Troy

Three shootings this month are intertwined as two loose-knit groups target each other, city police said Tuesday, a day after gunfire hit the second-floor apartment at 151 Fifth Ave. in which two elementary school-age boys were sleeping.

"We're very concerned about the danger to the innocent young children," Police Commissioner Anthony Magnetto said.

The first-floor apartment at the same Fifth Avenue building was targeted on Sept. 3. Two days later, a man was shot near the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Swift Street.

Magnetto and Capt. Richard Sprague, who commands the department's detective division, said an investigation has linked the shootings, which have neighbors on edge.

The latest shooting at 151 Fifth Ave. was at 10:10 p.m. Monday.

"It was scary. I was sleeping. My son was with me. I woke up to gunshots," said Jan Holmes, who was in her second-floor bedroom at the front of 153 Fifth Ave.

Holmes and Carla Mitchell, who lives at 155 Fifth Ave., said the number of people going in and out of 151 Fifth Ave. is not normal. "This is blatant. You know what they're doing," Mitchell said.

Neighbors in the area have raised the spectre of drug dealing.

Rose Kelliebrew, who lives in the second-floor apartment at 151 Fifth Ave. with her mother and five children, said she was evicted Tuesday because of the shootings. She said she had nothing to do with them but that someone has targeted a person who has ties to her family.

Pastor Willie Bacote of Missing Link AME Zion Church at 101st Street and Sixth Avenue, said violence is returning to the neighborhood.

"I know the fear and the danger that is here," Bacote said. "Everybody is terrified. You have to cut the nonsense out before we lose one of our small children."