After gunshots rang out in the Meadowood neighborhood Tuesday night, neighbors living near the scene of the crime called for change in the community and said they plan to take action to try to reduce violence in the area.
Police responded to the area of Raymond Road and Westbrook Lane at around 6:45 Tuesday night; officers found a woman’s vehicle littered with bullet holes.
Madison police spokesperson Joel DeSpain said investigators believe someone was firing at her car while she was driving down Raymond Road, likely targeting her passenger, an acquaintance she was taking to a nearby gas station.
Police shut down Raymond Road and canvassed the area searching for a suspect.
Frank Davis, a father of three, said he heard, then saw the commotion taking place right in front of his home, which is right on the corner of Raymond and Westbook.
“(The) kids (were) in the front room, playing, watching TV, and all of a sudden you hear seven gunshots, pow pow pow!” Davis said.
His daughter, 15-year-old Destiny Lloyd, ran for cover with her siblings.
“It was really scary,” she said. “(I thought) ‘somebody’s shooting again.'”
In an interview with News 3 Wednesday, Davis said this latest incident has him fed up with the violence taking place in the neighborhood. It’s not the first close call his family has had, either.
Bullet holes continue to mark the spots where gunshots were fired at his home last year.
“After last night, I was like ‘this has to change,'” Davis said. “A bullet has already come through the wall, how many more bullets need to fly?”
Davis, who is also part of the Madison criminal justice reform group MOSES, said he plans on taking action in his own neighborhood, already laying the groundwork in the hours following the incident.
“As of today, I’ve been trying to call people, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what’s going on in the community, who’s doing what, so I can try to get together and organize other individuals,” he said.
He said he hopes to go door-to-door, pass out flyers and do “whatever (he) can” to get the neighborhood to take action.
“It’s not one or two individuals in a certain position,” Davis said. “It’s the whole community that needs to stand up.”
Tutankhamun Assad, the founder of the Meadowood-based Mellowhood Foundation, echoed Davis Wednesday.
“This assumption that we in the community are going to let this happen, it’s not going to happen,” Assad said. “Neighborhoods have to speak up, we have to change this culture in our community…black men and black women thinking we’re weak if we ask somebody else to be accountable.”
“We need to get away from this mentality that it’s snitching or doing something wrong by you trying protect your family and your neighborhood,” Davis said.
Despite recent calls by Madison Police Chief Mike Koval for the city to add more officers to the force, Davis said he doesn’t believe adding more police to the neighborhood would ultimately bring about a solution to the violence. He said community members themselves have to be the solution.
“I think having more officers is really just a Band-Aid,” Davis said.
Davis said he doesn’t know all the reasons behind the violence, but he worries that it will eventually have a deadly impact on innocent bystanders
“Negative behavior will go anywhere they feel they can thrive and survive. There’s something happening here where individuals feel they can come here and thrive and survive,” he said. “This is life or death.”
Lloyd said she hoped those behind recent gun incidents will think about kids like her before firing their weapons.
“What if we were the people who were driving past your house just shooting not even caring and it was your family that was getting harmed?” she asked.
“I want (my kids) not just to see their next birthday, I want them to grow up,” Davis said.
Davis said after his lease is up, he plans on moving for fear for his family’s safety; but he said he’ll continue fighting for change in the neighborhood.
“I’m sorry, but I cannot allow my family to be in this community and be subjected to not knowing if a bullet is going to come through their window or come through their wall,” he said.
Madison police said they have made no arrests connected to Tuesday night’s incident.
