Pittsburgh pool reopens after fatal shooting

Jack Stack Pool in Pittsburgh’s Brighton Heights neighborhood reopened Wednesday with new safety measures in place after a fatal shooting nearby last week.

Mayor Ed Gainey and public safety officials said they met with lifeguards and pool management to offer trauma support care, listen to concerns and begin crafting a safety plan for all city pools.

Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt said there will be increased security at the pool, including a dedicated security officer at the site. The reopening, he said, came only after meeting with lifeguards and staff “to ensure everybody was comfortable with reopening the pool.”

“It shows we are resilient as a city and as a community, and we don’t let incidents like this keep us from enjoying our communities,” Schmidt said.

One person was killed and another wounded in a shooting that occurred outside the pool a week ago.

Gainey said there was no gun inside pool property itself during the incident. Officials declined to provide updates on the ongoing investigation, but Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto said officers “will do everything in our power” to hold people who commit such violence accountable.

As Jack Stack Pool reopened, Scirotto said police were working to develop safety plans for all of the city’s pools. Those protocols will be in effect before the summer season ends this year, he said.

The plans will include improved communication between pool staff and police, he said. The goal is to ensure people working at the pools can alert law enforcement before problems escalate into violence and to ensure police can respond quickly.

The police chief said they’ll be working to develop those plans this week and will release them to the public once they’re finalized.

At Jack Stack Pool in particular, he said, there will be “around the clock coverage” during operating hours to ensure people feel safe after last week’s violence.

“You should feel safe to send your kids here,” Scirotto said.

Shelley Terlecki, the city’s aquatic supervisor, said lifeguards and pool staff are trained to deal with problems that could arise. Lifeguards go through 40 hours of training on a variety of topics, including first aid and conflict resolution.

“A lot of time is spend on emergency action plans and what to do at any type of emergency that happens at the pool,” she said, explaining they practice emergency action plans weekly.

During last week’s nearby shooting, she said, “they did exactly what they needed to do.”

Gainey thanked lifeguards for their efforts to keep people safe and their willingness to return to work after witnessing a traumatic incident.

“I want to thank them for being as heroic as they were,” he said.

Gainey said he and other officials have talked to those lifeguards about how to keep the pool safe.

“We worked so hard to get this pool open initially,” City Councilman Bobby Wilson, D-North Side, said. “The goal is to keep the services running so residents can enjoy them.”