh gang members attend 'call-in'
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Geraldine Massey, center, of Penn Hills speaks at a news conference announcing the official launch of the Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime at the Federal Courthouse Downtown on Tuesday. Two of Ms. Massey's sons were killed in gang-related violence. Standing with her, from left, are Richard Garland, Brandon Humphrey and Khalif Ali.
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Valerie Dixon spent many sleepless nights searching for the right words to deliver to a courtroom full of the city's toughest criminals -- men fresh out of jail, men in gangs, men like the one who killed her son.
What could a mother still grieving after nine years possibly say that would convince them to give up their guns?
"There were some nights I prayed about it, I cried about it, because it's so painful to think about my son's death," she said. "I wanted to make sure God would give me the words that would pierce their hearts."
She decided to read them a document she had not touched in nine years: her son's autopsy report.
She talked about the way the bullets, four of them, tore through Robert Dixon's otherwise healthy, 22-year-old body. She talked about a mother's enduring pain and lingering questions.
When she looked out at the men from behind a podium, past her own tears, she noticed some of their eyes had welled up, too.
Ms. Dixon gave her emotional testimony during two Tuesday gatherings in the federal courthouse, Downtown, that marked the start of a long-awaited anti-violence program, the Pittsburgh Initiative to Reduce Crime, aimed to diminish the city's homicide rate.
The "call-in" sessions fell on a day when detectives were investigating the 26th and 27th killings of the year -- the Sunday shooting of an East Hills mother and the stabbing of a woman whose decomposing body was discovered Tuesday outside Langley High School.
Homicides fell 45.8 percent, from 72 in 2008 to 39 last year, but Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said the need for the strategy remains.
"People are still shooting, people are still dying," Mr. Ravenstahl said after the sessions, which he observed but were closed to reporters. "We delivered a message that enough is enough. Put the guns down. This has to end."
About 55 members of the city's 37 violent street gangs sat in a courtroom gallery and listened as their neighbors told them violence is no longer tolerable, law enforcement promised swift punishment for future crime, and service-providers offered an array of help. But they must stop shooting.
First Published July 14, 2010 12:00 am
