Police think St. Petersburg revelers firing guns are responsible for damage to a Gulfport mobile home park.
By JAMIE JONES
Published January 4, 2004
GULFPORT - Stan Blanchard was among 70 retirees who spent New Year's Eve doing the jitterbug and competing for door prizes at the Beachway Mobile Park clubhouse.
Blanchard, 67, was in a good mood until he walked home. Then he heard gunfire, at least 16 shots, rapid and close.
"I thought, "Just let me make it home alive,' " he said.
The sound of gunfire has become an annual occurrence in the mobile home park, a retirement community with 156 homes off Fairfield Avenue S.
This New Year's Eve, bullets rained down on about 17 homes, an increase from last year, when at least 12 homes were hit, neighbors said.
Bullets have penetrated carports, sliced through kitchens, lodged in roofs, chipped a coffee table, smashed through the door of one woman's Florida room and hit one woman's trunk as she was driving through the community, neighbors said.
No one was injured, but neighbors think it's only a matter of time.
"I didn't retire to come down here and get shot," Blanchard said.
On Thursday, he discovered a bullet hole in his roof, which he said he recently paid $3,100 to repair. Last year, it got hit by two bullets.
"People are going to get killed," he said.
His neighbors Bill and Kay Howes had just returned home from the Elks Lodge on New Year's Eve when they heard what sounded like an explosion in their kitchen. They walked out of their bedroom and discovered a hole in the ceiling above the stove and a black mark on the linoleum. Nearby, they found a bullet on the floor.
Minutes earlier, Kay Howes had been standing almost in the exact spot, taking a pill, she said.
"Some people laugh, but this isn't funny," her husband said. "You think, "If I go to bed, am I going to get up in the morning?' "
Neighbors said the gunfire has been going on for years on New Year's Eve.
Gulfport Sgt. A.J. Falconeri said police have collected projectiles and will attempt to match them to guns and find the shooters.
But he isn't hopeful.
"There's not a high probability that we'll find out who they belong to," Falconeri said.
Neighbors said police need to be more aggressive in trying to figure out who is doing the shooting.
"We love it here," said John Witteveen, who spends the other half of the year in Canada. "But we can't have people shooting at us. If that's going to happen, I'm going back home."
Falconeri thinks the gunfire occurred across the city limits in St. Petersburg.
He did not know precisely how many mobile homes had been hit, but said gunfire and fireworks "picked up quite a bit after midnight."
People shooting guns in celebration can be charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm or reckless display of a firearm, Falconeri said. Charges can be more severe if a bullet hurts someone.
Those living at Beachway said almost everyone tries to leave their homes on New Year's Eve.
"Then we come home and look for bullet holes," said John Witteveen's wife, Betty.
