DC Sees Spike in Young People Getting Shot

The victims of gun violence in D.C. have gotten younger, and it’s happening more often.

A child is shot in the District about two-and-a-half times a week. As of Friday, 48 young people have been shot in D.C. this year. That’s three times as many year-to-date as 2021 and twice as many as 2022.

Sometimes they’re innocent victims; sometimes police say they were targeted.

Often the suspects are also juveniles.

“We have to have a city that says enough is enough,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said. “We won’t tolerate people using guns and killing our children.”

D.C. police data show 43 of 48 victims are African American.

And 38 of the 48 are boys.

“I don’t care what color you are, you want your kids to live and to live up to their God-given potential,” Bowser said.

A majority of the victims are younger than 15. The youngest is a 6-year-old girl who survived.

But seven kids have died, including 10-year-old Arianna Davis, who was shot while riding in a car on Mother’s Day.

“We shouldn’t have 10-year-olds getting shot on our streets,” Bowser said.

Twenty-seven of the 48 were shot in Southeast, 10 were shot in Northwest, nine in Northeast and two in Southwest.

“If we’re really going to get our arms around this, we really have to be honest with ourselves about what outcomes we want to see with our young people, and if it requires us to do something different, we have to love them enough to do something different than we have been doing, because if we’re seeing these increase in spaces that are alarming to most people, I think that warrants a second look and warrants us to change,” former D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said before he retired.

Contee and Bowser have been pushing for tougher consequences for youth offenders of violent crimes, including more incarceration.

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