Residents worried about gunshots on New Year’s Eve night
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FLINT, Michigan (WNEM ) — After a violent weekend ending in four homicides, an illegal and dangerous New Year’s Eve tradition is sparking concern for some Flint residents.
“It sounds like you’re in the middle of a warzone,” Flint resident Jessica Barley said.
It is not a warzone, it’s Flint on New Year’s Eve. While ringing in the new year gun shots rang through the air.
Flint resident Monica Kelly captured that video.
“What scared me was if people are shooting those in the air, those bullets have to come down,” Kelly said.
The bullets did come down on Barley’s front porch. She wasn’t home at the time, but her pets were.
“It’s a little surreal. Especially the simple fact that we weren’t home, and the puppies were,” Barley said. “So, if they had penetrated the house and had hit one of the animals, we wouldn’t have been here to do anything about it.”
At another home in Flint Township a bullet pierced through the ceiling, landing on a bed. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
“It’s a little devastating seeing a city doing this to themselves” Barley said.
This new year’s celebration comes after a violent week in Flint. Gun violence led to four separate homicides leaving city officials like Mayor Sheldon Neeley pleading for an end to it.
“How do we move forward as a community and a society? A civilized society saying that violence should no longer be,” Neeley said. “We really have petition each other in a spirit of positivity.”
Citizens are skeptical that change will happen.
“It’s been going on for a while, so I don’t think it’s ever going to change any time soon,” Kelly said. “I just hope people can get along. You’d think people would come together after it’s been such a hard year.”
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