‘Evenings are very scary’

Violence across the Empire State

Aspiring rapper Myjel Rand (inset),

25, was killed along with Richard Collinge III, 19, and a third man who survived a shooting near a park in the city’s crime-ridden

North Clinton neighborhood on

July 19.

“All I know was Myjel was hanging out having a good time and someone came and opened fire,” older sister Whittney Rand, 32, said.

“It wasn’t intended for Myjel. They just open fire and don’t care whoever else is in the mix.”

Fred Spencer was walking with his 12-yearold daughter, Aliza (right), and her older brother on April 21 when a single shot rang out and struck Aliza in the chest, killing her, less than 100 yards from the family’s home in their normally peaceful East Side neighborhood.

Cops have been tight-lipped about the unsolved slaying, revealing only that the slug that killed Aliza, a gifted student and three-instrument musician, came from a small-caliber weapon.

“Every day is hell,” said Spencer, 52.

Jeanette Klein, 52, lives in the neighborhood around the sprawling Syracuse University campus — but the focus on higher learning doesn’t extend to the local gun thugs. “I don’t go out in the evening. I won’t go out after maybe 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. I don’t feel safe going out at night,” she said.

“I have lived in Syracuse my whole life. I think it’s the most dangerous it has ever been.”

Saadia Altaf, a mother of three, works at a convenience store just outside the state’s Albany capital, that’s been robbed three times in the past year — including once by a crook armed with a handgun.

“The evenings are very scary, especially for a woman. I will not work in the evenings,” said Altaf, who lives in nearby Latham.

“After work, I get straight out of Troy,” she said.