The three teens, next-door neighbours since they were little kids, stayed up late playing video games then were hanging out in the front yard early Saturday when the strangers walked up.

David Wood, 16, thought the young black men a few years older were going to ask him and his friends, a 16-year-old girl and her older brother, if they had a light.

“They told us to give them everything in our pockets or they were going to shoot us,” he said.

One — in a purple sweater — grabbed onto each of his friends’ shoulders and held them in their seats, telling them all to shut up so no one would hear, David said.

A second in a red cap held a pistol to the girl’s head as a third wearing a black-and-white hoodie watched.

Her brother took a punch to the face and their assailants, demanding “weed,” asked the 17-year-old which one of his friends he should shoot first.

“Maybe we should shoot them and there would be no one to tell anyone,” the gunman said before the trio fled into the night with two Blackberries.

It happened on Morisset Ave. in Carlington.

But dad Steve Wood complains that police, after taking statements, didn’t follow up with the two families until late Sunday afternoon. He said they also didn’t warn the public of the incident.

“If this would have been on Island Park, it would have been solved already,” Wood said. “But because it’s here in the ’hood, nobody cares.

“It’s ridiculous — my kid can’t even sit outside without being robbed. It’s just crazy.”

Det. Chris Botchar of the robbery unit confirmed the incident was reported and an investigation is underway but said police may try to exhaust internal investigative avenues before taking a case to the media.

Officers deal with victims at the scene and offer crisis services in any traumatic event but there could be a delay of a day or two before they get in touch again as they triage multiple files.

“The Ottawa Police obviously take robberies — especially extremely violent ones — very seriously,” Botchar said.

“We do the best we can, we respond when it’s appropriate and when we can.”

The two families, who share baby-sitting of their younger kids and tend a vegetable garden, are left shaken and angry.

While David said he feels mad and helpless, his friends are so traumatized one can’t sleep and the other packed up for a friend’s house.

Steve Wood now keeps a baseball bat close at hand at his home of more than a decade.

“I want to take all my kids and run away — we can’t afford it,” he said.

megan.gillis@sunmedia.ca