ST. LOUIS — It was a frightening face-to-face encounter one man will never forget.
"I see this boy walking around with what appears to me to be a shotgun," the Soulard resident, who asked not to be identified, said.
He and his neighbor immediately called 911 Sunday afternoon after they saw four boys in their Soulard neighborhood with what residents say was a 12-gauge shotgun.
Neighbors' security cameras snapped several surveillance photos of the kids.
The boys appear to range from 10 to 15 years old.
"One of the kids was actually pleading to him to put the gun down," the resident said.
This neighbor stopped in his tracks after seeing the older boy holding the high-powered weapon.
“He walked right passed my door and when my dogs started barking at him he actually went and pointed the gun at the noise facing into our window," he said.
Police went to the neighborhood, but by the time they got to the 1800 block of South 8th Street, the boys were gone.
People in Soulard are convinced the young boys seen in the unsettling photos are the same children who tried to break into cars and stole packages of residents' porches in recent months.
"Again, the older kid was convincing these younger kids to go down the street,” the Soulard resident said. “You know, ‘Grab the packages.’"
James Clark, the Urban League’s public safety director, said the photos are upsetting, but not surprising.
"We have seen these images downtown, we've seen them on the north side, in north county, so to hear it's showing up now in Soulard is not surprising," he said.
Clark is pleading to parents, churches and the community to "help our kids" before they turn to this.
"If we don't get involved then they will become active in what is attractive to them and right now a lot of our young people have very strong gun fetishes," Clark said.
In a statement, the department of public safety said "it is aware of this situation." The agency also wants "to remind parents of the importance of locking their guns correctly away and out of reach of children."