MONTICELLO — Police in the Village of Monticello have responded to at least three shooting incidents in recent weeks.

On July 30, officers responded to a 911 report of a 25-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the leg at 29 York Avenue.

In the early morning hours of August 7, police responded to a 911 call of shots fired near Nelly’s Sports Bar on Broadway. When officers arrived they found an unresponsive 29-year-old male lying on the sidewalk who was declared dead at the scene.

In the early morning hours of August 9, one person was injured after multiple gunshots rang out at the intersection of Liberty and Cottage Streets near the John Crawford Senior Housing complex.

Monticello Police Chief Robert Mir said the department is working on each case and making progress.

Monticello and State Police recently announced the arrests of a 20-year-old man and two juveniles in connection to the Aug. 9 incident.

“We’re going to see if we can move around some of our personnel, cover some of the problem areas and perhaps look into getting another promotion here for detective,” Mir said.

But a group of concerned residents spoke out at the village board meeting on August 18, with some expressing frustration that not enough was being done.

“Just as a parent, and then as a local guy who went to high school here, it’s very hard for me to turn the other cheek when a lot of these things are happening to people I know and their kids. It’s very alarming,” said village resident Malik Santiago. “We have the same issues as bigger cities as far as the violence, crime and poverty ... but it seems that things are falling on deaf ears.” 

Monticello Mayor George Nikolados said village officials have been in meetings to discuss public safety.

“We are looking to change some of our tactics to see if we can stem some of this violence,” he said.

Mayor Nikolados reiterated that those efforts would include focusing on certain areas with higher instances of crime, adjusting police shifts to have more manpower at certain times of the day or night and continuing to cooperate with county and state law enforcement agencies.

Trustee Carmen Rue said that the population of Monticello increases dramatically during the summer while the police department still has to patrol with the same number of officers.

Chief Mir explained that the Monticello Police Department has been working alongside the New York State Police to combine some resources, including joint ride-along patrols with village police officers and state troopers.

Still, the frequency of shootings and other crime have left residents on edge.

Village Trustee Michael Banks is a licensed real estate agent with an office on Broadway not far from where the shooting on Aug. 7 took place. He said he was going into his office early that morning and saw the aftermath.

“It’s kept me up every [night] just about,” he said.

Banks agreed there needs to be more of a police presence in certain areas, especially at night when some restaurants and bars are still open.

“We need to wake up and smell the coffee,” Banks said. “If anything, we need to take a lesson from this.”

Banks said he worries about his children playing outside his yard because it’s not far from York Avenue where one shooting took place.

“Being from the Bronx and from Sullivan County, I never had to grow up that way. Even in fourth or fifth grade, I had a little more freedom than I give my children because of what’s going on here,” he said.

Banks said he is working with other board members to establish after school or summer programing for Monticello’s kids at the Ted Stroebele Neighborhood facility.

“We can have everything open, but we still have to attack the problem that’s going on outside people’s doorways,” Banks said. “We have seniors who are afraid to go outside their own homes. We need a big response.”