BILLINGS — Late Saturday night, multiple shots were fired into Londa Means home on the 300 Block of Jefferson Street.
It's a terrifying crime no one ever wants to have to encounter, but one this Billings mother has had to deal with this not once but three different times.
“My son was running down the stairs and he grabbed me and pushed me to the ground. And he says ‘get down, get down mom. Somebody’s shooting, they’re shooting’ and you could just here the gunshots still,” Londa Means said Sunday, “and we both were on the ground until it stopped. And then as soon as it stopped, I ran upstairs to make sure the littles were all okay.”
No one was hurt in the home, but a four-, six- and seven-year-old were sleeping on couches just feet away from where some of the bullets entered the home.
“Those bullets went straight through the walls and that’s what scares me the most is it could have hit any of us,” Means said.
According to a Billings Police Department social media post, three juvenile males have been arrested in connection to the shooting. Another drive-by shooting occurred the same night on the 800 Block of North 17th Street. Police believe the shootings were related.
“[Police] said it looked like a 9 mm; they weren’t for sure,” Means said of the suspected gun used in the shooting.
But she still doesn’t know why this happened to her home.
“Knowing that my neighbors down the street had got shot up the week before and now our house and I don’t know if this is a random, if kids are just doing this randomly,” Means said.
And this isn't the first time she has had an encounter like this. In August, her home was shot at in a different drive-by shooting. In April, her 13-year-old daughter was walking home from school when she was shot in the face with a BB gun by someone driving by.
Stacy Miller lives a few blocks away from Means and is calling for a change in the community.
“It just breaks my heart that these kids aren’t thinking about all the lives that they could possibly ruin, including their own,” Miller said.
Miller says she didn’t feel fear when she found out what was happening. Instead, she took her dogs out to the neighborhood to make sure no one was hiding in her neighbors yards. She says the suspects often times run down her dead end street.
“It was more about protecting my neighborhood and my community,” she said.
And after everything Means has been through this last year, she says she feels conflicted, wanting to move away from the neighborhood but “this is what I made for myself. Me and my family, this is our home. We shouldn’t have to fear that somebody’s going to try to hurt us here.”
