DENVER — A 13-year-old shot inside an apartment.
An 18-year-old shot while walking down the street.
A 14-year-old shot and killed by police after allegedly robbing a convenience store at gunpoint.
It was a disturbing week in Aurora regarding young people and violent crime -- a week that continued a troubling trend from last year.
From 2021 to 2022, violent crimes involving juvenile suspects increased by 22% in Aurora. And with the summer months fast approaching, Chief Art Acevedo said he is concerned.
"It's a huge problem, juvenile crime," Acevedo said. "The days are long, the temperatures are hotter, and it's not just youth, it's the American psyche. We have a country where everyone has a firearm, firearms are easy to get ahold of."
And the problem is clearly not just in Aurora. In Denver last year, the number of juveniles arrested for homicides and non-fatal shootings was about the same as the year before, but the number of juvenile victims of those crimes increased by 53%.
"I am terrified by what could happen this summer," said Jason McBride, a violence prevention specialist with the Struggle of Love Foundation. "All the trends, all the indications, everything that I look at shows me that we're going to have a really violent summer. Lot of shootings, lot of incidents."
McBride attributed the recent increase in violence among young people to the mental health issues resulting from the pandemic and the easy availability of illegal guns. Unfortunately, he does not see the increase slowing down anytime soon in metro Denver.
"It's migrated to other areas, so you're going to start seeing more violence in Thornton and Westminster and surrounding areas like that, not just Aurora and Denver, where it's usually concentrated right now."
McBride added that another factor driving the recent increase in youth violence is the continuing influence of gangs.
According to police, at least one of last week's shootings in Aurora appears to have been gang-related.
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