Your father's recollection is probably from riots in the Hill District and Homestead that flared for three days starting on April 6, 1968 in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King.
I grew up in the housing projects in the Hill District in the early 1960's, where my father along with many other Pitt students had housing. Those housing projects have since been torn down.
Fred,
That is probably the right time frame. He was in the streets, trying to keep order, and suffered abuse from the locals.
K51
The Burgh DID have riots after the MLK assassination. I was very little. But I clearly remember my dad sitting on the stairs of our SW Oakland row house holding his hunting rifle and a box of shells beside him. We were land locked between the cliff above the Parkway East and the Blvd of the Allies (no way “out” except the Blvd and too much “trouble” there to safely leave that way).
And I have to add...do you know you misspelled Pittsburgh?!?! ;)