BACK OF THE YARDS — Marco Herrera has started an odd collection.
The 13-year-old has started looking for and picking up bullet casings.
"There was five I found" recently, Marco said. He was interrupted by his sister, Ana, 11, who said she had been the one who found a few of those casings.
"I've heard them a lot," Marco said. "I go to find bullets."
Wednesday was perhaps the easiest time he's had finding the bullets. Before he and his sister got home from school, the three-flat in the 4300 block of South Marshfield Avenue that the family calls home was shot at by attackers using a semi-automatic rifle.
RELATED: Back Of The Yards Home Hit With 40 Rounds From Assault Weapon: Alderman
The shooters used an AK-47, according to residents of the building that was targeted, and as many as 40 rounds were fired, according to Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th), who was on the block during the shooting and called it "absolutely terrifying."
No one was wounded in the shooting, despite multiple bullets piercing windows and flying through the living rooms of at least two of the homes in the building.
Marco and Ana live in the basement unit with their parents. Bullets flew through a window into the front room and a window in a bedroom Ana shares with her father. One bullet hit their furnace, said Marco, who was translating for his mother.
A bullet pierced a window in Ana and Marco Herrera's basement-unit home. The bullet traveled through the living room and lodged in a furnace, their family said. [DNAinfo/Joe Ward]
Ana was also translating for her mother, who said she was doing dishes in the back of the house when the bullets began flying.
"She heard them begin to shoot and she got scared," Ana said.
Upstairs lives Delia, who lives with her three teenage children. Her oldest child is 17, and was one of two kids at the home at 1 p.m. when shots rang out. His 13-year-old brother was also home.
"I went to the bathroom, and I heard this bomb," said the 17-year-old, who asked that his name not be printed. "You could hear two different noises. They were shooting with two guns."
The teenager said he was not the target of the shooting and said he wasn't sure why the building was shot. Shootings are common in the area, he said.
"It's a war out here," he said. "These guys come from over [east], come over here shooting."
One person has been killed and three others wounded in shootings within a half-mile of the home since December, according to data compiled by DNAinfo Chicago. Two men were shot at 47th Street and Ashland Avenue over Memorial Day weekend in another shooting that may have involved an assault weapon, Lopez said.
Police are looking to see if the earlier shooting was connected to Wednesday's and is the result of a gang conflict, the alderman said.
A bullet from an assault rifle pierced a metal fence post at a Back of the Yards home Wednesday. Three bullets also hit the storm door behind the post. [DNAinfo/Joe Ward]
Marco said he often finds bullets and casings on his walk home from school. He said he usually doesn't hang on to the bullets he finds because his parents don't want them in the house. But he will hang on to the casings, he said, although he's not sure how many he has.
"I find them in the grass over there," Marco said of the vacant lot next to his home.
Despite the prevalence of bullets and casings near his home, Marco said he does not live in fear of being shot.
Marco and Ana often accompany their mother when she sells ice cream at parks and neighborhood gatherings. Through that, Marco said he has learned to look for suspicious people.
He also knows what to do if the bullets start to fly.
"My dad said to stay down, you can't move," Marco said.
His environment has led to a fascination with guns. The boy said he does a lot of research online and learns a lot through games like "Battlefield 4."
He even said he wants to be in the military when he is older.
"I want to learn how to keep yourself safe," he said.
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