Uniontown peppered with gunplay
With respect to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clanton gang, based on recent gunplay the city of Uniontown seems to be rivaling the OK Corral in terms of bullets fired. A Wednesday gun battle in the parking lot of Pershing Court was the city’s ninth shooting incident in the last eight weeks – and one that pushed the bullets-fired total past 70 rounds in incidents logged since June 24. The latest incident, in which no one was hurt, involved gunfire between men who were in separate vehicles. The list includes an Aug. 14 shooting that wounded a Pittsburgh boy in the abdomen, and an Aug. 6 incident in which a house was damaged by gunfire.
While police don’t believe the shootings are random – which is usually code for someone wanting to settle a score – the sheer volume and consistency of gunfire-related episodes is enough to warrant concern by the public, police and city administration.
They know, of course, the root cause of most of these incidents, even if it doesn’t always show up in the police report. When people are hell bent on sending a message or handling a dispute by pulling a trigger, there’s probably very little anyone can do by means of outright prevention.
Still, with shell casings peppering the streets, calls will go out for the situation to be addressed by law enforcement. That’s the logical place to start – but in reality the root cause of such violence too often rests in illegal activities or behavior on the part of people who have yet to be caught or incarcerated.
The situation is disconcerting at the least, and frightening at the worst, for law-abiding city residents who just want to live their lives in peace and without fear. And that’s the vast majority of people, in Uniontown or elsewhere.
If the gunfire continues unabated, even if no one is seriously injured – which is unlikely – the city’s reputation will continue taking a huge public relations hit.
Warranted or not, Uniontown will be viewed by outsiders, and perhaps insiders, as a dangerous place to live, work or visit.
Even if that’s not necessarily the case, perception is often reality.
It will be tragic if an innocent bystander is some day killed or wounded by this escalation.
Let’s hope the recent trend is only a temporary blip on the radar screen, that this particular crime wave burns itself out – or that police find a way to corral the perpetrators of these non-random shooting incidents.