An Antioch family is rattled after a gunfight outside their home sent a stray bullet tearing into their home.
Antioch resident Yanira Majano said that she’s nervous. There’s been a lot of shootings near her home, where she’s raising two sons, a teenager and a toddler.
This time, the gunfire got way too close though.
Just before 5 p.m. Monday, she heard the shots across the street at the Contra Costa County fairground gate. That’s where two men got into a gunfight.
One of the men involved is recovering in the hospital and the other ran from the scene according to the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office.
But Majano said that a stray bullet from that gunfight made it into her home and could have hit one of her children or her, if they were in the front room.
“I’m not safe in the house,” she said.
Majano said that she knows there could be another stray bullet at any time because there have been five shootings in the area recently, including a fatal shooting on Labor Day.
Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe talked about the latest shooting and gun violence in the neighborhood before he spoke at a warehouse union strike nearby on Tuesday.
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“I’m aware of that shooting, and I’m confident the sheriff’s department, who is ultimately responsible for that property on the fairgrounds will ultimately bring those individuals to justice,” he said.
Residents in the Antioch neighborhood that Hernandez-Thorpe held a press conference a couple of years ago, promising to bolster the police presence at the Troubled Sycamore Square Strip Mall nearby.
The area has been notorious for shootings for about a decade, but merchants told NBC Bay Area that despite that promise, the gun violence has only gotten worse recently and one market owner questions whether the mayor and Antioch police can handle the problem.
“I think we need to be calling the FBI. I think we need a high level of enforcement. I don’t feel the enforcement that is here is suitable enough that they can take care of the problem,” said Antioch market owner Ray.
The Labor Day murder is the 10th in Antioch this year and there have been more than 140 weapons violations in the city so far this year, according to the city’s own crime statistics.
As far as the latest shooting goes. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office said they’re following leads in their search for the other suspect in the gunfight.
