YORK, Pa. — Angela Aten has lived near Penn Park in York City for about 15 years and says things aren’t what they used to be.
“I can sit in my place and hear gunshots in the afternoon when it’s still day out, and I’ve seen kids running around with handguns, it’s a very dangerous time right now," said Aten.
“Over the last two to three years it has gone from bad to extreme. It has doubled, tripled what it was before," she continued.
A couple of months ago, she saw a boy shot and killed near her home.
“It’s crazy because he was such a young kid. To experience something like that and to see their family members just so distraught and upset. All of this could be avoidable if something more were done," said Aten.
Back in July, York City police arrested Jaquez Brown in connection to the death of Shaheim Carr. Numerous guns, bullets, and magazines were recovered from Brown’s home.
Police also found Glock switches, a device that allows a conventional semi-automatic Glock pistol to function as a fully automatic firearm, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF.)
Joshua Brown, a York City resident, says that knowing devices like that are available is a bigger concern because it could mean more destruction and more stray bullets.
“They’re shooting at each other, but they’re obviously not thinking about stray bullets, and that hurts the public. They don’t know where that stray bullet is going, that could hit a kid, that could hit an elderly person, it could hit me," said Brown.
Both feel like more needs to be done in order for change to happen.
“[Police] definitely need to be monitoring more, especially at night. Because along with the gunshots, there’s a lot of drug activity, and I feel like the drug activity is influencing the gun activity," said Brown.
"I feel like it has a lot to do with parenting and police. We have to work together as a community to try to figure something out to make it stop so that people don’t have to be afraid to come out of the house," said Aten.