Just
Kids Killing Kids
By
Dan
Frosch
and Zusha
Elinson
Jan.
23, 2023 10:06 am ET[1]Violence
among children has drammatically increased since 2020, after a long
decline in juvenile crime. In the U.S., homicides committed by
juveniles acting alone rose 30% in 2020 from a year earlier, while
those committed by multiple juveniles increased 66%. The number of
killings committed by children under 14 was the highest in two
decades, according to the most recent federal data.
One
consequence is a mounting toll of young victims. The number of
juveniles killing other juveniles was the highest it has been in more
than two decades, the 2020 federal data show. Kyhara was one of 153
victims in New York City under the age of 18 shot in 2022, the most
in at least six years and more than the 127 total minors shot in 2018
and 2019 combined, according to police data. The 13-year-old boy
being chased was unharmed, authorities say. In New York City, police
said 124 juveniles committed shootings during 2022, up from 62 in
2020 and 48 in 2019. “The tragedy here is that we’re talking
about a gunman who is too young to be called a gunman because he’s
15 years old,” said Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark after
Kyhara’s death. “These ages make you cry.”[2]The
jump comes amid an overall wave of violent crime in the first two
years of the pandemic—particularly homicides and shootings—that
swept through urban and rural
areas
alike. Police, prosecutors and community groups attribute much of the
youth violence to broad disruptions that started with the pandemic
and lockdowns. Schools shut down, depriving students of structure in
daily life, as did services for troubled children. Increased stress
compounded a swelling mental-health crisis. Social-media conflicts
increasingly turned deadly.
Easier
access to firearms for juveniles has also played a role, including
the rise of homemade
guns
and a surge in illegal
firearms trafficking.
Grown gang activity was a factor too in some places such as New York
City, authorities say. Dora Villarreal, the top prosecutor in Rock
Island County, Ill., said she has never seen such young teens so
frequently involved in shootings and firearms cases in her county of
about 143,000. “During Covid, without school being a constant kind
of stabilizing structure for many of our kids, that has helped lead
unfortunately to this rise in violent crime,” she said.
Since
schools reopened, the arrests have continued to rise. Ms. Villarreal
said the impact of the pandemic—including mental-health issues,
drug abuse and the breakdown of routines—have all contributed. In
2020, 36 juveniles were arrested for gun-related cases in her county.
As of late December 2022, the number was 64. The city council
recently made permanent a 10 p.m. summertime curfew for teens from
ages 14 to 17. “The new curfew law is meant to protect young people
from being victims of crime while the City works towards other
measures that reduce gun violence,” said City Councilor Katherine
Gilmore Richardson, who proposed the measure, in a written statement.[3]The
rise in juvenile shootings hasn’t been limited to the biggest
cities. Peoria, Ill., population 112,000, saw eight juvenile homicide
victims in 2021, according to police data. In 2020, there were none.
Edmund Mallqui-Burgos, chief juvenile prosecutor in Atlantic County,
N.J., which includes Atlantic City, said he was struck by several
recent cases where young teens who seemed to be on the right track
committed shootings. One involved a 13-year-old boy who shot and
wounded two men, ages 30 and 34, in broad daylight on a busy Atlantic
City street before getting into an hourlong standoff with the city’s
SWAT team this past July.[4]Some
prosecutors and law enforcement leaders argue that the shift away
from a more punishing approach for juveniles toward intervention
programs and rehabilitation has gone too far and corrections are
needed. Ms. Clark, the Bronx district attorney and a Democrat,
supported a 2017 New York law that ended the automatic prosecution of
16- and 17-year-olds as adults, raising the age to 18. Most states
had already passed similar “Raise the Age” laws.
Now,
Ms. Clark said, she wants to be able to try more gun possession cases
in criminal court, which would allow her office more authority over
what sentences to seek. She said under the Raise the Age law, too
many juveniles arrested on gun possession charges are being released
quickly because such cases are typically sent to family court—and
some of those minors are going on to commit more serious crimes or
are being murdered themselves.