YPSILANTI (WXYZ) — Janea Davis's 9-year-old son was playing video games upstairs when someone opened fire on his family's townhouse apartment.
"It was hard for me to get downstairs," said little Markeith who has bandages covering wounds from bullet fragments that hit his chest, arm and neck.
"When he came downstairs, he was covered in blood," Davis told 7 Action News.
A neighbor who lives in an adjacent townhouse was also struck by a bullet early Monday morning.
Then early Wednesday morning, almost directly behind that location, bullets hit the house where Taliesha Darby lives with her children. One of those bullets went into the house and within inches of where 3-year-old Lyric was sleeping.
The round continued through Lyric's bedroom and even penetrated the door to her bedroom and went into the hallway.
"For me to wake up and see a bullet hole literally above my daughter's bed, like, what if she would have got up in the middle of the night, you know, to use the bathroom or something," she said, adding that her sons could have been struck if they had been in the hallway.
The two shootings are the most recent in a string of shootings at New Parkridge, operated by the Ypsilanti Housing Commission.
It's unclear if what appears to be an elaborate surveillance camera system captured anything that might lead to any arrests.
Over the weekend, a man was on a nearby street when he was shot multiple times. His sister said he remains in critical condition.
In another shooting that took place in broad daylight, Ypsilanti Mayor Lois Allen-Richardson said no one was injured but a mail carrier reportedly had to hit the ground when shots were being fired.
As a result of that shooting, Allen-Richardson said mail to that street has been temporarily halted.
Allen-Richardson said she is going to be organizing a community meeting to talk about solutions and talking to judges in hopes that they might be able to enforce nuisance violations that could lead to the eviction of any residents who is contributing to the problem.
"I don't want to see anybody out without a home, you know, that's just not in me," she said. "But for the good of the whole, you've got to find someplace else to live."
As for young Markeith, doctors told his mother it was best to leave the bullet fragments in his neck and chest.
"The doctor said he won't ever be able to get MRIs. He'll set off metal detectors," Davis said. "But I just thank God that my son is OK."
According to city officials, there have been 14 shootings in Ypsilanti in the last 60 days.
