DENVER — Police in Colorado are detaining more kids under 18 years old for violent crimes. A few years after the pandemic more than 170 kids were admitted to a youth detention center for homicide or manslaughter charges according to data from the Division of Youth Services.
Before the pandemic, fewer than 70 kids were admitted to youth detention facilities for those types of violent crimes.
A shooting in Adams County in 2022 highlights a statewide problem. On July 13, of that year Brighton Police showed up at the front door of a grandmother's home. Officers wanted to talk to her grandson, Jonah Graham, about a shooting at Ken Mitchell Park the night before. Graham was just 16 at the time.
Josiah "JoJo" Gonzales, 17, had been shot and killed at the park.
9NEWS obtained bodycam video of the officer's interaction with Graham in his home in 2022 because prosecutors later charged Graham as an adult. He later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
"Some of the people you are hanging with have issues with the person who was killed last night," an officer told Graham in the video.
Graham quickly became a suspect. During the visit investigators from Brighton Police swabbed the high schooler for gunshot residue and took full body pictures for evidence.
On July 14, 2022, police arrested him on suspicion of first-degree murder. Prosecutors said in the summer of 2022 Graham went to Ken Mitchell Park where he saw Gonzales eating pizza with a friend.
"And that is when he was shot in the face and two other times when he was on the ground," said Trisha Powell, grandmother of Gonzales.
Two grandmothers lost their grandsons in one night. But Powell will never have a chance to see hers again.
"It takes me back to the whole thing when I got the phone call, just not believing it," she said.
Police said Graham and Gonzales were fighting at the park before Graham pulled the trigger.
"It seems like every day you wake up and get on the news it is 2, 3, 4, 5 shootings," Powell said.
Police are taking more kids under 18 years old to youth detention facilities for violent crimes.
In Fiscal Years 2016-2017, 61 juveniles were admitted to youth detention facilities for homicide and manslaughter-related charges.
By Fiscal Years 2019-2020, the number jumped to 91. IT reached a peak during Fiscal Years 2022-2023 with 172 juveniles admitted to detention for those violent crimes.
"If you look at these homicide case characteristics these are ingrained disputes and a lot of them are retaliatory fight from one neighborhood...bleeds over to another neighborhood," said David Pyrooz, a criminologist and Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
His research points to the pandemic as one of the reasons for the increase in youth violence.
"The United States went through a double wammy of a stress test between COVID and [George] Floyd and those things came together to put a lot of stressors on our institutions," he said.
"When all of those things start to fall apart it makes it really difficult to constrain these impulses kids have and how they solve their problems."
"I think about….what the families have to go through. It is not easy, it is holidays, birthdays," said Powell, grandmother of Gonzales.
Powell shares grief with hundreds of other families because kids killed or tried to kill other kids. Her grandson's killer, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.