Special needs student allegedly raped; grandma sues Pittsburgh Public Schools, popular coffee chain
When I attended Allderdice (class of 1989) the teachers were always telling us that the school was responsible for anything that happened to us during school hours. This news article says the male students took the female student out of Allderdice during class hours, and took her to the Starbucks where they raped her. If what my teachers said was correct, then Allderdice is definitely at fault for this rape.
I don’t see how this rape can be the fault of Starbucks.
The article says one of the rape suspects had a long criminal history. He should have already been locked up for that. Then maybe this rape never would have happened.
The article also says that 78 crimes have been committed at that bus stop. I’ve said before that these serial criminals should have been locked up. I don’t know why the city (or the county) is allowing these criminals to go unpunished.
I currently live very, very close to this bus stop, and I have been very critical of what seemed like a media blackout on this rape since it was first reported 15 months ago. I’m glad that we have been updated with new information.
I wish the best for this girl in this horrible situation that never should have been allowed to happen. I don’t know why the city (or county) has allowed these serial criminals to run around free for so long and commit so many, many crimes.
Special needs student allegedly raped; grandma sues Pittsburgh Public Schools, popular coffee chain
January 24, 2024
By Rick Earle
PITTSBURGH — 11 Investigates has learned that the grandmother of a 15-year-old “intellectually disabled” student has sued the Pittsburgh Public School District, Starbucks and Kappa Drive Associates.
According to the lawsuit filed in Common Pleas court today, the student was allegedly raped in the restroom of the Starbucks on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill in October of 2022.
The lawsuit said Starbucks leases the building from Kappa Drive Associates, and that they both, “refused to supply adequate security so that patrons could safely use its premises.”
“This young girl, was without question, one of the most vulnerable people that we have among us,” said Attorney Alec Wright, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the family.
The lawsuit claimed that three male students left Taylor Allderdice High School with the freshman around lunchtime and went to Starbucks.
“Just take a second and think about, ‘What if I received that phone call?’, that my child was the victim of a violent sexual assault when they should have been in school and should have been protected,“ Attorney Wright said.
And it contends that the school district, “allowed…three student-assailants to take her from Taylor Allderdice to Starbucks in broad daylight during school hours, despite its policy that students are not permitted off the school campus during the school day.”
“PPS did not supervise, manage or train its staff on this policy and the three student-assailants were therefore able to take Jane Do Minor off campus during the school day,” the suit claimed.
The lawsuit said two of the teens took turns raping the freshman in the restroom at Starbucks.
“Because Starbucks did not have security or trained staff present in its store, the students took turns going back and forth from the bathroom as they sexually assaulted and raped her,” the lawsuit said.
It also claimed the three males left the coffee shop and took the girl to a nearby construction site where one of them sexually assaulted her.
The suit said she suffered, “significant physical and emotional injuries.”
The suit alleged that she was, “incompetent and incapable of giving consent, and she was confused, scared, sad and upset.”
That area is a popular hangout for students from Taylor Allderdice, who are required to catch the bus at a bus stop near the Starbucks.
That location has been the site of fights among students.
In fact, during an altercation a month before the sexual assault, Pittsburgh Police Officers had to use Tasers to break up a fight.
The lawsuit also said 78 incidents of criminal activity had been reported in the area, including vandalism, drug dealing and assaults.
And the lawsuit said one of the students involved in the rape was already known to police.
“Defendants knew that one of the student-assailants was known for a litany of criminal activity including drug use, drug dealing, vehicle theft, violence and flight from police officers and that he would frequent Starbuck and the Starbuck’s bus stop,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also accused Starbucks of negligence and said the company, “should have known about the dangers and criminal activity occurring at and around its business location….and at the Starbucks bus stop that put Jane Doe Minor at risk of harm, and it breached its duties.”
Pittsburgh police investigated the rape allegations, but no charges were ever filed.
Attorney Wright said an examination confirmed that the teen had been sexually assaulted and he said he doesn’t understand why charges haven’t been filed.
He said the teen’s grandmother reported it to police with high hopes they would take action.
“Investigators will understand, and they will be tasked with doing something, but they won’t do anything. They’ll tell you that your daughter with a 60 IQ had the capacity to be gang raped on her own at her own volition,” said Wright, who is demanding a jury trial and seeking unspecified monetary damages.
A Starbucks spokesperson issued the following comment about the lawsuit:
“When we learned of these allegations, we acted with extreme urgency to and support law enforcement throughout their investigation. Our goal is always to keep our stores safe for our partners and our customers. Due to the sensitive nature of this matter, and out of respect for all involved, we cannot comment further right now.”
Pittsburgh Public Schools declined to comment.
My question for Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, and Sally Kornbluth: Under what “context” would it be OK for someone to call for the genocide of my Jewish relatives, friends, and neighbors?
https://twitter.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1733680074224746942
Another act of vandalism leaves Squirrel Hill residents on edge
Another act of vandalism leaves Squirrel Hill residents on edge
By Laura Esposito
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nov 12, 2023
Michael “Shlomo” Jacobs, 53, hung a small sign outside the front window of his business in Squirrel Hill, Marvista Design + Build, a week ago that said, “We Stand With Israel.”
He said he never expected it to make his business “a target of antisemitism.”
About 3:50 a.m. Friday, a woman was captured by surveillance cameras outside the business at 2435 Beechwood Blvd. using a hammer to repeatedly strike the window where the sign hung. Unsuccessful in breaking the glass, she left. A few minutes later, however, she was back.
She struck the window a few more times and took the sign. Before leaving, she smashed the windows of the company truck, which was parked nearby.
Pittsburgh police were investigating.
“There was a lot of hate in those swings,” said Mr. Jacobs, who found out about the incident the following day after noticing a literature rack outside the building was missing and saw the cracks in the window.
After reviewing the camera footage, Mr. Jacobs called it “a miracle” that the glass didn’t break.
“I can’t figure out why,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”
He later learned that neighbors woke to the sounds of the hammer smashing against the window and called police, thinking they were hearing gunshots. Footage shows two police cars arriving at 4:01 a.m., but the woman was long gone. Mr. Jacobs said that when he filed a police report later Friday, the responding officer said he had not heard about the incident from the overnight shift.
As a resident of the neighborhood that contains the largest Jewish population in Pittsburgh, Mr. Jacobs said the community already felt unsafe as “a wave of antisemitism” had arisen since the start of the Israel-Hamas war Oct. 7. Now, he said, that feeling has only worsened.
Hateful graffiti was spray-painted on public spaces and homes across Squirrel Hill’s Summerset Neighborhood on Oct. 31, four days after the five-year commemoration of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, 71, of the Lubavitch Center in Squirrel Hill, called the vandalism incident at Marvista Design + Build “very unfortunate,” and said that since the synagogue massacre, the community has come together peacefully and positively.
“Hopefully it’s somebody coming from outside the community, trying to do something like this to upset the beauty and the coexistence that exists in our community with everybody,” said Rabbi Rosenfeld.
The Squirrel Hill resident said he was informed of the incident “first thing Friday morning” from many concerned residents. He said he told them their response should be to “continue to do positive things and bring more light into the world.”
“Hopefully, that will affect everyone around us,” Rabbi Rosenfeld said.
Mr. Jacobs is not backing down. He has put up two more signs that say, “We Stand With Israel,” inside the front window of his business.
“We are Jewish. We have a business in Squirrel Hill,” said Mr. Jacobs.
“We serve the Greater Pittsburgh community — and I’m not going to hide.”
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter tended to by Jewish doctors and nurses, officials say
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter tended to by Jewish doctors and nurses, officials say
October 29, 2018
PITTSBURGH — Jewish doctors and nurses at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh put their personal feelings aside to help save the life of the man who allegedly claimed he wanted to “kill all the Jews” as he opened fire at a synagogue and murdered 11 worshipers.
Robert Bowers, 46, was shot multiple times himself and taken to AGH. In addition to killing eight men and three women, he wounded six other people, including four police officers, before surrendering Saturday.
“He was taken to my hospital and he’s shouting, ‘I want to kill all the Jews’,” Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, president of Allegheny General Hospital and a member of the Tree of Life Synagogue, told ABC. “The first three people who took care of him were Jewish.”
Another nurse, whose father is a rabbi, “came in from a mass casualty drill and took care of this gentleman.”
Cohen was one of the first people on the scene. He lives in the neighborhood and heard gunfire from his house.
“I was standing there…and you could start hearing very quickly what was going on,” he said.
Just like the first responders who rushed into danger, Cohen credits his doctors, nurses and staff for stepping up.
“We are here to take care of sick people. We’re not here to judge you. We’re not here to ask ‘Do you have insurance or do you not have insurance?’ We’re here to take care of people who need our help,” he said.
Cohen says he and Bowers had a brief conversation at the hospital.
“When I stopped in, I asked him how he was doing. Was he in pain? And he said, ‘No. He was fine,’” Cohen said.
Cohen says Bowers then asked him who he was.
“I said I’m Dr. Cohen, president of the hospital. Then I turned around and left,” he said. “The FBI agent who was guarding him said, ‘I don’t know if I could have done that.’ And I said, ‘If you were in my shoes, I’m sure you could.’”
Bowers was discharged from the hospital Monday morning and arrived at the federal courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh around noon.
He faces 11 counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation in addition to federal counts that include weapons offenses and hate crime charges. Federal prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty against him.
A mass shooting in my own neighborhood
This morning, when I was in my apartment (which does not face the street) and I heard a very long succession of sirens from emergency vehicles going by, I suspected that something really horrible had happened, and the only possibility that entered my mind was either a bombing or a mass shooting at one of the nearby synagogues.
With large crowds of people, including large numbers of women and children, all together in an enclosed space, I’d thought for years that something like this could happen. But I never thought it would happen.
They still haven’t published the victims’ names, pending notification of their families.
I’m 47, and I’ve lived in Squirrel Hill my entire life. I’m hoping for at least another 47 years in this neighborhood. It’s too bad some scumbag deprived at least 11 of my neighbors from living out their lives. I don’t understand why anyone would do this.
The latest updates can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting
With easy gun access, and 26,000 people, Squirrel Hill has had zero gun murders in the last decade
I live in Pennsylvania, where it’s very easy to get a gun.
My neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, in Pittsburgh, has 26,000 people.
In the last 10 years, there has been only one murder in my neighborhood. This gives it an annual murder rate of 0.4 per 100,000 people. If my neighborhood was its own country, it would have the sixth lowest murder rate of any country in the world.
That one murder consisted of a burglar bludgeoning a 90-year-old homeowner to death. He was convicted after just 14 months, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The burglar was from another neighborhood.
Lest anyone think it is a rich, exclusive neighborhood, the rent for my one bedroom apartment is only $725 a month, and there are quite a few vacancies in my building every summer, as many of the tenants are graduate students from all over the world, who only live here for a few years.
Anyway, I think it’s interesting that in my neighborhood of 26,000 people, where it’s very easy to get a gun, there have been exactly zero gun murders in the past decade.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 