Teen shootings renew focus on gun violence
DENVER — It was lunchtime on a mild day in the sprawling Denver suburb of Aurora when a truck full of teens pulled into a high school parking lot where students were gathered, and gunfire rang out.
Three were wounded as others ran in fear.
One of the boys charged in the Nov. 19 shooting later told investigators he brought his armed friends to an expected gang fight because “it’s the way it is in this town,” court documents said.
The shooting was one of several involving teenagers within a two-week span that have placed renewed attention on a long-running problem of gun violence and gangs in the state’s third largest city, where the police department has been under scrutiny for its treatment of Black residents. Activists and officials say easy access to guns is contributing to the problem, which has also been exacerbated by the pandemic and its effect particularly on the mental health of minority teens there.
Across the U.S., shootings involving youths have increased in recent years, including 2021. A March report from the Children’s Defense Fund found child and teen shooting deaths reached a 19year high in 2017 and have stayed elevated. Black children and teens were four times more likely than whites to be fatally shot.
Aurora has seen an increase in Black and Latino families and immigrants from around the world as Denver has grown more expensive.
These families have been hit harder healthwise but also economically by the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to mental health problems, said Maisha Fields, an activist who works with youth and families in the city of about 379,000.
The Nov. 19 shooting started with an argument in the parking lot at Hinkley High School after the truckload of boys arrived. After the initial shots were fired, the pickup drove away, with at least two teens pointing guns from the windows, sending students running in fear, according to police.
Three 16-year-olds were later charged, including the boy who spoke to investigators about the gang fight.
Jason Mcbride, a violence prevention expert who works with teens for the Struggle of Love Foundation in Denver and Aurora, and Aurora City Council Member
Angela Lawson both said teens have showed them Snapchat posts, where messages disappear, offering guns for sale.
Mcbride thinks gangs are to blame for much of the problem — not necessarily the organized Crips and Bloods as in previous years, but smaller, loosely affiliated groups of teens who may not be associated with a particular neighborhood but who get into disputes on social media.
Generational trauma caused by seeing relatives killed in shootings has also normalized them, he said. And being kept away from school, an escape from problems at home, has strained the mental health of some teens.
Mcbride said a 16-year-old told him he would use bullets if he got into a fight so he would not have to worry about messing up his clothes. “That’s the head space our kids are in,” he said.