Shootings in Chicago have captured national headlines, and for good reason: The city has among the highest rates of teenage gun violence in the nation. But where else in the U.S. are teenagers most likely to be killed or injured by gunfire? Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles?
In an exclusive analysis, journalists from the AP, working jointly with the USA Today Network, arrived at an unexpected answer: Except for Chicago, the places with the highest rates of teen gun violence in America are smaller and mid-sized cities – towns like Wilmington, Delaware, population 72,000. Syracuse, N.Y., Savannah, Ga., Trenton, N.J., Fort Myers, Fla., and Richmond, Va., all below 250,000 population, also made the dubious top 10. They are cities with pockets of extreme poverty that have been struggling for years to cope with exploding gun violence among minors.
In Wilmington, home of chemical giant DuPont and headquarters to many Fortune 500 firms, the rate of teens hurt or killed by gunfire is double that of Chicago: "It's nonstop, just nonstop," said the father of one murdered teen. "Around every turn, they're taking our kids." AP data journalists Meghan Hoyer and Larry Fenn led the analysis of 3½ years’ worth of shooting cases provided by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive. The topic was important because the rate of teens being injured and killed by gun violence is not something the federal government regularly tracks.
Baltimore reporter Juliet Linderman, with significant assists from Albany reporter Michael Hill and Savannah correspondent Russ Bynum, picked it up from there. The three state reporters spent days on the ground in Wilmington, Syracuse and Savannah, painting a picture of desperate communities frustrated by cycles of retaliatory bloodshed. They found a younger generation that is resigned to accepting a fate of prison or early death.
In Savannah, a woman who runs a program that tries to intervene with young people recounted the story of one who had been shot three different times – all by age 14 – and still his mother wouldn’t enroll him: “To them,” she says, “it’s a way of life.” In a video from Syracuse, Hill introduces us to Quishawn Richardson, a 15-year-old who finds sanctuary at a boxing gym down the hill – but light years away – from the stately grounds of Syracuse University: "It doesn't remind you of all the violence that's going on outside," he says.
Video journalist Allen Breed accompanied Linderman to Wilmington and produced a powerful video that illustrates the danger and despair, along with the difficulties the city is having in addressing the problems. Just as powerful were the photographs from Patrick Semansky in Delaware, Julie Jacobson in Syracuse and Russ Bynum in Savannah. The package also was enhanced with graphics from interactives producer Maureen Linke. Reporters from the Wilmington newspaper assisted and produced a sidebar about how recommendations from a 2015 CDC report on Wilmington’s violence had yet to be implemented.
In Newark, Del., Aug. 9, 2017, Keshon Williams, right, 16, displays a bullet wound on his leg, alongside his sister Keishonna, 18, who was also wounded in the leg during the same shooting in Wilmington, Del. After the teenagers were released from the hospital, their family left the Wilmington, but the teenagers want to return. "The craziest thing about it is, these kids are accepting it," parent William Rollins V said.
AP Photo / Patrick Semansky
Maria Williams stands on her front porch in Wilmington, Del., July 27, 2017, the day after her teenage son and daughter were shot and wounded while standing on the same porch. "All I could think of was, 'I'm not losing another child,'" Williams recalled. Her 18-year-old stepson had been gunned down two years before, another victim of Wilmington's plague of teens shooting teens. His shooter was 17.
AP Photo / Patrick Semansky
Emergency workers use a stretcher to bring a shooting victim into an ambulance at West 4th and Broom Streets in Wilmington, Del., Jan. 15, 2015, after gunshots claimed multiple victims. A 16-year-old who had been shot in the head died at the hospital, according to police.
William Bretzger / The Wilmington News-Journal via AP
Tyzell Cephas, 23, wipes the tears from his eyes as he visits the grave site of his 16-year-old sister, Tynesia, at Silverbrook Cemetery in Wilmington, Del., Aug. 8, 2017. “It’s like death don’t have an age right now, and bullets, damn, don’t have a name,” said Tyzell.
Suchat Pederson / The Wilmington News-Journal via AP
Barbara O'Neal holds her smartphone which displays a photograph of her slain son, Alan O'Neal Jr., in Savannah, Ga., on July 31, 2017. O'Neal started the group Mothers of Murdered Sons in Savannah after her 20-year-old son was fatally shot during an attempted robbery in 2011. An analysis found that teenagers in Savannah are victims of gun violence at a rate far higher than in most mid-sized and large U.S. cities. "It's getting worse," O'Neal says. "They're still shooting and they still don't care."
AP Photo / Russ Bynum
This Instagram post entered into evidence by state prosecutors shows Zakier Smith, 16, pointing a gun. In July 2016, the teenager and others ranging from ages 16 to 21, were charged with gang participation – which has been used frequently since 2013, allowing the state to charge a group of three or more persons who share an affiliation that includes a criminal activity.
The Wilmington News-Journal via AP
Pedestrians stroll on a sidewalk in downtown Savannah, Ga., Aug. 23, 2017, where three people were wounded by gunshots fired from a passing SUV less than two months earlier. Three others died when the suspects' vehicle crashed while fleeing police. A 17-year-old boy identified by police as the SUV's driver has been charged with murder. The top federal prosecutor in Savannah recently said juvenile violent crime in the city is "off the charts."
AP Photo / Russ Bynum
An anti-violence sign, created by former gang members, hangs on a window of a corner convenience store in the South Side neighborhood of Syracuse, N.Y., Aug. 21, 2017. Syracuse is a modestly sized city where teens are being killed or injured by guns at a rate far higher than most other cities.
AP Photo / Julie Jacobson
A group of teenagers and young men exercise outside the Faith and Hope Community Center in the South Side neighborhood just down the hill from Syracuse University's Carrier Dome, background, Aug. 21, 2017, in Syracuse, N.Y. Coach and mentor Arthur “Bobby” Harrison, who was serving in Attica state prison in 1971 during the infamous uprising, believes in providing a firm hand for the teens who train here.
AP Photo / Julie Jacobson
A photo of a victim of gun violence hangs over the entrance to a home, Aug. 21, 2017, in the South Side neighborhood of Syracuse, N.Y. From 2014 through June 2107, 48 youths aged 12 to 17 in Syracuse were killed or injured in gun violence, a rate more than double that seen in the vast majority of U.S. cities with populations of 50,000 or more, according to an Associated Press and USA TODAY Network analysis.
AP Photo / Julie Jacobson
As Hurricane Irma threatened the Florida Keys, people spent more time on the teen guns package than with any other AP content.
The project – the last installment of a three-part joint effort by the AP and USA Today Network – had strong engagement. The morning it moved, as Hurricane Irma began threatening the Florida Keys, people were spending more time on the teen guns package than with any other AP content. In its first 12 hours, it had 383 uses on AP customer websites and more than 4,400 page views on the apnews app. The mainbar or sidebars also won play on at least a dozen front pages. A hub directs readers and editors to the stories.
For their work revealing a surprising side of teenage gun violence in America, state reporters Linderman, Bynum and Hill, video journalist Breed, data journalists Hoyer and Fenn, and graphic artist Linke share this week’s Best of the States and $300 prize.