"This is your neighborhood! Man-up! Tell police anonymously who the cowards are!"

The handwritten plea is on a green poster underneath a tangle of heart-shaped balloons at the bottom of a telephone pole. It's a memorial for Lazuri Collins, 24, shot to death a few feet away on Saturday.

In the past four days, two people have died in two separate shootings within sight of the pole at 13th and Wheeler streets in Covington's Eastside neighborhood.

Residents and police pleaded on Wednesday for the public's help to find the killers.

An unidentified shooter at 1 a.m. Saturday shot Collins, 24, and her father, Antonio Collins, 41. Lazuri Collins died from her injuries while her father was treated and released from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Police were called to the same block Tuesday evening at 7:36 p.m. and found two men with gunshot wounds. One of them, Antonio Bandy, 25, died. The other, Marcus Broadus, 40, was still being treated as of Wednesday morning at the UC hospital.

Police and city officials held a news conference Wednesday asking for witnesses to step forward.

They don't know whether the shootings are related nor do they know the motives.

But there are witnesses who saw both incidents, said Rob Sanders, Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney. This small group of people have yet to identify the shooters, he said.

"I don't know if the right people are stepping forward," Sanders said. "We've got a lot of well-intentioned neighbors that are stepping forward and helping police, but at this point, if we had someone that would go on the record and ID the shooters, we'd be showing you mugshots right now."

With the killers at large, fear has spread through Covington's Eastside neighborhood.

Bandy's uncle, Billy Lewis, sat exhausted in his SUV Wednesday morning at Randolph Park in the Eastside. This is where the neighborhood gathers to play basketball, grill out and offer a shoulder to cry.

He didn't sleep last night, spending most of it on the phone with family members. His weary eyes gazed beneath a University of Kentucky ballcap. "Tony" was a good young man, he said. He said he doesn't know why he was shot.

"Twenty-five years old and he's gone," Lewis said.

Lewis and other residents of the Eastside said a bunch of young people hang out in front of a convenience store at the corner of Wheeler and 13th streets.

The shootings, he believes, were unrelated to each other and shouldn't reflect on the community as a whole.

"This is a good community," Lewis said. "You got some of these younger cats that want to take things in their own hand."

The shootings have left Covington City Commissioner Michelle Williams shocked. Williams, who lives in the Eastside, doesn't know why this is happening.

"Everybody is trying to figure out what's going on," she said. "As far as I know, they're not related."

High crime plagued the neighborhood in the late 1990s. An increased police presence and making 13th Street one way reduced traffic and crime, said Police Chief Bryan Carter. Police will increase patrols at 13th and Wheeler in the wake of the two shootings.

"Please understand that the police cannot just stop a group of individuals for hanging out on a street corner," Carter said. "We really need the members of the community to call us and let us know when something doesn't seem right."

Authorities encouraged anyone with information to call the Kenton County Emergency Communications Center at 859-356-3191 or Covington Police at 859-292-2234.