Blame it on the heat, the economy, or the summer break from school, but violent crimes in Springfield have gone up significantly in the past week. Police Sergeant John Delaney says the Springfield Police Department has received about a dozen reports of shots fired, with several incidents resulting in injuries or fatalities. Delaney says many of the recent incidents have involved what he calls “street gangs” whose members are between thirteen and twenty years old.

“They run around the streets, they scribble on walls, but they carry guns,” he says. “Just last Friday, a sixteen-year-old was arrested for murder, and then a couple days later we had another sixteen-year-old with a gun near the Forest Park section who was shooting his gun off in the air. [He] thought it was amusing until he was arrested, and the gun was recovered.”

Delaney adds the recent shootings have not been random.

“They are shootings where the intended victim was shot at, and the people that are doing the shooting are getting arrested.”

Delaney says despite the recent violent altercations, crime on the whole – including break-ins, robberies, and assaults – has been down in the city.

Boston has also seen a surge of violence in recent weeks, including  a shooting that killed three 22-year-old women and wounded another in the Dorchester neighborhood on Sunday night.