Pittsburgh Light Up Night 2012 (Washington: movies, department stores, assault)

[Benzman66]

And don't forget about all the drunken kids and the fights in Market Square & Wood Street T Station. They had their share this year just like before.

[Benzman66]

And while on the subject, this just happened tonight;

Woman shot in Market Square - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

AND

http://www.wtae.com/news/local/alleg...z/-/index.html

Appears to have happened right after the concert ended.

[ebyrnes]

SCR, we had the opposite experience: I was almost moved to tears at the happy, well behaved crowd on Friday night. Folks were smiling, holding doors for strangers, and generally just so gosh darn nice. I'm used to pushy, noisy, LOUDLOUDLOUD people who let their kids run rampant - the joys of Philly; although I really do love that city, I don't miss the boarish folks.

e

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

We just returned after spending a few hours Downtown. All in all we probably won't be back next year. We were so turned off by the numerous rude people who kept running my feet over with strollers, hitting us in the side with their oversized purses, letting their kids nearly trip us, etc. that we're just going to return in a few weeks when the commotion has died down a bit to do our Christmas shopping and dine out. I must admit, though, that we got a bit of a reality-show-styled treat when we saw an oversized SUV get stuck trying to pull into a parking garage on Liberty Avenue, causing a box-blocking traffic jam in the process. The horn-honking was priceless. Why suburbanites don't either take mass transit in OR park in a nearby neighborhood and walk (as we did) still amazes me. We parked for free on the North Side and were at PPG Place after about a 10-minute walk.






EDIT: I apologize for the poor image quality. I don't have a Smartphone, and these images were snapped using my archaic Samsung Magnet.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by Benzman66

And don't forget about all the drunken kids and the fights in Market Square & Wood Street T Station. They had their share this year just like before.

But if you realistically address it then you're branded as a racist

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by UKyank

But if you realistically address it then you're branded as a racist

Yep. The comments in the second quoted article say it all.

[norcider]

2nd shooting in two years I am done with Light up Night. All evening my wife was trying to get us (with our two small children) to go check out Market Square but I wanted to stay closer to the Point for the fireworks. That and I caught a glimpse of the sea of people in the square and was worried about the confinement. Glad I trusted my gut. We were there in 2010 right in the area of the shooting on Smithfield, seriously done with Light up Night, what a shame for the city that this has happened again.

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by norcider

2nd shooting in two years I am done with Light up Night. All evening my wife was trying to get us (with our two small children) to go check out Market Square but I wanted to stay closer to the Point for the fireworks. That and I caught a glimpse of the sea of people in the square and was worried about the confinement. Glad I trusted my gut. We were there in 2010 right in the area of the shooting on Smithfield, seriously done with Light up Night, what a shame for the city that this has happened again.

Did I miss something in those reports, noticeably scant with details, that suggests the nature of this shooting? All it said was a woman was shot in the buttocks in Market Square. There's no suggestion as to a motive, perpetrator, follow-up police action, or any details really. The lack of all of those things, especially given the fact that the media would no doubt be quick to sensationalize such an incident suggests to me that this was probably largely benign (as far as shootings go) and perhaps accidental.

Why couldn't this be the case of some concealed-carry type individual who doesn't venture downtown very often but, being dragged there by his girlfriend/wife feels the need to carry "protection" since it's very dangerous downtown (everybody knows that)? Our Barney-Fife type hero is maybe checking on his "piece", maybe repositioning it, when it accidentally discharges striking the aforementioned significant other.

Unless I missed something else, this scenario seems more plausible than any kind of malice-based shooting, given the coverage, and shouldn't dissuade anyone from heading downtown for light-up night, except perhaps nervous concealed carry-types. Nothing I've seen suggests that this wasn't accidental.

[norcider]

Sure it could have been accidental. I don't feel it's dangerous in town BTW, I'm there often with my kids on weekends. I have been going to town since I was old enough to scrape together the 75 cents it cost to ride PAT, $3 got you a weekend pass haha. I'll just be shying away form the mass get togethers from now on, it attracts too many people.

[XRiteMA98]

To me this is way overrated. Why would anyone come to this event where you get trampled and it all ends up with violence and people getting killed? To me this is masochism...

I also don;t understand why the line at the ice skating rink was two blocks long. For God sake, the rink will be open till march! And the winter garden till Jan 7th.

If I had small kids I wouldn't bring them at the opening night as a safety precaution. Our teenage daughter went there with the friends but didn't know how to come back faster when they heard gun shots. She fell and people stepped on her. That's terrible. The T was overcowded and she is now sick for breathing in people's germs. I am sure this was the first and the last time she's done this.

There is plenty of time to come and see these at a later time. As a matter of fact I've seen the train display on Fri at lunch. I hate crowds too.

Downtown is safe except at Light night in my opinion.

[Lobick]

Originally Posted by XRiteMA98

To me this is way overrated. Why would anyone come to this event where you get trampled and it all ends up with violence and people getting killed? To me this is masochism...

I also don;t understand why the line at the ice skating rink was two blocks long. For God sake, the rink will be open till march! And the winter garden till Jan 7th.

If I had small kids I wouldn't bring them at the opening night as a safety precaution. Our teenage daughter went there with the friends but didn't know how to come back faster when they heard gun shots. She fell and people stepped on her. That's terrible. The T was overcowded and she is now sick for breathing in people's germs. I am sure this was the first and the last time she's done this.

There is plenty of time to come and see these later. I hate crowds too.

Who got killed at Light Up Night? Ever? People need to calm down and put things in perspective.

I would agree that if you don't like crowds you probably fail to see the pull of Light up Night and should stay away. Germs? Really?