Neighbors clean alley in effort to deter crime after hearing gunshots

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    BALTIMORE (WJZ) — After gun shots went off in the middle of the night in a northeast Baltimore neighborhood, the entire block woke up the next morning, and then went to work.

“I’ve been in this house since 1989,” said Baltimore resident Mark Courtney.

He’s used to the sounds of the night, some of his neighbors on the other hand, are not.

“That was very scary for all of us,” said Baltimore resident Kyle Fritz.

“Unfortunately, there was like a gun that was shot two different nights in a row,” he added.

So the next morning, the people in the Harwood community near Charles Village decided to do something about it.

“When we kind of went back to investigate, we noticed the alley was really, really dirty,” Fritz said.

“I guess that might have been the tipping point,” Courtney said.

So the crew got to work.

“I have a blower, I go out and blow,” said Baltimore resident Deborah Miles. “I pull the grass up out the curb.”

The alley near 26th and Guilford Avenue went through a transformation.

“It has been years since this alley had been cleaned, so there’s trash everywhere,” a resident told WJZ.

They threw out trash, whacked the weeds and even added lights.

“There’s 350 feet of lights along that side, and then there’s a hundred feet here,” Fritz said.

When night came, they saw their alley in a new light. Neighbors, finding a way to fight back against crime.

“I guess it was close to home, so now, we as a group, we stay together now,” Miles said.

There were no reported injuries after the folks in that neighborhood heard the gunshots that night.

They are now planning to do outdoor movie nights on their block.

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