SCRANTON, Pa. — Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti on Sunday said administration officials will meet this week with a Washington D.C.-based research firm conducting a study that may help the city contend with gang violence.
In July, the city awarded Muflehun a nearly $70,000 contract to assess the community’s health and safety landscape and identify the gaps in how people are served. In its request for proposals this summer, the city surmised that having a better understanding of its resources is needed to develop a strategy to counter gang violence.
As of now, Cognetti said the city expects to have a completed report by late spring or early summer. Muflehun is meeting with the police department this week.
“We speak with officials from and follow the examples of other, usually larger, cities that deal with gang and youth violence,” Cognetti said Sunday. “There are organizations and programs in these larger cities that we may want to replicate here. Muflehun is helping us review our landscape and assess what programs and people we may want to bring in to help.”
The concern of gang violence became more acute following the early Thursday morning shooting of Detective Kyle Gilmartin. Gilmartin, 34, was critically wounded last week attempting to arrest suspects involved in gang-related violence.
Authorities have not charged anyone for the shooting of Gilmartin. They have arrested a 19-year-old, Jeremiah Cleveland, and charged him with firing a gun at houses in the city in the hours before Gilmartin was wounded.
One of those houses where gunfire was reported was the Harrison Avenue home of a man arrested in June 2022 for a role in the deadly gang-related stabbing of 18-year-old Tyler McKenna outside of Scranton High School.
Amir Williams, 18, was held responsible by a jury for McKenna's death. Williams awaits sentencing on charges of first-degree murder, third-degree murder, aggravated assault, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.
Criminal charges against two others arrested — including those against the defendant who lives at the Harrison Avenue home targeted last week — were decertified to a juvenile court, officials said.