previous town-hall meeting<\/a> on the subject at Point Park University saw tensions flare between audience members and officials. But attendees and panelists at Wednesday\u2019s gathering struck a tone of listening and communication.<\/p>\n\u201cIf we can take the scariness and the boogeyman out of the word \u2018takeover,\u2019 then we can find a way to see [teens] as they are: beautiful young people who just want to get together and have a good time,\u201d said Dr. Sheila Beasley, who works with the city\u2019s REACH program.<\/p>\n
Attendees at the meeting split up into breakout groups to answer questions about what they wanted to see moving forward. Several young people in one group cited stress, boredom and a lack of activities and spaces for youth as reasons why many participate in \u201cflash mobs\u201d or takeovers.<\/p>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784800569_697_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Community members talk about how to work with young people at a town hall gathering on the topic of “teen takeovers” at the Community Empowerment Association in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood on July 22, 2026. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we’re trying to communicate the most is that we want to be heard,\u201d said Sakiyah Valentine, 19, of Wilkinsburg.<\/p>\n
Some young people are dealing with unstable home lives in which their parents, too, are struggling, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes trauma dumping does become a lot for us,\u201d she said. \u201cNow we’re taking on two people’s emotions and that’s making it even harder to feel our own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Valentine noted that even playing football or tossing water balloons can be \u201clooked at as bad\u201d by adults.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want [to] stop having this narrative on us that we’re just terrible,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to see our elders and other things get involved in what we’re doing and try to understand what we’re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Day, a pastor at Legacy International Worship Center on the North Side, said youth are seeking \u201chelp\u201d in one way or another.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some real deep-rooted issues in our homes that they don’t know how to express,\u201d he said. \u201cWe really, as the adults, need to say, \u2018Hold up, where’s my part in this? And how can I serve our youth?\u2019 These are our babies, and these are our next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
KeShawn Brooks, who also works with REACH, said he\u2019d attended several \u201cteen takeovers\u201d and in his experience, they were \u201cjust kids being kids.\u201d He noted that many young people are creating social media videos and streaming content at the gatherings, and suggested adults make more spaces for kids to participate in those kinds of activities that won\u2019t be as disruptive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re looking at it as, they\u2019re being a nuisance, but they’re trying to find a way to have fun,\u201d he said. \u201cWe gotta find a new avenue to understand them. I don’t think we understand them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials speak to public<\/p>\n
City officials answered questions from the audience during a panel discussion. Police chief Jason Lando said he hopes to invite youth representatives to a Chief\u2019s Community Advisory Board he is working on assembling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing we want to do is have to arrest kids,\u201d Lando said. \u201cWe want to \u2026 help find positive things for kids to do in the community, help give them resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public safety director Sheldon Williams noted that his office cannot handle all youth issues by itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can’t expect Public Safety to do something it wasn’t designed to do. They are only there to respond to things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He noted he hopes to recruit young people to be \u201cdual influencers,\u201d who would set a good example for their peers while also communicating with the city about their experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a multilayered, comprehensive approach,\u201d said City Councilor Khari Mosley, who represents the Homewood area and helped organize the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want us to be as focused on opportunities for redemption, and [on] better opportunities for our young people, as much as some folks want to focus on measures of accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n
T. Rashad Byrdsong, who leads the Community Empowerment Association, said he wants to see more people working together on these issues instead of \u201cin silos.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community, the parents, the grandparents, the uncles, the brothers \u2013 we have to be involved. So don’t be crying when policies come out and you’re not part of the process,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is the beginning of a process.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that \u201cteen takeovers\u201d are only one facet of larger challenges facing the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s some deep-seated, systemic, systematic structural issues in this city that have to be addressed. And we can’t be afraid to talk about that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adults, youth, and City of Pittsburgh officials alike sat down at a town hall meeting Wednesday evening to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-250149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250149","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=250149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}