DENVER — Police in Colorado are holding more children under the age of 18 for violent crimes. According to Division of Youth Services records, more than 170 children were admitted to a youth detention institution for homicide or manslaughter accusations several years after the pandemic.
Before the epidemic, less than 70 children were admitted to juvenile correctional centers for serious acts.
A shooting in Adams County in 2022 spotlights a statewide issue. On July 13, that year, Brighton Police arrived at the front door of a grandmother’s home. Officers wanted to speak with her grandson, Jonah Graham, about the shooting in Ken Mitchell Park the night before. Graham was only 16 at the time.
Josiah “JoJo” Gonzales, 17, had been shot and died in the park.
Because prosecutors ultimately charged Graham as an adult, 9NEWS obtained bodycam footage of the officer’s conversation with him at home in 2022. He eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
“Some of the people you are hanging out with have issues with the person who was killed last night,” an officer tells Graham in the footage.
Graham soon became a suspect. During the visit, Brighton Police officers swabbed the high schooler for gunshot residue and took full-body photographs as evidence.
On July 14, 2022, police arrested him on charges of first-degree murder. Prosecutors allege that in the summer of 2022, Graham visited Ken Mitchell Park and witnessed Gonzales eating pizza with a companion.
“And that is when he was shot in the face and two other times while he was on the ground,” said Gonzales’ grandmother, Trisha Powell.
Two grandmothers lost their grandsons in a single night. But Powell will never get the opportunity to see hers again.
“It takes me back to the whole thing when I got the phone call, just not believing it,” she told me.
According to police, Graham and Gonzales were fighting in 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,” according to Powell.
Police are transporting more children under the age of 18 to youth detention centers for violent crimes.
In fiscal years 2016–2017, 61 adolescents were admitted to youth correctional facilities on homicide and manslaughter accusations.
By fiscal years 2019-2020, the number has risen to 91. IT peaked in Fiscal Years 2022-2023, with 172 adolescents admitted to detention for violent acts.
“When you look at these homicide case characteristics, these are ingrained disputes, and a lot of them are retaliatory fights from one neighborhood that spread to another,” said David Pyrooz, a criminologist and Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
His research identifies the pandemic as one of the causes of the rise in juvenile violence.
“The United States went through a double whammy of a stress test between COVID and [George] Floyd and those things came together to put a lot of stressors on our institutions,” according to him.
“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 consider the challenges that families face. It’s not simple; there are holidays and birthdays,” said Powell, Gonzales’ grandma.
Powell grieves alongside hundreds of other families because children killed or attempted to kill other children. Her grandson’s killer, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, received a 30-year prison sentence.
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