Carter Taylor Williams Mortuary

A.'s east side (Photo: KENS)KENS 5 is beginning "The CORE," our Collaborative Online Reporting Effort, because not all stories can be told on TV. There are some stories that need more time and need your involvement.The recent violence on San Antonio's east side is one example. There were so many shootings and so many people wounded that we had to look deeper.In the first 90 days of 2016, the homicide rate in east San Antonio doubled. Aggravated assaults and people with bullet holes? Those numbers were even higher.It's not just numbers, it's about people. East-side residents are tired of the gunfire and looking for solutions.The narrative is that it's all gang-related and retaliation for previous crimes. But as we walked the streets and talked to people, we learned that's simply not the case.Join us for our three-part debut of "The CORE: East Side Violence." You can click the main video on this page to watch the whole report or view it in parts in our CORE section.PART ONE: Violent shootings all too common on S.A.'s east sideKENS 5 journalist Dillon Collier has dug into the east side's history and challenges as an investigative reporter.SAN ANTONIO –- A rash of fatal shootings in east San Antonio in recent months has caused an unwanted spike in business at Carter Taylor Williams Mortuary.“When I do some of these funerals, at the end of the funeral, once I leave the cemetery, I almost feel drained, because you’ve exhausted your energy mentally,” owner Vera Williams-Young said during a recent interview, describing the mental strain that comes with burying a young person.During the first three months of 2016, there were 14 murders on the city’s east side. East San Antonio also had 45 aggravated assaults with a deadly weapon during the same time period, another sign of increased gun violence.Williams-Young says her side of town has resembled a war zone, and she knows what it will take to stop it:“The solution has to come from within the person.”UNSOLVED MURDERSOn March 7, five...