Residents of Antioch’s Sycamore Drive corridor are raising concerns following recent shootings in the area.
One video shot by a resident last year showed a dozen of people scatter as gunfire erupted in the neighborhood. The man who provided the video didn't want to be identified on camera. But he said it happened in front of his home and it’s only gotten worse.
“Of course, it did scare me because after that night, I don’t feel like going out," he said. "I don’t want to peek outside my house."
The Antioch Police Department said there have been nearly a dozen shootings in the troubled area.
One of the most recent incidents happened on Labor Day, when a 20-year-old man was killed. While eight of the shootings happened within the last week, where there were anywhere between 3 to 50 bullets fired in each case.
“With all these crimes going on, especially in my area, I can’t really walk around,” one resident said.
Police said that some of the bullets have shattered windows of businesses, while others struck people while parking.
On Tuesday, Yanira Majano told NBC Bay Area that she was lucky that neither her nor her children were in the front room of their home when a bullet pierced through the walls.
“I’m not safe in the house,” she said.
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Antioch interim police chief Brian Addington said in the following statement: "This spate of violence will not be tolerated. We have rearranged staffing and assigned two officers to patrol the Sycamore Corridor for at least the next seven days.”
While an NBC Bay Area crew was filming at Sycamore Square on Wednesday, officers patrolling the area told our crew to leave for their own safety. These incidents happened even as Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe said the new plan of adding police presence was working.
“I did a ride along last night just to see how things were going and it looked like our extra police presence helped out,” he said.
But some Antioch residents said the new plan is not enough.
“They can do better. That’s all I have to say. They can do better,” one resident said.
