CONVERSE, Texas – Residents living in a Converse neighborhood were caught off guard by the number of bullets they heard pummeling a home Thursday morning.
The shooting happened around 5:00 a.m. in the 8800 block of Dream Avenue. Converse police said the shooting was targeted, and approximately 30 rounds were fired at the home.
“We were asleep,” said one grandmother, who didn’t want to be identified. “We just heard shots after shots after shots, and when we came out, my husband and I heard young voices saying, ‘Hurry up man.’”
Police filled the street shortly after the shots were fired.
“First thing we thought was someone was killed,” the woman said. “It was scary because around that time, my daughter was bringing my grandson over. Those shots could have gone everywhere.”
Isaiah Forsness, 19, also lives in the neighborhood. He said he is troubled by the shooting for multiple reasons.
“What is going on here doesn’t make any sense. Life and death are something serious. People don’t think about it. They just brush it over their heads when, in reality, anything can happen to you out here," Forsness said. "This shooting didn’t anger me at first because I am used to it, but it hurt me a bit because there are kids out here, little babies who are four or five years old. I see them out here playing with my siblings.”
He said he'd experienced gun violence firsthand.
“In 2017, in a matter of just three months, I lost five friends,” Forsness said. “It makes no sense. Two of them were killed, and three of them went after the ones that did it and were arrested, so they are in the system.”
Forsness said he grew up on the East Side of San Antonio, but he and his family moved to Converse for a better life.
“I was raised there, and I remember seeing the dope,” Forsness said. “They used to give us money for good grades, but nowadays, these dudes my age are selling crack to kids that are 12 years old. They are killing each other over the smallest things. These youngsters will smoke you in broad daylight because they don’t care anymore.”
He said a lot of the gun violence he’s witnessed, such as Thursday’s shooting, is caused by a lack of guidance.
“Some people are without fathers or good mothers,” Forsness said. “They have nobody to look up to but the negative people in the streets. They follow these people, like drug dealers, not knowing the real consequences of what they do or say.”
Forsness said he understands that people will only change for the better if they choose to change, but he hopes the person or people responsible for this targeted shooting learn from their actions.
“This life you are choosing with violence and gangs. At the end of the day, that stuff doesn’t mean anything, especially when you are laying on this floor, breathing your last breath, bleeding out of your mouth, with none of your homeboys around you, and you are just thinking of your mom and your family and thinking, ‘Today is the day I am about to be gone.’ You better stop before it is too late, man," Forsness said. "If you are giving those bullets out, you better believe you are going to receive them.”
Converse police said no one was hit during the shooting, and the shooter, or shooters, are still at large.
If you have any information that could help in this case, call police at 210-658-0898.