Pittsburg, PA
New safety measures could protect children from falling out of windows in Allegheny County
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – New safety measures could soon protect children from falling out of windows in Allegheny County. It’s one of many proposed safety improvements to the county’s housing regulations.
“It’s a good thing. We’re bringing our housing regs up to the 21st century,” said Patrick Catena, president of Allegheny County Council.
The county council will hear the proposal next week.
Fall prevention devices for the windows of housing in Allegheny County are just one of the safety regulations now up for consideration. And it’s just a coincidence about a week or so after two small children fell from a window.
It’s something Tyler Jefferson will never unsee as the father of those two children who fell.
“It’s tough. It’s tough that we messaged them, and they didn’t do anything until they fell out the window,” Jefferson said.
Quin and Elody fell out of their third-story apartment building’s window onto the concrete window well below and miraculously survived.
New proposed housing regulations in Allegheny County could mandate window fall prevention devices.
“Trying to help the health department for the health department to be able to help them, so I think it’s a good thing all around,” Catena said.
A copy of the new proposed regulations includes guards on stairs, landings, and balconies 30 inches above the floor below, deadbolts for all entrance doors, required lighting for stairways and hallways, stricter requirements for carbon monoxide detectors, and fall prevention devices installed in all windows more than 72 inches off the ground below.
“It’ll come before county council, and county council will obviously act on it, and I expect a positive recommendation from the county council for it to pass,” Catena said.
Housing advocate David Vatz sees a lot of good in it.
“Yeah. Pro-Housing Pittsburgh is broadly in favor of improved health and safety regulations to protect tenants,” Vatz said. “I think one of the things about Allegheny County and Pittsburgh in general is that we have some of the oldest housing stock in the country, and this can often result in substandard conditions for tenants.”
Vatz believes common-sense protections are needed, and calls on policymakers “to make it easier to build new housing in the county.”
“Since we have such old housing stock and don’t build a lot of new housing, there’s nothing that puts pressure on landlords to maintain their sub-standard units and provide the best quality to their tenants.”
These housing safety regulations will be discussed next week at the county council meeting, and if approved, they could go into effect as early as October of this year.
Pittsburg, PA
Man’s body found underneath trailer behind former Shop ‘n Save in Carrick
Pittsburgh Police detectives are investigating after a man’s body was found underneath a trailer behind the former Shop ‘n Save store in the city’s Carrick neighborhood.
Pittsburgh Public Safety said late Monday night that detectives from the Violent Crime division responded to the area of Amanda Street and Wynoka Street in Carrick after a man’s body was found around 8:30 p.m.
Public Safety said the man’s body was found underneath a trailer and that he was pronounced dead by medics at the scene.
A photo provided by Pittsburgh Public Safety shows officers surrounding a taped off area and what appears to be a refrigerated trailer parked at the loading dock along Amanda Street behind the former Brownsville Shop n’ Save, which closed its doors last month.
No details surrounding the circumstances of the man’s death were provided by Public Safety, who said that the cause and the manner of the man’s death will be determined by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The man’s identity has not been released.
Public Safety said the investigation into the man’s death is “ongoing.”
Pittsburg, PA
Record number of peregrine falcons counted in Allegheny County
In the early 1960s, the peregrine falcon population declined so sharply that the raptors weren’t even nesting in Pennsylvania. But now, the National Aviary says a record number have been counted in Allegheny County.
The National Aviary says six peregrine falcons were recorded in the county during the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The nation’s longest-running citizen science project collects data on bird populations for ornithologists, the aviary says. It also plays a role in guiding conservation action, like what was needed to bring peregrine falcons back from the brink of extinction.
Because of the use of DDT, peregrine falcons were no longer nesting in the state of Pennsylvania by the early 1960s, the aviary said. But after the harmful pesticide, which negatively affects reproduction rates in birds, was banned in 1972, conservation efforts have helped the peregrine falcon rebound. It was removed from the federal endangered species list in 1999 and Pennsylvania’s list in 2021.
The record number of peregrine falcons in Allegheny County is thanks in part to the nest on top of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning in Oakland. For the past two years, biologists with the Pennsylvania Game Commission have banded chicks born in the nest. Three were banded last year, and two the year before that.
People can watch Carla and Ecco raise their family in the nest on a livestream camera run by the National Aviary. Carla laid her first egg of the breeding season on March 16 last year, so the aviary says the start of another season isn’t too far away.
Pittsburg, PA
Police investigating two late-night McKeesport shootings
Police are investigating two shootings that happened less than 30 minutes apart on Sunday night in McKeesport.
Two men were injured in the shootings that happened at two different locations.
Allegheny County Police said that the department’s Homicide Unit was requested and responded to assist in the shooting investigations.
According to police, officers were first called to the area of Lysle Boulevard and Huey Street, where a man was shot just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night.
KDKA’s news crew at the scene saw the outside of the Sunoco gas station along Lysle Boulevard lined with crime tape and what appeared to be blood on the front door of the store.
Police also had an area taped off around the intersection of nearby 5th Avenue and Huey Street. The man who was shot in the area was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Police said they are also investigating a shooting that happened in the area of an alleyway behind Madison Avenue, where another man was shot Dispatchers said the second shooting happened around 25 minutes after the first.
The two shooting scenes in McKeesport are located around 1/4 of a mile apart.
At the second shooting scene, KDKA’s news crew at the scene saw police taping off an alleyway between Madison Avenue and Petty Street.
Officers at the scene were shining flashlights and looking into a black sedan that had its flashers on. The man who was shot in the area of Madison Avenue was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Police didn’t specify if the two shootings are believed to be related.
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