Gun violence among teens is on the rise even as shooting rates drop in Philadelphia

This story was originally published by the Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.

On March 29, a tall, slender male clutching a handgun ran toward a crowded basketball court. Before he had even fired a shot, surveillance footage from Philadelphia’s Finley Recreation Center shows, teens started to flee.

But not everyone made it off the court in time. In what police said was an incident that began as a fight among teens, the gunman, whose face was obscured by a black balaclava mask, shot a 15-year-old boy in the chest, grazed a 16-year-old boy in the face, and wounded a 14-year-old boy, who was struck in the thigh.

Three days later, on April 1, the rec center was crowded again, mostly with adults gathered in the auditorium for an emergency meeting to demand answers from city leaders. How, they asked, were they going to keep kids and teens safe from young people with guns, especially when the weather warms?

“Turn them in!” one woman said. “It might hurt you, but it’s better to be hurt than to end up dead.”

Ten minutes away, as the city’s mayor, police commissioner, and district attorney addressed their concerns, someone was shooting a teenage boy in the chest at another rec center in East Germantown.

As Philadelphia celebrated a historic decrease in gun violence over the last four years, the city saw fewer shootings of teens and young people, bucking a national trend. But now, even as Philly homicides continue to plummet, more children and teens are wielding guns.

In 2016, only three juveniles were charged with homicide in Philly; by 2024, that figure had ballooned to 26, a significant increase that marked four straight years of double-digit teen arrests for homicide. By comparison, from 2018 to 2022, just 20 juveniles were charged with homicide, according to data the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office provided exclusively to the Trace.

The number of juveniles charged with nonfatal shootings was also up. Last year, 49 were charged, compared with 23 in 2019, and seven in 2015. That translates to 15% of all such charges, the highest percentage in 15 years.

It’s hard to know what’s driving the troubling trend, but officials say some of these shootings were impulsive acts of retaliation. They also believe the shooters’ exposure to violent media portrayals, coupled with the idleness and disconnection many experienced during the pandemic, may be contributing factors. And access to firearms means that arguments can quickly turn lethal.

District Attorney Larry Krasner and other law enforcement officials said a hallmark of these young defendants is that they celebrate their crimes on social media. “They’re doing it with videos, they’re doing it with music,” he said. “This is a new phenomenon where it is often driven by the notion of notoriety.”

Young people and those who work with them, though, say the violence stems from a lack of opportunity, peer pressure, and depictions of bloodshed in music and television.

Mysir Green, 16, said teens often become violent in reaction to a violent environment.

“They’re just misguided and misunderstood,” Green said. “If you’re surrounded by one thing for a long time, eventually, you’re going to pick up some type of mannerisms unless you have somebody by your side supporting you and guiding you in the right direction.”

Anton Moore, a community violence prevention leader, agreed, saying, “We have to reach this new breed earlier, in middle school, or even early childhood.”

Three violent incidents committed by youth — and the loss and law enforcement activity that followed — show just how acutely Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis has crossed generational lines, shedding light on why more young people may be carrying firearms.

The spike in juvenile gunmen isn’t limited to Philadelphia. Nationally, the number of firearm-related homicides committed by juveniles increased by 50% from 2001 to 2007, decreased by 39% through 2014, but increased again by 68% by 2019, according to the U.S. Justice Department. A study from the Council on Criminal Justice found that from 2019 to 2022, the number of gun crimes committed by juveniles increased by 24%. Juvenile-perpetrated homicides were 65% higher in 2022 than in 2016, increasing from 315 to 521.

In Philly, the standing-room-only crowd at the Finley Rec meeting mostly included middle-age to elderly people — homeowners in the working-class, majority Black neighborhoods of brick rowhouses in East Mount Airy and West Oak Lane.

Shaheem Burton, 17, and Green were among a handful of teenage boys who attended, brought by Men Who Care of Germantown, a nonprofit mentorship organization.

Burton and Green said they have peers who carry guns, who have been shot, have shot others, have been arrested — or who have died from gunfire. While they don’t carry guns themselves, they said, the city’s illegal gun culture has touched their lives. Green said his brother was fatally shot in 2019.

Self-protection, showing off, and wanting to fit in, they said, are among the reasons teens arm themselves. Some, they said, are enticed by violent hip-hop.

Burton said he is equal parts empathetic and frustrated. “I ask myself: What did they go through to get to this place?” he said. “Why are they out here acting like it’s a video game and they can just kill somebody and walk away and be fine the next day?”

After the auditorium emptied, Green said many community members — himself included — still don’t understand what drives people to fight with guns instead of fists.

“It’s like their pride, they can’t live with a loss, so they feel they got to take you off the earth,” he said. “I don’t understand that.”

From April 2021 through May 2023, 12 members of three rival gangs terrorized South Philadelphia and surrounding communities, harming 31 victims during 13 shootings, two gunpoint carjackings, and one auto theft.

One shooting took the life of a 15-year-old boy. Another left seven people injured, including a 2-year-old and her mother.

The gangs call themselves the Senders, the Klapperz, and the Close Range Gang. Their members shot at one another and wounded bystanders with errant bullets, according to law enforcement officials. The dozen gang members were recently arrested following a joint investigation by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Gun Violence Task Force and the Philadelphia Police Department.

Assistant District Attorney Katherine Reamy, who works on the task force, said an ongoing grand jury investigation into South Philadelphia crime identified the groups. The shootings, Reamy said, “were from back-and-forth retaliation between these three gangs.”

The Senders’ slogan, which they repeated in social media posts, officials said, was especially chilling: “If you want to join the Senders, get a body. Then you gang with us.”

Because the gang members were mostly juveniles, none had long criminal histories. The youngest was 14 when he — and two older teens — allegedly opened fire on two male victims on April 5, 2023. Now 16, he was arrested in late February. He is charged with two counts of attempted murder, conspiracy, and related weapons offenses.

The most prolific defendant, who turned 17 amid the shootings, was charged in 11 shootings that injured 16 victims, from January 2022 through April 2023. He has been charged with multiple counts of attempted murder and related crimes.

Some members of the Senders, Klapperz, and Close Range Gang act like they don’t understand the seriousness of their crimes, said Police Detective Kelley Gallagher.

“A lot of these young kids think it’s a game. On social media they compare it to a basketball game,” she said. “For every shooting victim, they say they have a point.”

Greg Thompson, a Southwest Philadelphia community activist since the 1980s who has worked to improve the lives of young people, said the rising number of juvenile shooters felt inevitable. He, too, cited social media as a factor in swaying teens to arm themselves, and also older males recruiting them as hit men.

“When you look at these kids killing each other, it’s normalized,” he said. “It’s what they are attached to every single day when they turn on their earphones or look at television or listen to music.”

Young shooters’ reliance on social media helps law enforcement, Krasner said, because they leave “a trail of breadcrumbs wherever they go.”

Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore echoed that sentiment. “Many of these beefs start on social media and grow from there, and turn into the motive,” he said.

When Moore heard about the takedown of the three groups, he recognized some of the suspects’ names. As the founder of Unity in the Community, a South Philly-based nonprofit organization that teaches teenagers carpentry and life skills, he was aware of some of their alleged crimes, too.

“Kids are growing up in tough environments and single-parent households, and they’re turning to gun violence,” he said. “This is not news to me. That’s why I work with people as young as 12 years old.”

Krasner, who is seeking his third term in office, said he suspects the tumult of the pandemic shutdown is playing a part.

“Let’s not forget how old someone who is currently 17 was in March of 2020,” he said. “This was a period of extreme depression for a lot of kids. When people get off track and they start to believe they have no future, it’s just easier for them to pick up a gun.”

Young shooters are not always motivated by gang rivalries. Sometimes, it’s an argument on the back of a city bus suddenly made deadly by a firearm.

As a soldier in the U.S. Army, Anthony Overstreet saw his share of bloodshed. But not even those experiences prepared him for the violence that claimed the life of his 15-year-old grandson, Zahkir Whitfield.

“They told me the guy had a 12-round banana clip for an automatic weapon. That’s crazy,” said Overstreet, 69. “Who sold it to him? Where did he get the money?”

On March 22, Zahkir, 15, was riding a city bus with a friend in the East Parkside area when they got into a dispute with four young passengers. After the driver stopped the bus, one of the four teens got off the bus through the rear door, turned, and fired a single gunshot toward Zahkir and his friend.

That bullet pierced Zahkir’s heart. Police transported him to nearby Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. On March 25, instead of celebrating his 16th birthday, he was buried.

“He loved to play basketball and he would help anybody. … I used to tell him, ‘Everybody is not your friend,’ and, ‘You can’t hang with everybody because you don’t know what they’re getting into,’ ” said Overstreet, who raised his grandson in Upper Darby, which borders West Philadelphia. “But he never had any problems with anybody, and I never had any problems with him.”

While coping with his grief, Overstreet said, he’s also pondering questions that have yet to be answered, including: What drove a teen to draw a gun after a fistfight?

“I don’t know if there’s something in the water or what,” Overstreet said, fighting back tears. “I call them the lost generation because this is crazy.”

Police released crime-scene photos and video of the alleged gunman, a 17-year-old boy who was arrested in April. Overstreet refuses to look at news reports featuring the pictures.

“It was just me and him in the house,” he said. “I look in his room every day, at his empty bed. He was my best friend.”

The March 29 shooting at the Finley Rec Center took place during a bloody Friday-through-Sunday span that does not bode well for Philadelphia as temperatures rise. During seven incidents, 13 people were shot, and two died. Seven of the victims were juveniles, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said during a March 31 news conference.

“For the young people, we have to give them more opportunity for constructive and positive paths,” Parker said.

“But I want to be clear, there is absolutely no excuse,” she added, “for anyone to make a direct connection between any kind of activity being available and your willingness to take a life.”

The day after the shootings, the rec center bore no sign of chaos. Men played soccer, mothers pushed toddlers on swings, and Steve Jameson, 34, played a pickup game of basketball with a friend.

While youth violence is rare at Finley, he said, it’s all too common in many parts of the city. He and his friend both said they’d had a brother shot by teenage criminals within the last five years.

“I don’t know what to say,” Jameson said. “I be on the train sometimes and I see kids with guns hanging out their pockets! Chilling on the El with a gun right here.”