Menlo Park shootings leave residents on high alert

MENLO PARK, Calif. (KGO) -- In East Menlo Park, neighbors are trying to piece together why there have been three shootings in just November alone; the most recent, Saturday night.

42-year-old Carey Cudlip of Newark was shot and killed on the 300 block of Ivy Drive. While police are still searching for his shooters and a motive, the community remains on alert.

There was no room for parking on O'Brien drive in East Menlo Park on this Sunday morning. Families and friends pack into Eternal Life Church for this weekly dose of religion, music, and inspiration. Less than 24 hours ago, a very different scene played out just across the street.

Menlo Park police are piecing together witness accounts and crime scene evidence as they continue their search for two killers.

It's a scene becoming all too familiar. Within ten days, there were two gang-related shootings in the area known as Belle Haven.

Police say 30 to 40 shots were fired in November 2nd violence at Ivy Drive and Windermere Avenue. Four people were shot. The gunmen got away.

Ten days later, on November 12th, two homes were hit by gunfire on the 1200 block of Madera Avenue. Four people from Menlo Park were arrested.

Just blocks away in church, 17-year-old Andrew Elias says it's hard to see what's become of the community where he was raised. He's lost friends to gangs and has seen friends lose their lives to gang violence, "It starts with education," Elias said. "If you teach them right at the home and then at school, I guess things like that wouldn't happen so often."

Josh Gurrola, Community Director of Eternal Life Church, adds, "It is up to us to take the good, to take the light that we have in us and kind of spread it out and share it and be a good citizen, a good brother to our neighbor, a good sister to our neighbor and share that with them."

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