Gangs Of Pittsburgh: Rivalries Turn Deadly On Streets

POSTED: 4:51 pm EST January 30, 2008
UPDATED: 6:36 pm EST January 30, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- Drug wars and gang fights are driving some of the latest strings of violence in Pittsburgh, police said.

Tuesday night, Pittsburgh police Chief Nate Harper said the shooting death of 15-year-old Ernest Tolliver, of East Liberty, was gang-related.

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Tolliver was shot in a KFC parking lot in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh. Someone ran up to Tolliver's car and shot him in the neck as the vehicle was leaving the drive-through section of the restaurant, police said.

Early Monday night, police said, two members of a local street gang shot and killed a 12-year-old girl while targeting somebody else at a house in the Perry South neighborhood.

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About 40 rounds of gunfire from a high-powered weapon were unloaded on a house on Brightridge Street early Monday night, killing Jolesa Barber and critically injuring her mother, Kim Wade, 42.

Investigators said they're dealing mostly with two gangs on the city's North Side: the "North Charles Street Crips" and "Trey 8," a gang whose territory includes the Perry Hilltop section of the city.

"It's not organized in the sense where there's a hierarchy where there is someone in charge," said Pittsburgh Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant. "These are kids who loaf together, they identify themselves as Crips. They do criminal activity together. They just hang out. If somebody does something to one of them, then they all come together to retaliate."

In Homewood, police broke down the gang locations in different neighborhoods.

"We do know that Homewood is divided up into territories," said Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Tom Stangrecki.

For instance, one group calls itself the "Dallas-Inwood Street Boys" and consider themselves Crips.

Police said they don't get along with a gang a few blocks over, also Crips known as the "Kelly Os."

Not too far from that location, another group calls themselves the "Race Street Crips."

Police said another gang gathering in the East Hills includes the "Law Gang," who mostly hang out on Lincoln and Larimer avenues.

Police said turf wars and drugs tend to lead to the violence on the streets.

"We don't think they're organized in what you would typically think of in a gang sense, but like I said, they're obviously very dangerous," said district attorney Stephen Zappala. "We want to know what assets, what agencies need to be brought to bear to dismantle these groups of persons."

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