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Residents voice concern over gunfire in neighbors' backyards
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Township officials heard from a number of residents in the Wyndclift Circle area Monday night who are worried about homeowners who fire high-powered guns in their backyards.
The bullets, however, are not staying in those home-owners’ backyards.
Steven Ruggles, 648 S. Wyndclift Circle, recalled coming home May 28, when his 8-year old daughter told him about a hole in the wall. He realized it was a bullet hole, and it was determined it came from a high-powered rifle.
“The gunshot came through the back of my house where my deck is. Went through the shower of my bathroom. Went through two more interior walls, and then went into the exterior wall in the front of my house. [It] must have hit the brick and went into the interior of the wall,” he recounted.
“As a father of 8-year-old and 5-year-old daughters, my kids still will not go into that bathroom without someone with them. ... If someone had been in my bathroom when that thing went off, they’d be dead.”
Wyndclift Circle is on the west side of Austintown Township off of Fairview Road, which is off of Wilcox Road.Residents complained the gun firing starts around 6 p.m. and continues until sunset.
Austintown Police Chief Robert Gavalier further explained that the bullet that went through Ruggles’ home was at an upward angle, meaning it was shot from nearby. After Gavalier and Trustee Ken Carano discussed the Ohio Revised Code and how it allows for a resident to fire a weapon in their backyard, officials decided to contact the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s office today to pursue regulations for a backstop that would absorb bullets.
“There’s no specs I can find where people can shoot in the backyard with a [designated] backstop,” Gavalier said, meaning that could be a law the township can pursue.
John Slipski, also of Wyndclift Circle, talked about walking in the neighborhood with his 2-year old daughter. “I’m fine with people owning guns, but there has to be something you guys can do ... so that they cannot fire toward a residential neighborhood,” he said. “I can literally hear what sounds like an automatic rifle firing very close to where my home is.”
John Nock represented the Cross Creek Condominium Association on Wilcox Road, and that property also has had issues with residential gunfire. In 2009, there was a bullet from a .22-caliber rifle in the side of a condo, and after further investigating more 20 bullet holes were in one building.
“I’m not saying to do away with owners having the right to fire on their private properties. My concern is them not doing it safely,” Nock said.