OPELOUSAS, La. (KLFY) — Rising teen violence in Opelousas has reached a point where one mother chose to move her family away.

Dorisha Bradley lived in Opelousas for 40 years. She left her siblings, mother, and more three months ago because drive-by-shootings were getting out of control and she didn’t feel her children were safe.

“My babies was at risk. I felt like they life was in jeopardy,” Bradley told News 10.

For 20 years she raised her nine children in Opelousas as she was, but after her family was targeted in recent shootings, threats of repeats kept coming.

“I would get phone calls that they were on social media saying that they was going coming shoot my house, as they call it ‘bend the block’ on my house, and I would grab my keys, and I would run for the sake of them,” explained Bradley.

The first shooting was at her younger sister’s house in July. Bradley said she knows the people behind it were once as close as family but when one party said something upsetting the other, the teens didn’t resort to a fistfight but gunfire.

After Bradley’s 15-year-old son was arrested in November for a shooting that stemmed from the dispute, she feared more of her kids would be lost to the system or to the grave.

Bradley’s mother, Susie Vallier, remembered, “She came to me (and said) ‘Momma, I’m going to have to leave,’ And I had to accept that even though I didn’t want her to go because I knew it was the safety for them.”

Last week, Opelousas Police Chief Martin McLendon said his department took 134 firearms off the street, but there are many more in the hands of the wrong people.

“Our fight will not be over until every person can feel safe in this community,” Chief McLendon told News 10.

But Bradley’s family not feeling safe was exactly the reason she’s moved 400 miles away.

“My babies would be so scared, my girls, to go to bed at night, and the pain that I seen in them gave me the strength and encouraged me to make the change.”

Bradley said she knows her kids are not saints, but they are only doing what they see in the habitat around them. She’s hoping the change of habitat will help her kids succeed as well.