Shelbourne Park vandalized with anti-Semitic messages overnight

PITTSBURGH — Exclusive video shared with Channel 11 from a neighbor’s surveillance camera shows Shelbourne Park in Squirrel Hill around 4 a.m. Tuesday.

In the video, a group of vandals can be seen spray painting for several minutes.

Neighbors woke up this morning to spray paint on the gazebo, the sidewalks, and even some of their cars and homes. Anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-American messages were written.

“I have to tell you I have never felt the way I feel today in all the years I lived here,” neighbor Roman Gluzman said.

Gluzman now likely has thousands of dollars in damage. His car had an obscenity carved into the paint, his tires were slashed and he says his sense of peace was rattled.

“I read every last one of them,” Gluzman said.

Gluzman says he has never seen anything like this before, and he’s lived in the community for nearly two decades.

“I don’t know what the message is sending because if they are trying to unite in any way this sure isn’t going to do anything but create more divisiveness, more anger,” Gluzman said.

Community officials say the timing of the attack just before the community’s big Halloween parade, when the park will be filled with dozens of trick or treaters, makes the act even more egregious.

“Halloween is a big night in this neighborhood and we were really looking forward to having the park completed for the community to use for the children to use so for this to happen it’s tremendously disheartening,” Summerset Neighborhood Board President Mare Stapinski said.

Officials told 11 News that it may take several days to get the graffiti completely removed.

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