City Council candidate Ian Alexander has called for an aggressive approach to public safety in his campaign, and now he has a handful of shell casings to drive home his point.

A string of gunshots at 16th and Irving Avenues North woke him up at 3:55 a.m. Sunday, and when Alexander went to the window he saw an SUV traveling west toward Penn Avenue.

A few hours later, he went to the street and collected seven shell casings and a bullet from a Ruger 9mm.

"Unacceptable behavior," the Fifth Ward candidate tweeted, posting a picture of the casings that he had placed on a table next to his coffee cup.

"I don't think it was campaign related," Alexander quipped, when asked about it today.

He said he's heard similar stories from lots of North Siders on the campaign trail, as he competes for the seat being vacated by Council Member Don Samuels. People having picnics in their backyard and ducking for cover as bullets whiz by. Seeing unsupervised children with a gun at North Commons. Alexander has called for more security cameras, lights, and cops.

Alexander's neighbor called the police and he is supposed to drop the casings off with the police department today, though he said he'd like to put them on the table at a campaign debate.

It's not just one or two people who have these stories, he said, "but literally everyone."

Photo: Posted on Twitter by Ian Alexander