South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace Executive Director Rev. Eileen Smith, center, speaks during the Stop the Violence Rally and Prayer Vigil at The Lighthouse Cathedral on Thursday Sept. 25, 2025. (Photo by Alex Jurkuta/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
The South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace formed in response to a fatal shooting at Carrick High School 20 years ago. In the wake of last week’s stabbing, the group says care and resources are needed more than heightened security.
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As the Carrick High School community reels from the stabbings of three students on Wednesday, a local community organization is stepping in to provide trauma-informed care and resources to students and staff.
The Peace Makers, a team of seven who are part of the South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace (SPCP), have worked with the school for the last three years to provide intervention supports and conflict mediation for students in need.
The incident, in which a 16-year-old student is accused of slashing three peers with a knife, critically injuring one, has prompted the team to redouble efforts to address trauma and provide resources to students and staff in need. They maintain this – rather than security – is where their focus is needed.
“All of the Pittsburgh Public Schools have school police in place, and I think they’re well equipped,” said Rev. Eileen Smith, SPCP’s executive director. “It could happen anywhere and we would never have anticipated it happening at Carrick.”
The SPCP was founded in 2005, following a fatal shooting at Carrick High School. Around 2017, SPCP launched the Peace Maker’s program, in partnership with the city’s Group Violence Intervention Initiative.
The seven Peace Makers are trained violence interrupters and outreach coordinators, versed in trauma-informed care and de-escalation. They lay the groundwork by forming relationships with individuals at a higher risk of violence, whom they identify through tips from the school and community. They identify underlying risk factors such as housing instability, unemployment or addiction to support at-risk individuals.
Each day, the Peace Makers canvass eight city neighborhoods in the Hilltop, connecting with at-risk community members and providing targeted interventions. Three years ago, SPCP started partnering with the school district to provide support and intervention to students at Carrick High.
‘Children running everywhere’
Rick Bigelow, program manager for the SPCP Peace Makers program, was one of the first responders at Carrick after the stabbing.
Bigelow’s first move was to support the school staff and manage crowds gathering inside and outside the building. His team of seven worked to secure the location and help parents who were arriving to pick up their kids.
“There were children running everywhere. A violent incident just happened,” he said. “There was blood all in the hallways in the school. This was witnessed by the student body and staff. … Of course, it was a scary scene and very traumatic.”
Averi Winterhalter, a junior at Carrick, was in her health tech class when the announcement rang over the school’s intercom system. Immediately, people started talking about it on Snapchat and a video of the incident circulated, she said.
It was stressful receiving “info from different sources” while the school was locked down, she said, noting that she doesn’t feel violence is typical for the school and that the incident was “random.”
Though the school day resumed after the lockdown, many parents picked up their children.The district later announced the school would function remote-only for the remainder of the week ending Sept. 26.
Parent Joseph Harris said the school hasn’t changed since his time as a student there, recalling a fatal shooting outside the school building.
Before his son transferred from Baldwin to Carrick, Harris said he warned his son that students often bullied each other. The security presence, he said, is low and they often aren’t dispersed throughout the school. He doesn’t fault the school itself, though, and said it’s often teachers who have to break up fights.
‘You can’t force therapy’
There are a number of reasons why the Peace Makers teamed up with Carrick three years ago, Bigelow said.
First, the Peace Makers all have deep, personal ties to the school. Most are Carrick graduates and others have friends or family who attended the school. Second, a wave of violence brought the need for prompt intervention into sharp focus: In the last four years, 11 Carrick students or recent graduates were killed from gun violence, according to Bigelow, compelling SPCP to concentrate on Carrick.
“Carrick was like a flash point in the community,” Bigelow said. “So many things were happening there. So how could we not go into the school?”
The Peace Makers’ primary goal at the school is to provide direct intervention and mediate conflicts. They’re typically on site Tuesday through Friday for an hour and half during lunch and bus stop or dismissal periods when tensions are more likely to flare.
“We’re non-judgmental if a young man, young lady comes to us with some type of trauma issue,” Bigelow said. “We don’t just work with shooters. We work with people. We’re here to help with any small need, because sometimes our small needs do turn into bigger needs, which can turn into violent situations.”
Following the stabbing, Peace Makers will focus all attention on addressing individual trauma needs that may arise out of the stabbing incident. Instead of two hours, they will be present at Carrick for the entire school day.
Bigelow said consistency is a key part of their approach: showing up every day and building trust over time.
“What about when the cameras are gone and the incident’s died down?” Bigelow said. “Are you still there for them? Are you still with that same passion and vigor? So we just try to be consistent.”
So far, the Peace Makers’ partnership with the school has been fruitful, but engaging with students can be challenging. Bigelow said student turnover in schools sometimes makes it difficult to build awareness about who they are and how they could help. The Peace Makers also engage with parents to ensure that they know about the resources available in the school. Their goal is to create a safe space for students without being intrusive.
“When the youth, or just like anyone, needs their space, we don’t invade their spaces in the school,” he said. “We don’t force, because you can’t force care on someone. You can’t force therapy or trauma responses.”
Carrick stabbing ‘unpreventable’
Smith, SPCP’s director, said she believes that Wednesday’s stabbing incident was “unpreventable.” She added that SPCP’s partnership with the district has been successful in reducing violence.
The Peace Makers team would like to see more funding to ensure they are able to be present in all neighborhoods they need to be in. The bulk of the coalition’s funding currently comes from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services Community Violence Reduction Initiative grant.
Gary Coleman, director of programming and education at Operation Amani, an organization that works with formerly gang-involved and incarcerated people, said violence prevention programs need to be proactive by providing supports such as workforce development programs, basic needs and opportunities to grow for young students.
He added that gaps exist in violence reduction because of school policies or a lack of funding leaving schools unable to work with community organizations to provide resources to students.
“There are people in the community now that are going out to reach out to these families, to ask the families, ‘What do you need? What type of food do you need?’” he said. “These resources are already out there and active. My question is, is the school doing the same?”
Pittsburgh Public Schools spokesperson Ebony Pugh said the district will conduct a review of the school’s safety measures to understand how a knife was brought into the building and strengthen protocols as needed. Counselors, Student Assistance Programs and Employee Assistance Programs will be made available to staff and students.
Not ‘another great program’
Jordan Allen, who runs Resilient Minds Youth Development, a nonprofit that helps other organizations implement programs focused on violence intervention, urged a multi-tiered approach at political, communal and individual levels to provide resources.
“We have to first look at why our kids don’t feel safe,” he said. “We have to look at what bullying does inside of the education system. And … we have to look at ways to mediate tensions, but also bring reconciliation to the community who now is hurt and faced with trauma.”
He’d like to see state and federal changes bringing:
- More funding to schools
- More collaboration between community partners and schools
- Higher engagement with families
- Safe spaces where children can address root causes of violence.
“It’s not creating another great program; it’s creating collaboration,” he said. “And once we create collaboration, we are then able to provide the structure and the substance that our youth need, the tools that they need to grow and thrive.”
Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.
Ember Duke is an editorial intern at Pittsburgh’s Public Source. She can be reached at ember@publicsource.org.
Stephanie Strasburg contributed reporting.
This article first appeared on Pittsburgh’s Public Source and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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