After Market Square fatal shooting, focus on safety intensifies
Against the backdrop of a controversial Market Square curfew and the deadly shooting that happened there 24 hours earlier, young people and civic leaders pleaded for understanding from each other in a heated forum meant to put "facts over feelings."
"I want to level-set some things," Public Safety Director Sheldon Williams said. "It's a known fact that we have increased activity in and around Market Square and in and around Pittsburgh - whether people want to see the factual data … or if you want to watch it, see it, or come down to the streets yourself."
The forum, hosted by youth advocacy group Rise Up 365, was meant to facilitate a "data-driven discussion" about the curfew quietly implemented late last month in the newly revitalized square.
The curfew, or limited-access policy, limits kids under 18 from congregating in Market Square from 3 p.m. to midnight, Thursday through Sunday. Kids are permitted with a chaperone who is over 21. Officials have said the policy - born out of a discussion among city and police officials and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership - is temporary.
Williams said law enforcement has taken a "soft approach" to the policy rather than treating it "like a hardened rule."
"It hasn't even been a strict enforcement," he said, noting that he's in the area often. "I've witnessed officers and outreach workers engaging with the kids, walking them back and forth."
The policy was allowed to be put into place because the PDP has what amounts to a nearly year-round special events permit for Market Square - around 300 days out of the year for events from concerts and farmers market to the pop-up roller rink that's currently in place, said PDP executive director Jeremy Waldrup.
He said that what has played out recently in Market Square has "moved beyond what we've historically seen in that space and more toward "increasingly large groups of teens, fights, weapons - incidents that put young people and the broader community at risk.
"And frankly," Waldrup said, "at a certain point it felt to me that doing nothing was irresponsible."
As civic leaders begged for understanding from the young people in attendance, the youth in turn begged for somewhere to go - somewhere they don't feel surveilled and criminalized, particularly when they aren't the ones causing the issues.
Martez Council graduated from Carrick High School last year. He said that while there are some young people who go to Downtown just to cause trouble, it's also a central location that many pass through on their way to and from school and work. He passed through Downtown as a student to go from East Liberty to Carrick, and he passes through now on his way to work.
"Specifically Market Square, they have all the chairs … all the food spots - they got everything there," he said. "I feel like since there are schools that are Downtown … it's really unfair for them to make Market Square specifically 18 and older."
At the same time, he said, there are teens and young people who need guidance.
He talked about how specific adults in his life got him on the right path asked "the older generation to … really start helping more Downtown."
"I feel like they're trying to make Pittsburgh only for adults or something," he said.
The forum, which became tense and heated as community members and leaders clashed over ideas and narratives, came on the heels of a deadly shooting in the Downtown hub.
Police said 19-year-old Terryll Little was shot twice in the chest after an altercation with another man who authorities said was known to Little.
The shooting happened about 11 p.m. Little was taken to the hospital in critical condition but pronounced dead shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday.
No arrests have been made.
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This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 11:16 PM.