Pittsburgh police union head labels South Side a 'disaster' after attack on officers with fireworks
As chaos disrupted Pittsburgh’s busiest entertainment corridor for the third consecutive week over the Fourth of July weekend, several people tossed firecrackers, bottle rockets and M80s into the crowd and at police, leaving three officers with minor injuries.
Shortly before bars and clubs closed Saturday at 2 a.m., multiple people started throwing the explosives close to both revelers and the bars and clubs they were frequenting, according to a criminal complaint against Dericco White.
White, 19, of Duquesne, was arrested on eight charges, including aggravated assault and disorderly conduct.
Police said White lit at least one firework on top of a car, panicking the driver.
Then, the complaint said, White attacked police by throwing a “mortar firework” — a shell packed with pyrotechnic chemicals used to shoot off aerial fireworks.
The resulting explosion struck one officer in the left eye and one in the forehead, burning their faces, police said. A third officer reported ringing in his ears. The officers were treated at the scene.
“South Side is a disaster right now and Friday night was particularly disturbing because they did attack the police,” said Robert Swartzwelder, who heads Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1, the union representing the police force’s rank and file.
“These are very dangerous,” he told TribLive Monday. “Fireworks are incendiary devices and, when you throw them at police, you are not peacefully assembling.”
Court paperwork identified the injured officers as Andrew McIntire, who was struck in the left eye and had facial burns; Patrick Carlson, who was hit in the forehead and also suffered facial burns; and Joseph Young, whose arms were struck.
White ran away with a second man, later identified as Kyliek McCracken, 18, of Ambridge, who was also arrested, police said.
When police caught White outside a house on South 16th Street, he was holding “a partially opened firecracker package in his left hand,” the complaint said.
Police said they later found eight firecrackers and three Roman candles, a type of firework that often ejects multiple projectiles, in a bookbag White ditched during the chase.
McCracken refused multiple orders to leave the area, according to police. A complaint described his behavior as “assaultive and destructive.”
Among the fireworks thrown at the public were #10 Ball Long Rifle Candles, a type of firework that the company Phantom Fireworks said on its website has “extra power to hurl extra distance.”
White posted bond Sunday and was released from the Allegheny County Jail, court records show. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 24.
McCracken was charged with disorderly conduct, fleeing police and a conspiracy count. He was released on his own recognizance. His preliminary hearing also is set for July 24.
No attorneys are listed in court records for White or McCracken. Neither man responded Monday to phone calls.
Shots fired
Before people starting throwing projectiles at police, officers arrested an intoxicated man after, they said, he rapidly fired a dozen shots into the air on South 14th Street. He was identified as Ronald Pelton, 23, of Stowe.
Police said Pelton tried to run while using his hand to pin a gun to his waistband, according to a criminal complaint. Pelton fell over a guardrail before police grabbed him.
Pelton told police he was defending himself when he emptied the magazine of his .22-caliber pistol, firing 12 shots in the air, the complaint said.
But, police said, Pelton was unable to describe the person who was trying to attack him.
Pelton “was so intoxicated that he could not stand up straight,” the complaint said. He told police he had multiple drinks that night.
Police charged Pelton with five offenses, including recklessly endangering another person, public drunkeness and firearms counts.
Pelton posted bail Sunday and was released from jail, court records show. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 23.
Pelton’s attorney was not listed in court records. Pelton also did not respond Monday to phone calls.
Just before 2 a.m., police formed a riot line to drive the disorderly crowd of about 1,000 people off South Side’s East Carson Street.
“It’s not so much crime going on, as much as it’s about crowd control,” Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, who chairs the governing body’s public safety committee, told TribLive Monday. “I don’t understand why it’s happening this much. And I just wish these crowds wouldn’t form at that hour.”
Pittsburgh police did not respond Monday to requests for comment about the recent chaos.
Quiet Saturday night
Crowds were quieter Saturday night, when about two dozen Pittsburgh police officers patrolled South Side alongside multiple Pennsylvania State Police troopers.
Even though officers pointed out that large portions of the crowd were under 21 — and therefore not able to enter many of East Carson Street’s establishments — much of the business district was empty within 20 or 30 minutes of closing time.
Police said part of the shift in tone came because the crowds had nowhere to go. Multiple business that typically stayed open after 2 a.m. — such as Cambod-Ican Kitchen, at 1701 East Carson St. — were closed earlier in the evening. Others, including a number of pizzerias, shut down when the bars closed. Councilman Bob Charland of the South Side has recommended that very strategy as a way to tamp down unruly crowds and maintain public safety.
Police made 12 arrests last weekend in the entertainment district — most of them drug- and gun-related. That’s the highest figure since the police bureau’s “entertainment patrol” first started forming riot lines to clear rowdy crowds this summer on East Carson Street.
Despite the recent uptick in arrests, reported crime in South Side dropped slightly in late June, police said. That is in line with an overall decline in the neighborhood this year.
The recent chaos, however, marks a setback for the police force and its aggressive patrolling of the East Carson Street corridor, which boasts at least 18 alcohol-selling establishments in a five-block span.
In addition to the dozen arrests, Pittsburgh police filed 26 non-traffic citations in the entertainment district last weekend, down from 31 a week earlier.
The number of guns police seized jumped to seven, from four on the last weekend in June, police data showed. Traffic citations, traffic stops and tows also all went up.
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at jvellucci@triblive.com.
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