Neighborhood renewal: In Pittsburgh, a key drug bust makes a difference

Community revitalization can take many forms.

U.S. Attorney David Hickton and an FBI task force took an important step toward improving Homewood last week with the arrest of 40 people charged after a two-year investigation focused on East End drug dealers. Mr. Hickton said the criminal charges dismantled several related networks that brought in large quantities of heroin and cocaine, operations that spilled into nearby Penn Hills, Wilkinsburg and other areas.

Although drug charges can be filed in state or federal courts, Mr. Hickton said federal prosecutions can be more effective in combating large-scale trafficking that leads to neighborhood shootings. That’s because federal crimes typically carry harsher sentences and assign convicts to prisons farther from their home, more effectively cutting them off from their contacts. He told reporters that the kind of arrests made last week “can reduce violence almost immediately.”

That’s the kind of meaningful change that is key to improving the quality of life for residents, but those arrests alone won’t be enough, not in a city that has seen, according to the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office, 55 homicides so far this year.

Pittsburgh has assigned 13 new officers to walk beats in Homewood and other East End neighborhoods, and three more detectives were moved to the bureau’s homicide division earlier this year. It is clear from the turnout and the comments at community meetings, though, that much more needs to be done to improve relations between law enforcement and residents, so people can feel safe if they report illegal activity.

The city also needs to move aggressively to tear down dilapidated buildings that become havens for illegal activity and degrade the value of nearby homes and businesses.

A lot of work remains if Homewood and other East End communities are to follow in the footsteps of nearby East Liberty, which has seen a dramatic transformation for the good in the past decade.

The U.S. attorney should be commended to taking his responsibility seriously and rooting out a large-scale drug operation that was hurting the whole community.

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