Multiple Chester Homes Shot Into

A 13-year-old girl ran screaming to her mother Tuesday night in Chester. She saw a car pull up in the pouring rain, and someone inside it pointed a gun at her house and fired.

"My little girl could've got shot last night, because she was sitting right by that window," said Schanta McClinton.

She lives on Elizabeth Street where someone fired a .45 caliber handgun at her house at least five times. The bullets left gaping holes in the siding, and one is buried deep into the window frame of Mike Williams' bedroom.

"God was just with me," Williams said. "My head could've been right there by that window.”

However, Williams wasn't in bed when the light-colored Cadillac stopped in front of his house. He was walking home, and saw the gun.

"I saw the Cadillac stop right there and just boom! Boom! Boom! Big, loud shots," he said.

Within just minutes another house was shot into on Oak Street, not far away. The woman there told police the single bullet ripped through two walls and a couch, and shattered the glass in her entertainment center. Police found the slug on the floor in front of it.

Since Saturday, five houses in the same area between Saluda Street and Loomis Street have been shot at. On Saturday morning, 41-year-old Eddie Hall was killed when a bullet fired from outside his house struck him in the head. That same night, 21-year-old Mario Chalk was shot in the leg outside a home on Oak Street.

"They didn't even know he was shot until they heard hollering," said Chalk's cousin John Chalk.

He told Eyewitness News that some people there don't want to call the police to settle their problems. They want to handle it themselves, and this is the result.

"Because they feel like the police won't do nothing about it. They're going to take it in their own hands. That's the way people feel about it," Chalk said.

Neighbors in East Chester told Eyewitness News they take care of their business during the day and then keep to themselves at night. Several long-time neighbors said the community has changed for the worse in the past 20 years.

Chester police have recovered several bullets and shell casings from different shooting scenes, and sheriff's deputies have recovered evidence in the slaying of Eddie Hall. Much of it has been sent to the state law enforcement division, or SLED, for analysis. So far, police won't say if all the cases are connected, or even if the same caliber gun was used in every incident.

"We're just trying to pinpoint, and put it together until we find out further," said Chester police Lt. Gene Gilmore. "I don't want to say if it's together until we make sure."

Gilmore said police have changed their tactics to try and stop the violence in the East Chester neighborhoods, and make arrests. He would not say specifically what the department is doing.