HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — It’s a troubling trend that Tampa Bay area prosecutors and advocates want to find the answer to teen gun violence.
“We have prosecuted more juveniles as adults because more juveniles are committing serious, violent, gun-related crimes,” said Hillsborough State Attorney Suzy Lopez.
The Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office said on average, the percentage of gun-related juvenile cases prosecuted as adults have increased by more than 20% on State Attorney Lopez’s watch.
On Friday, Lopez shared a video from New Year’s Day at Curtis Hixon Park, where a group is seen fighting, and a teen was later taken to the hospital after being shot.
“The victim, in this case, survived,” said Lopez. “He was shot right above the heart and is still recovering.”
Lopez explained they have a team who evaluates each case, looking at the defendant’s age, charge, prior history, and other factors. She said when they charge teens as adults, they do it with a heavy heart, but they have to address acts of violence early and hold people accountable.
“It is our job and our tool here at this office to prosecute and to keep the community safe, and in situations where filing in adult court is appropriate, we do choose to do that because we need to wake up and pay attention and we were saying enough is enough,” said Lopez.
Freddy Barton is the Executive Director of Safe and Sound Hillsborough, the violence prevention collaborative of Hillsborough County.
The organization has a pilot initiative, which includes a youth gun offender program.
“Any youth that gets arrested on a gun or weapon-related offense are typically court-ordered to the program. Here, we have them for six months, and we monitor them for an additional six months,” said Barton.
The program has three phases: awareness of the traumatic consequences of firearm injury, personal experiential awareness and choices, decision-making skills and attitudinal changes.
“When we take them and sit them in front of family members who’ve lost their children due to gun violence and have a conversation with them, it really moves them, and they tell us, you know what, I never thought about it like this,” said Barton.
The program’s long-term goals are to keep young people out of the juvenile system, trauma centers, rehabilitation centers, or worse.
“It’s important that we get to these kids, we change their minds, we change their hearts so that they don’t make this decision down the road,” said Barton.
