Berkshire Benchmarks Releases State of the County Update

03:00PM / Monday, May 15, 2023Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Benchmarks data team recently released a State of the County Update for 2023.

This brief report builds on the Berkshire Benchmarks State of the County Report published in May 2022 and highlights notable changes in regional indicators over the past year. The berkshirebenchmarks.org website has also been updated to reflect the most current available data.

The purpose of the Benchmarks initiative and report is to highlight the region's successes and challenges.

The 2022 Berkshire Benchmarks State of the County report provided a comprehensive overview of our region's performance across eight sectors: Economy, Education, Environment, Government, Health, Housing, Social Environment, and Transportation.

In the future, the Berkshire Benchmarks team will continue to monitor these and other indicators to aid with the regional understanding of changes in these sectors and whether the work happening throughout the region is having the intended impact.

Berkshire Benchmarks is a collaborative initiative managed through Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC). Our sources are publicly available data, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the American Community Survey, various Massachusetts data sets, and periodic surveys of Berkshire County residents.

Berkshire Benchmarks aims to work with the community to understand priorities and help inform the region on how we are doing and if we are improving. Berkshire Benchmarks enhances the region's access to quality data and analysis.

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DA Provides Updates on 4 Pittsfield Summer Shootings

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:11PM / Thursday, November 05, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass.— District Attorney Timothy Shugrue delivered updates on a string of gun violence incidents over the summer and said even one is too much.

"This summer was extremely upsetting to people living in Pittsfield and our entire Berkshire community. While we live in a safe community, it is always disheartening to hear these gunshots. In the past four years, there has been a remarkable reduction in gun violence," he said during a press conference at the Berkshire DA's office on Thursday.

"Since January 2023, there has been a 62 percent reduction of validated shootings in the City of Pittsfield."

There were four separate incidents involving gunfire in Pittsfield this past summer. Some suspects were charged, and some are still being sought by police.

On June 18, a person died after being shot in the area of Tyler Street and Pleasure Avenue, and another person was injured. Following an extensive investigation, the Pittsfield Police Department applied for and was granted an arrest warrant for Terry Martizna, wanted for murder.

Shugrue reported that his office is working with various authorities, including federal, to secure Martizna's return to the Berkshires. He said he was involved the whole weekend of the incident after being "immediately" contacted by the PPD.

"My office was on notice, and we continued to work with them throughout the night. I can tell you that they worked all night long; they never stopped working. I was really pleased with the amount of effort that was going into it, and by the next day, we had a pretty good clue of where we were going. But the amount of surveillance that they had to go through was incredible, and it was just commendable," he added.

"The amount of support we got from the community, from the Pittsfield residents, and from the work that these officers put in all weekend long, they were able to identify certain locations where this individual was, and that continued all the way in through Monday morning. By that Saturday, I was informed that we had a suspect that we were just producing the probable cause reports, and that was all which led to the warrant coming out."

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