Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
1,284 Florida kids killed by gunfire
From toddlers to teens, statistics log lives lost to bullets from 2006-16
Before the school shooting in Parkland gripped the nation, more than 1,200 Florida children and teenagers were slain in a decade’s span. All fell victim to gun violence.
A staggering 1,284 firearm homicides of the state’s youngest took place between 2006 and 2016. That’s 1,284 babies, toddlers, boys, girls and teenagers lost to gunfire, according to figures from the Florida Department of Health’s Bureau of Vital Statistics.
Forty-three percent of those children and teenagers, including 18- and 19-year-olds, were gunned down in South Florida, with Miami-Dade County’s 343 shooting deaths the most in the state. Palm Beach County had 124 killings; Broward County, 86.
Although gun violence affects young people of all colors and backgrounds, as proved at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 14 students and three adult educators were killed, figures still show that two-thirds of the state’s dead were black children and adolescents. Locally, a black child was a dozen times more likely to be killed in a shooting in Miami-Dade County than his or her white counterparts. In Broward and Palm Beach counties, young blacks died at lower rates, but still died about four and five times more often than their white peers, respectively. Statewide, black kids died seven times more often than white children.
“We’re not doing enough to keep kids safe,” says Dr. Judy Schaechter, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and director of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Miami.
Schaechter treats children whose gun-violence injuries are both physical and mental, as they
grow up in an environment of anxiety that she says can be “incapacitating.” She views the concentration of deaths in certain areas and populations as a health-care issue.
“I’ve called gun violence America’s most preventable disease. We know what the vector is. We know how this happens. We know what we need to do. It takes will,” Schaechter says. “No one likes to hear it, but having less guns in an environment is helpful.”
Public outcries and promises from government officials come and go over children killed by guns, but the deaths of many youngsters receive little attention or media coverage. Here are just some of the children and teenagers killed from 2006 to 2016. Rasheed Cunningham,
8, was shot in the head and chest in Dania Beach on Dec. 28, 2016, while walking home from a birthday party. The boy was caught in the crossfire of a retaliatory shooting that authorities say involved Arvis Brown, of Fort Lauderdale. He has been charged with the murder of the boy and a 25-year-old man killed days before in a spate of holiday shootings that rocked the Dania Beach neighborhood.
The criminal case against Brown, 20, remains pending in Broward court.
Just a few months prior,
on Aug. 14, 2016, Martavious
Carn, 3, was killed in a shooting that targeted a 24-year-old man. Both were killed while inside a car with the boy’s mother. The woman was not hurt in the shooting. Makayla Dennard, 15, was shot in the head on Dec. 23, 2016, while in her driveway in Riviera Beach. She survived for four days before succumbing to her injuries. Three teens were charged in her murder.
One of the youngest victims, I’zarion Colin, 18
months, was shot dead near West Palm Beach on May 29, 2014. According to a police report, his mother’s boyfriend arranged to sell drugs to a man he had met at a nightclub. I’zarion, his mother, her boyfriend and his son were in the car when the gunman jumped inside. During a struggle, a bullet fatally struck the toddler in the stomach. Devonte Lamar White, 25, is charged with murder in a case that remains pending. The toddler was buried in a tiny white casket topped with white roses. Family photos show toys, including Spiderman, trucks and a dinosaur, at his gravesite.
In numerous instances, teenage boys were shot dead. Some were found in alleys or streets.
Abib Ali, 17, was killed in North Lauderdale after getting into an argument with a gunman on a bicycle on March 12, 2012. The shooting happened near the 1900 block of Southwest 66th Avenue.
Another teenage boy was targeted by robbers outside Boyd Anderson High School in Lauderdale Lakes. Gregory “Lil Greg” Smith, 16, was shot dead after leaving a talent show at the school on April 4, 2009. Smith rapped and played the piano, guitar, flute and trumpet. Two teens were convicted of the murder. Near Fort Lauderdale,
Amanda Collette, 15, was shot and killed inside Dillard High School on Nov. 12, 2008. The bullet tore through the ballet dancer’s back and lung before lodging in her heart. Her friend, Teah Wimberly, who was 16 at the time of the shooting and in love with Amanda, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Almost exactly a decade before the Stoneman Douglas shooting, Simmie
Williams, 17, was shot dead Feb. 22, 2008, while walking with friends in Fort Lauderdale along Northwest 10th Avenue and Sistrunk Boulevard. It was not clear whether the boy, who was gay and transgender, was targeted in a robbery attempt or a hate crime. The case remains unsolved.