SAN ANTONIO — An expecting mother is voicing her concerns after she was startled by the sounds of gunfire outside her home Sunday night.
Turns out, it was a group of teenagers playing with fake guns.
Angeles Valenzuela lives in a far south-side neighborhood near Highway 37. She said around 9:30 p.m., she was sitting on a bench outside her home with her boyfriend opening a baby gift.
That is when she said she saw a truck she did not recognize driving up with teenagers. She said they had face masks on and were carrying what she thought were rifles.
“They were just very suspicious they park over here, they’re running out of the vehicle with masks on,” Valenzuela said.
She ran inside her home and upstairs and started recording. What she captured were the sounds of rapid gunfire.
“So how am I supposed to know if they’re real or not? How is someone else supposed to know if they’re real or not?” she said.
She called 911 and four officers showed up. She spoke to one of the officers before they tracked down the teens. She waited inside but never heard back from the police.
When she heard even more sounds of gunfire, Valenzuela said she called 911 again.
“I got really scared, I was shaking, I felt like I was throwing up, my belly got really hard, and I couldn’t sleep,” Valenzuela said.
She was then told by dispatch police spoke with the teenagers and the guns were not real. She said after she got off the phone, they continued to play for around 20 minutes.
Her worry is that a homeowner with a real gun is not going to realize the kids had fake guns.
“Someone is going to get hurt for real,” Valenzuela said.
She said she hopes parents will have conversations with their kids about when and where to play with these fake guns.