A constable killed Barbara Hampton's fiance during a chaotic shootout in Homewood but probably saved her son's life, she said on Thursday.
Constable William Jackson, 38, dates her daughter and was at Hampton's house Wednesday when her fiance, Leon Wilson, 42, who had been drinking, pulled out a gun about 3 p.m. and started firing at her son, she said.
Jackson intervened and shot Wilson six times.
"I understand what (Jackson) did, but I don't think he had to shoot him that many times," Hampton, 45, said. "But if it wasn't for him, my son could have been dead."
The shootout at Hampton's home was one of four that peppered Pittsburgh's eastern neighborhoods and Wilkinsburg in less than 24 hours, including one that nearly killed a Pittsburgh police officer. Community leaders and residents said the violence was extreme even for areas used to hearing gunshots.
"It's sad. It's just really sad. When I grew up, Homewood was a wonderful place," said Yvonne Lipscomb, 73, who lives in Wilkinsburg but grew up in Homewood and has worked in the Homewood library for 16 years. "I was just sick (Wednesday). Customers were coming in saying, 'Oh my God, there's shootings.' I heard all the sirens. I didn't grow up in this neighborhood -- not like this. It's a totally different place. They have no respect for the police.
"When I grew up, police walked up and down the streets. They can't do that now. They'd shoot them. The ones that have lived here a long time are just appalled."
Pittsburgh police Officer Morgan Jenkins, an eight-year veteran, was critically wounded in a gunbattle early Thursday in the East End. Bullets hit him several times in his protective vest and his shoulder as he and another officer chased James Robert Hill, 24, of Homewood.
Police shot Hill several times. He was in critical condition at UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland, police said.
About 45 minutes before the afternoon shooting at Hampton's home, three people were shot on Brushton Avenue. At 3 a.m. Wednesday, Monica Proviano was shot in the head with a shotgun in Wilkinsburg.
The Rev. Ricky Burgess, the councilman who represents Homewood, and community activist Rashad Byrdsong both said the shootings are symptoms of societal problems.
"It's poverty, years of neglect of economic development and, on the other side, it's the availability of guns," Burgess said. "If we don't invest in these communities, the situation is going to get worse."
Byrdsong, president of the Community Empowerment Association in Homewood, agreed, blaming a lack of jobs, kids dropping out of school and a lack of economic and community development.
"The behavior we're seeing is like Third World countries. This is domestic war," he said.
Stephen Shelton, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Trade Institute of Pittsburgh, said during a meeting of the Community Police Relations Group on Thursday evening in the South Side that four of the shootings occurred near his masonry company's office in the East Hills. After the meeting, Shelton said the violence has been "business as usual. That's the bad part. It's no big deal."
District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. is reviewing the Jackson case to determine whether charges are warranted, a spokesman said.
Elected constable Charles Frazier appointed Jackson as a deputy constable in 2010. John Pfau, manager of the Bureau of Services for the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, which certifies constables for court work, said Jackson's certification was revoked because he let his constable insurance policy lapse.
State law exempts constables from having to acquire concealed gun permits, Pfau said. Police said Jackson has no concealed weapons permit.
Kate Barkman, who heads the county's Department of Court Records, said the county received notice April 2 of the insurance lapse and notified the commission.
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