MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Community members in a Middletown neighborhood were shaken up by two Friday night fights, one of which involved gunfire.

The fights – one at around 6 p.m. and one at about 11 p.m. – occurred in the area of Lincoln and Wardlaw, according to area residents.

Staff at Store 24 on Calistoga Road, near where the fights took place, reported hearing the two fights, but did not see them.

The second fight is alleged to have involved gunfire, according to witness Sharon Dawson.

Messages left for Lake County Sheriff Frank Rivero and his administrative staff were not returned on Saturday.

Dawson, who lives on Wardlaw, returned home from work at around 10:30 p.m. Friday, and was on the phone with a friend when the confrontation outside of her home got started.

It was her dogs’ behavior that initially concerned her. “They got real low in stealth mode, and started to growl,” she said.

Dawson said it was pitch black, due to the street light not working, but she could still make out figures. “I saw a couple kids on bikes and bodies moving around.”

She also saw a large vehicle, which she believed was an SUV or a van.

Dawson said she heard a lot of yelling, and she went outside to yell at the group to try to break up what was happening.

“One of them yelled at me, ‘Sharon, get back in the house, they have a gun,’” Dawson said.

At about the same time she saw what she believed was a small two-door car drive by.

Dawson yelled at the boys to come in the house to safety. They refused. So Dawson, who had spotted a teenage girl with the group, grabbed the girl and brought her inside, taking her to the middle of the house, away from the windows.

While this was taking place, Dawson’s friend who she had been talking to on the phone called the sheriff’s office.

Within three to four minutes, Dawson said she and the girl heard two loud “pops,” which were shots from a gun. The girl wanted to go outside to help her boyfriend but Dawson said she kept her in the house.

No one appeared to have been injured by the gunfire, according to Dawson’s account.

Within 15 minutes sheriff’s deputies arrived, rushing down Lincoln and then Wardlaw, then slowly driving through the area, Dawson said. Two deputies also were on foot in the area, and a California Highway Patrol unit and another deputy were at Store 24.

“They were on it,” said Dawson.

During the subsequent investigation, Dawson said sheriff’s deputies found shell casings by her garden, a few feet from where the teenage girl had been standing in her yard before she took her in the house.

Dawson didn’t witness the initial fight earlier in the evening – which reportedly involved more than a dozen people with several people assaulted – but she said it had frightened her neighbors.

Dawson said she was told by the teenagers at the scene that the suspects who shot at the group were from Clearlake, and that the shooting had been connected to the earlier fight.

Clearlake Police Sgt. Dominic Ramirez said his agency had received information from Central Dispatch that the suspects in the shooting incident were from Clearlake.

“We received a be on the lookout notice,” he said.

Ramirez didn’t have other details on the incident, which is under the sheriff’s jurisdiction.

Some of Dawson’s neighbors did not want to speak to Lake County News about the incident out of concerns over the potential for retaliation. Lake County News could not reach another neighbor for comment on Saturday evening.

Dawson, who has lived in the area for 25 years, said Friday’s violence was something new for her neighborhood.

“It’s peaceful here as a rule,” she said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .