PITTSBURGH — When the Hampton Battery was dedicated here in 1871 to a
young Civil War soldier who lost his life protecting the Union at
Chancellorsville, Virginia, the granite monument was a point of pride
for residents of this neighborhood. They would stroll along the trails
of the lush park filled with trees located across the street from their
homes along Cedar Avenue to honor the local hero.
Today, the battery’s founder, Capt. Robert B. Hampton, who was
remembered by the men who served under him as a born commander with “the
chivalric nature of an honorable gentleman,” is now part of a different
carnage in America as he stands watch over an open heroin market that
has taken over the once-grand park.
Residents say the Civil War statue is literally surrounded by drug
dealers, buyers and users around the clock. They are getting more
aggressive with panhandling, trespassing and theft.
Just yards away, along the old Pennsylvania canal, a man walks down
the street, carrying a brand-new patio chair stolen from the porch of a
nearby home, toward the new and growing homeless camp. Last week, there
were two tents or makeshift abodes. Now, there are over a dozen.
On the sidewalk, a woman dances erratically in her socks, her hoodie
pulled up over her head. She then abruptly collapses in the street;
within minutes, the medics arrive, and she is revived. She then
continues on despite having overdosed minutes earlier.
Heroin and opioids make people desperate. Yet all that residents say
they hear from elected leaders is “we can’t do this” or “we can’t do
that.” No one is saying, “Let’s try this,” or “We need to come up with a
solution.”
Last week, the city of Pittsburgh announced that it was delaying the
opening of the Sue Murray city pool, where hundreds of children,
predominantly black and often living below the poverty line, would
normally be enjoying each other’s company and a cool dunk. Instead, it
is shuttered. City officials say the reason is that there aren’t any
lifeguards to fill the positions. Parents say it is because of the
dangers their families face just walking the 50 yards from their homes
at The Commons, a federally subsidized housing development, to the pool.
Law-abiding citizens in this neighborhood, black and white, say they
don’t understand why their peace of mind, quality of life, safety,
respect and dignity have to be sacrificed so that clever Democratic
machine politicians can continue to ignore the massive drug problem
nearby.
In the past two years, there has been a catastrophic rise in drug
deaths in this country — a record 107,622 people in the United States
died from overdoses in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention; there has been an equally catastrophic rise in
crime in this country as well.
We are watching in real time the unraveling of our social fabric in
cities, suburbs and small towns. It is decaying right before our eyes,
with governmental and political inertia making it all possible.
We have allowed the powerful Mexican drug cartels, which have
infiltrated our communities directly and indirectly as they boldly
traffic fentanyl and methamphetamine across the border, to take the
lives of addicts and destroy communities’ cohesion. The consequences go
all the way down to young children who lose hope because they cannot
even go to the neighborhood pool.
We are also experiencing a catastrophic rise in murder rates after
years of decline. In 2021, the U.S. suffered from the fastest
murder-rate increase in the world.
The overall murder toll grew in a single year from 16,669 victims to
more than 23,000 victims — a number that Foreign Policy magazine
reported as the largest single-year increase in U.S. history.
The political class does nothing. It allows a massive flow of people
across the border, with many crossers tied to cartels. President Joe
Biden has weakened the actions of police forces across the country and
attempted to address the drug crisis by emphasizing harm reduction.
Criminals know that the consequences of their actions are no longer what
they used to be.
The result is this systematic killing of the American spirit — not
just in this neighborhood, but in cities, neighborhoods and suburbs
across the country. It changes how people socialize, send their children
to school and view government, institutions and politics.
This ugly reality will affect the elections this fall, probably far
more than the political class understands. Why? Because they never take
the time to walk down a street like Cedar Avenue and ask how it is
going. More importantly, they take for granted that they will always
have the voters they have always had, never realizing most people have a
breaking point.
