CLEVELAND — Pat Puster and her neighbors who live on Hamlet Avenue in Cleveland's Slavic Village neighborhood are concerned about their daily safety because of multiple vacant homes on their street and a fatal Oct. 15 shooting.
Puster told News 5 she's lived at her home for 28 years and said neighborhood safety issues have gone from bad to worse in 2023 after a body was found in a vacant home next door in May, and then a fatal shooting claimed the life of an 18-year-old and seriously injured two others this past weekend.
"And there were police cars with lights on, and I’m like, 'what are they doing now,' then I heard 'boom boom,' and I saw a bunch of teenagers running down the street when I started coming out of my house I heard a second round of gunfire," Puster said. “Somethings got to be done, put cameras up or something because I don’t feel safe in my own home anymore.”
Puster and her neighbors are also concerned about two vacant homes on their street; one of the houses was left wide open when News 5 was on the scene, and the other was being used as an illegal dump.
"Please tear these two down because I’m tired of homeless people living in these houses and dope dealers living in the houses," Puster said. “There was a bunch of drug dealing going on, and I knew something was going to happen.”
Neighborhood activist Andrew Schmidt told News 5 that he and other neighbors have reported the vacant, unsecured homes to Cleveland City Hall multiple times, but no definitive action has been taken.
“It’s absolutely unacceptable; you have a house that someone found a dead body at seven, eight months ago, and now it’s sitting wide open,” Schmidt said. "We got the back side boarded up a couple months ago, and here we are again a week or two later right back again, we've contacted the city, but what’s being done.”
Cleveland police report no suspects have yet been arrested in connection with the triple shooting. The Cleveland Mayor's office responded to News 5's story and issued the following statement:
We have received a few complaints in recent months for board-up requests pertaining to this property and worked to complete those requests as quickly as possible.
We will do the same for this latest request – which we just received today. Furthermore, we have made progress in the violation inspection process. Should the property owner not comply, the next steps would include seeking a search warrant, and potential condemnation and demolition.
Meanwhile, Schmidt is hoping the city will take action as soon as possible.
"There’s got to be some accountability; this is absolutely ridiculous; they care more about neighborhoods like Tremont, Tremont is nice and beautiful, but what do you got here in Slavic Village," Schmidt said. “You’ve got people that have lived here for 30, 40, 50, 60 years; they’ve raised their whole family here, and they’ve got to deal with this.”
News 5 will follow through on this developing story.
