Mayor Ed Gainey: It’s all about safety
"At the end of the day we’re still one city,”
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey is guided by a simple maxim: Everyone should be safe in the city of Pittsburgh.
It’s a principle he believes his administration has worked to realize in neighborhoods like the South Side and Downtown, where crime spiked before Gainey and the Pittsburgh police were able to stem the tide.
“Homicides are down 27% in the last year,” Gainey told the Chronicle in a July interview. “We’re down 14% in non-fatal shootings.”
The goal, the mayor said, is to have no one get hurt in any Pittsburgh neighborhood.
Gainey was motivated by that goal earlier this year when he worked with his administration and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato to end the anti-Israel encampment at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning.
“If I could avoid someone getting hurt or anything terrible, I wanted to do that,” Gainey said.
He decided to meet with protesters when the situation at Pitt escalated and a police officer was injured. When Gainey arrived at the scene, he said, he saw a picture different from the one he had been led to believe.
The mayor said he was told the crowd consisted mainly of professional protesters, and while it was true that the encampment was largely populated by those people, the protesters around the camp were mainly students, he said.
He spoke with five representatives from the camp — a reverend, a Jewish student, a Palestinian student, a Jewish professor and a community activist — making clear that he was not negotiating the protesters demands, which were mostly focused on the university. Instead, the mayor gave them a dose of reality.
“I told them that they had an opportunity to go back to the encampment and talk to the leaders and explain to them, ‘They’re coming in. There’s SWAT outside. You’ve got all three government forces and police outside. There’s no way this is going to end good,’” Gainey recounted.
The mayor told the protesters that if they left, he would provide escorts and guarantee their safety.
Nearly 15 minutes later, the protesters chose to leave.
Aware that a new academic year will soon begin, the mayor has met with the heads of all the local colleges and universities and asked them to create and share with his administration their response plans for future protests.
And while the successful resolution of a trespassing encampment at a university that was slowly turning violent may seem like a victory, Gainey knows that perception rules the day. He acknowledges that some believe he negotiated with the protesters over their demands, and that others think he didn’t condemn the antisemitism in the encampment strongly enough.
The mayor, however, is emphatic. There were no negotiations. As for not coming out strongly enough against antisemitism, Gainey said he’s been in constant contact with Jewish leaders from across the spectrum, including Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh Community Security Director Shawn Brokos.
“Whenever something happened, we were always in contact with Shawn,” he said. “Even after Oct. 7, one thing we did was bring together Jewish leaders from all sides — Orthodox to progressive — and had a conversation about safety.”
While some of his constituents think the mayor should have shut down an earlier encampment at Schenley Park, he said he simply doesn’t have that power.
“As long as it’s on public property, they’re able to protest,” Gainey said. “We can’t stop them.”
Gainey said he was bothered by the antisemitic signs at the encampment but believed caution to be the better part of valor. He thought that if he forced the removal of the protesters, there would soon be double or triple the number of people protesting.
While he understood the pain the Jewish community felt walking past the antisemitic messages, he said, he wanted to work on de-escalation.
Gainey’s North Star remains.
“We have to give them the ability to protest but — we tell them all the time — the minute it doesn’t remain safe, it’s got to go,” he said.
The mayor has been present at many Jewish events, including the yearly Oct. 27 commemoration — a habit he continued after Oct. 7, when he attended a pro-Israel rally held at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh.
What he didn’t do was speak at the event.
“I think we politicize things too much,” Gainey said. “It’s not about politics, it’s about people. So, for me to be in the back of the room, it gave me the opportunity to hear from the community. I’m going to talk to people in the front of the room all day — those are the leaders — but sometimes you want to understand and hear about the situation from the people.”
Gainey knows that antisemitism has been on the rise, both nationally and locally. Like his quiet presence at the Oct. 7 rally, he’s contacted the people targeted here without public fanfare. That is a calculated move, he said.
“I didn’t want to use them or where they lived or what side of town they live on unless they authorized it,” Gainey said. “I know other elected officials did, but me being in this business and from these neighborhoods, I know what a problem that can cause.”
Instead, he said, he’s listened to a myriad of sources including Federation President and CEO Jeff Finkelstein, the Federation’s Community Relations Council Director Laura Cherner and Jonathan and Sara Mayo, members of the progressive organization Bend the Arc.
The mayor’s focus hasn’t only been on the anti-Israel protests. He’s proud of the work he’s done Downtown to improve safety. Still, he’s aware of the sporadic violent assaults, like the Downtown attack on Federation Board Chair Jan Levinson.
Gainey said that the city continues to work through issues that affect public safety, including mental health issues, homelessness — which has been exacerbated by the fire at the Second Avenue Commons shelter — and the lingering effects of the pandemic.
Despite those issues, he said, Downtown is safe. As proof, he points to the NFL Draft, which is coming to the city in 2026.
“It’s a billion-dollar industry,” he said. “You know they vetted the city with a fine-tooth comb. It speaks volumes that they feel safe enough to have it as their venue, and that meant a lot to us. It means we are moving in the right direction.”
Gainey is aware of the approaching anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, followed shortly by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting commemoration.
“I’m concerned every day, but we have plans in place,” he said. “I learned anything can happen, so you have to stay prepared.”
The city, he said, will work closely with local enforcement, the FBI and the Federation to ensure the Jewish community is safe.
Gainey’s executive director on legal policy, Zeke Rediker, pointed to 2023 as a barometer for keeping the community safe during a heightened period of concern, which included the conclusion of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s trial, Oct. 7 and the five-year commemoration of Oct. 27.
October, Rediker said, is a month when the mayor’s administration pays extra attention to what’s happening in the city.
At the end of the day, Gainey said, he feels the same responsibility to the Jewish community as he does to the entire city.
“To me, it’s very intentional to be in these neighborhoods, to advocate for these neighborhoods, to fight for these neighborhoods, because at the end of the day we’re still one city,” he said. “We’re one city with a lot of different cultures. If the only thing I knew was African American culture, I would be shallow. The more culture I know, the deeper I am as a person and the better I can serve.” PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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