\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMarket Square and downtown Pittsburgh stayed busy through Sunday night as people celebrated Juneteenth, with the festival organizer urging families to chaperone their teens after fights Friday.”It’s needed,” said Armenia Cobb from West Mifflin.A massive fight involving 50 teens in Market Square on Friday night led to pepper spray use, gun confiscations, arrests and citations. Juneteenth organizer William “B” Marshall asked adults to accompany their teens to the celebration beginning Saturday evening.”We’re trying to require that adults come with your children. Let them share in this experience. Let them learn about Juneteenth. Just don’t send your children down there to get out of the house. So let them come down with you and experience this,” Marshall said.Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 observed many teens and young adults without chaperones, and many with. While no one was visibly enforcing the policy, law enforcement and private security were present to address any issues.Looking for more news in your area | Subscribe to the WTAE YouTube ChannelFamilies who attended together shared their reasons for coming.”Support small businesses, big businesses, Black businesses, the community, Pittsburgh, to teach my grandkids,” said Lisa Betts from Greensburg, who brought her three grandsons, ages 14, 11 and 7, to the festival.”I think it’s a good thing to hang out with people and learn new things about your community,” said Betts’ 11-year-old grandson, Manny.When asked if he thought he needed a chaperone, Betts’ 14-year-old grandson Zeke said, “Sometimes.””Sometimes it’s needed. Sometimes it’s OK. It all depends on the age range. It all depends on what’s going on,” Lisa Betts said.Attendees agreed that Friday’s incident did not overshadow the success of the weekend’s events. However, many noted that some teens lack guidance and need more activities in the city to keep them engaged.”Our city needs to come together as a unit and try to establish some guidelines, establish some activities, some festivities for the children to partake in to keep them out of trouble,” Cobb said.As the Juneteenth celebrations concluded, so did the temporary chaperone policy. Some attendees expressed interest in seeing a similar policy implemented for all downtown events.Download the WTAE app to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters to get breaking news in your inbox.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tPITTSBURGH \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Market Square and downtown Pittsburgh stayed busy through Sunday night as people celebrated Juneteenth, with the festival organizer urging families to chaperone their teens after fights Friday.<\/p>\n
“It’s needed,” said Armenia Cobb from West Mifflin.<\/p>\n
A massive fight involving 50 teens in Market Square on Friday night<\/a> led to pepper spray use, gun confiscations, arrests and citations. Juneteenth organizer William “B” Marshall asked adults to accompany their teens to the celebration beginning Saturday evening.<\/p>\n “We’re trying to require that adults come with your children. Let them share in this experience. Let them learn about Juneteenth. Just don’t send your children down there to get out of the house. So let them come down with you and experience this,” Marshall said.<\/p>\n Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 observed many teens and young adults without chaperones, and many with. While no one was visibly enforcing the policy, law enforcement and private security were present to address any issues.<\/p>\n Looking for more news in your area | Subscribe to the WTAE YouTube Channel<\/a><\/p>\n Families who attended together shared their reasons for coming.<\/p>\n “Support small businesses, big businesses, Black businesses, the community, Pittsburgh, to teach my grandkids,” said Lisa Betts from Greensburg, who brought her three grandsons, ages 14, 11 and 7, to the festival.<\/p>\n “I think it’s a good thing to hang out with people and learn new things about your community,” said Betts’ 11-year-old grandson, Manny.<\/p>\n When asked if he thought he needed a chaperone, Betts’ 14-year-old grandson Zeke said, “Sometimes.”<\/p>\n “Sometimes it’s needed. Sometimes it’s OK. It all depends on the age range. It all depends on what’s going on,” Lisa Betts said.<\/p>\n Attendees agreed that Friday’s incident did not overshadow the success of the weekend’s events. However, many noted that some teens lack guidance and need more activities in the city to keep them engaged.<\/p>\n “Our city needs to come together as a unit and try to establish some guidelines, establish some activities, some festivities for the children to partake in to keep them out of trouble,” Cobb said.<\/p>\n As the Juneteenth celebrations concluded, so did the temporary chaperone policy. Some attendees expressed interest in seeing a similar policy implemented for all downtown events.<\/p>\n Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Market Square and downtown Pittsburgh stayed busy through Sunday night as people celebrated Juneteenth, with the festival organizer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[97658,749,21756,12510,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-224906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-chaperones","tag-downtown","tag-juneteenth","tag-market-square","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224906","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=224906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}