GARDEN RIDGE, Texas -- Bullets flying into a subdivision have residents scared to walk outside their front doors.
Police believe the rounds are stray bullets coming from a nearby firing range in Garden Ridge. Residents said since bullets started flying into homes and yards and whizzing past joggers more than a year ago, they've been trying to get the firing range shut down.
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Bracken Rifle & Pistol Range has been on the outskirts of Garden Ridge for 25 years. Then in 2008, developers built the Wild Wind subdivision less than a mile away and right in the line of fire. Wild Wind HOA President Bob Shilliday said he's received 20 complaints of stray bullets littering the neighborhood. Four homes have been struck, including one that has been hit twelve times.
"I'd be appalled if I lived over there," said Garden Ridge Mayor Jay Feibelman. "If I knew I couldn't sit on my patio if there were bullets flying in."
Mayor Feibelman told News 4 WOAI that because the range is outside city limits, his hands are tied.
"And I'd go further and say if it was in the city, they're not doing anything illegal, and We can't prove it, how would I, as the mayor of city council, do anything," Mayor Feibelman added. "We can't shut them down."
But that's exactly what the homeowner's association is asking for. In fact, last year the HOA and the firing range split the cost for an unbiased ballistics study. The expert recommended the range make several changes to keep bullets from leaving the facility. Shilliday says the range hasn't complied with those recommendations.
The range's attorney denies the bullets are coming from the range and said the subdivision was built and residents moved in with full knowledge of a nearby range.
The investigation is now in the hands of the Comal County Sheriff's Office. Investigators told us there are also hunting areas nearby, and they're still trying to determine if the bullets are, in fact, coming from the shooting range.
