Colo. teen shootings renew focus on gun violence

Activists, officials say easy access to guns is contributing to problem

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 gunfire 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 fight 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 thirdlargest city, where the police department has been under scrutiny for its treatment of Black residents.

Across the United States, shootings involving children and teenagers have increased in recent years, including 2021. A March report from the Children’s Defense Fund found child and teen shooting deaths reached a 19-year high in 2017 and have remained elevated. Black children and teenagers 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 in recent years. These families of color have been hit harder health-wise 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 fired, 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 fight.

Fields, who is also vice president for organizing for the Brady gun control advocacy group, said the teen’s attitude about the need to be armed gave her chills. It reminded her of the callousness that led to her brother, Javad Marshallfields, and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe, being shot and killed in Aurora in 2005 as he was preparing to testify against a man charged in the fatal shooting of his friend at a concert.

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, offering 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 affiliated groups of teens.

PHILIP B. POSTON/SENTINEL COLORADO VIA AP, FILE A string of shootings involving teenagers has placed renewed attention on a long-running problem of gun violence and gangs in Aurora, Colo., just outside Denver. Activists and officials say easy access to guns is contributing to the problem in the state’s third-largest city.