{"id":150814,"date":"2026-03-28T10:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150814\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T10:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:26:10","slug":"city-of-pittsburgh-on-high-alert-after-word-of-downtown-takeover-spread-online-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150814\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Pittsburgh on high alert after word of \u2018Downtown takeover\u2019 spread online"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The City of Pittsburgh is on high alert after students posted plans of a teen takeover Downtown tonight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/pittsburgh-public-schools-issues-plea-parents-about-planned-teen-takeover-downtown\/ENDVQ4EEBZFOZPM5KJKX7UHF5Y\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:PREVIOUS COVERAGE &gt;&gt;&gt; Pittsburgh Public Schools issues plea to parents about planned \u2018Downtown takeover\u2019;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;PREVIOUS COVERAGE &amp;gt&quot;}\" class=\"link \">PREVIOUS COVERAGE &gt;&gt;&gt; Pittsburgh Public Schools issues plea to parents about planned \u2018Downtown takeover\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Those posts planned the \u201ctakeover\u201d for Friday after school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pittsburgh Public Schools warned parents about it this week with a robocall telling them it is not a school-sanctioned event, nor will there be supervisors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">City officials said they were working to prepare for any situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIt\u2019s always better to be overly prepared than not. We understand there\u2019s something on social media. We\u2019ll see what happens. We still want people to come down and enjoy themselves if they\u2019re coming Downtown tonight and we will do our duties as we usually do,\u201d Mayor Corey O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pittsburgh Police were also ready.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe are there to keep things safe for everyone. If our young people want to come Downtown and have a great time and follow the rules, we will be there to keep them safe. But if you come Downtown and break the law, and make people feel unsafe, we are going to respond accordingly,\u201d Police Chief Jason Lando said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Some downtown businesses told their employees to either work from home today or go home early.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Last Sunday, dozens of teens came Downtown and began fighting with each other, and even sprayed one another with pepper spray.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/public-safety-director-responds-large-fight-among-juveniles-downtown-pittsburgh\/4Y2Y3AP3OVF4NGRGTOTDMAGESA\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:PREVIOUS COVERAGE &gt;&gt;&gt; Public safety director responds to large fight among juveniles in Downtown Pittsburgh;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;PREVIOUS COVERAGE &amp;gt&quot;}\" class=\"link \">PREVIOUS COVERAGE &gt;&gt;&gt; Public safety director responds to large fight among juveniles in Downtown Pittsburgh<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Seven kids were taken into custody.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:FREE WPXI News app;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;FREE WPXI News app&quot;}\" class=\"link \">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Facebook&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Twitter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Twitter&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Watch WPXI NOW;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Watch WPXI NOW&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Pittsburgh is on high alert after students posted plans of a teen takeover Downtown tonight.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2697,1036,73,75,74,745,940],"class_list":["post-150814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-city-of-pittsburgh","tag-city-officials","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-police","tag-pittsburgh-public-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}