SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
Youth gun violence has
increased ‘dramatically’
Andrea May Sahouri and Eric Ferkenhoff
|
WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2022
|
3B
Trust offers cash
incentives for
fire-resistant
reconstruction
USA TODAY NETWORK
DES MOINES, Iowa — Rumors on a bus the morning
of March 4 tipped an assistant principal and counselor
that a student at a Kansas high school might be armed.
Soon, two school officials were looking for Jaylon El-
more.
He was in shop class, his backpack next to him. It
was about 10:30 a.m. The varsity football player was
taken to the school office, where officials asked to
search his backpack, according to an affidavit.
Elmore refused, grabbing a homemade pistol from
it and firing five shots, the records state. One round
hit an assistant principal, and another struck a police
officer assigned to the suburban school outside Kan-
sas City. The officer returned fire, wounding Elmore,
who is now charged with attempted capital murder.
The incident came three days before a drive-by
shooting outside a high school in Des Moines,
Iowa, that killed one teen and injured two others.
In Salem, a boy was shot and injured in March dur-
ing a confrontation between two groups of teens at Sa-
lem Center Mall. The shooter ran away with his friends
and police have not made any arrests.
In Pittsburgh, two 17-year-old boys were fatally shot
and nine others wounded over Easter weekend during
a mass shooting at a party of mostly teenagers at an
Airbnb. Some 90-100 rounds were fired during the
chaos.
The shooting came just as police there and the Bu-
reau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
were planning a news conference to discuss how youth
were getting hold of guns in the city.
The incidents are emblematic of a national trend:
Across the U.S., more kids are getting their hands on
guns and using them in an escalating number of mur-
ders, suicides and accidental shootings, experts and
data say.
1,352 shootings involving kids so far this year
By May 8, there were at least 1,556 incidents where
teenagers younger than 19 were injured or killed by
gunfire this year, figures from the Gun Violence
Archive show. That total in 2021 was 5,543 incidents.
The archive’s data, which is publicly sourced, also
shows that more than 1,500 people 18 years old or
younger were killed by gun violence in 2021, up from
1,380 in 2020.
“Gun violence among youth is increasing dramat-
ically — that’s just what the data shows,” said Mark
Bryant, executive director of the nonprofit archive,
which claims no affiliation with any advocacy organi-
zation. “I’m not able to see how we are going to come
down off this. I don’t know that it will necessarily con-
tinue to trend up, but I’m not seeing anything that
would say, ‘OK, well, it’s cool now.’”
The Gun Violence Archive shows 13 Mid-Valley
shootings in 2021 involving teens in which someone
was injured or killed. Four people died and nine were
injured. Among those:
h Gerardo Trujillo-Torres, 17, has been charged with
the murder of Joshua Steward, 24, on Jan. 16, 2021, in
the parking lot by Hoover Elementary School in Salem.
Steward’s 22-year-old girlfriend was also shot in the
head. The girlfriend said they were meeting with Truji-
llo-Torres to buy cocaine.
h A 16-year-old was charged with shooting and kill-
ing Juan Tomas Santos Bautista, 16, on Jan. 26, 2021 at
the French Prarie Rest Area in Aurora. Both teens were
from Vancouver, Wash.
h A 17-year-old boy died following a March 24, 2021
shooting in the Four Corners area of southeast Salem.
A second 17-year-old boy was injured and two others
were detained.
h Ollie Taylor, 17, died following a shooting between
his kidnapper Kenneth William Peden III, 20, and po-
lice on May 12, 2021. Peden also shot and injured Tay-
lor’s 22-year-old friend during the kidnapping. Peden
was indicted on murder charges, but died by suicide
Sept. 22 in Marion County Jail.
In 2020, there were 10 Mid-Valley teen-related in-
cidents in which four people died and six were injured,
according to the Gun Violence Archive. In 2019, there
were nine incidents involving two deaths and six in-
juries.
Caution is needed in analyzing the numbers, which
have been cyclical over the decades, and in analyzing
how the police and politicians respond, said James
Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University.
Firearms-related homicide was the top cause of
death for those ages 1-24 beginning in 2017 and con-
tinuing through 2020, when there were 10,186 gun-re-
lated deaths for the age group, according to Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention records published
April 16 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Gun
homicides overtook motor vehicle accidents, which
had been the leading cause for 60 years. Firearm-relat-
ed deaths have been rising since 2013, and there was a
29.5% increase from 2019 to 2020.
In 2020, gun-involved homicides by kids under 18
were up to 1,704 incidents from 1,225 in 2019 — a 39%
year-over-year increase of 479 shootings, according to
FBI data compiled by Fox.
The same year, 2020, U.S. homicides involving all
age groups were up 30%.
Fox said that big cities, and those with the highest
gang activity, such as Chicago and Philadelphia, make
up the bulk of teen cases.
The violence is not spread evenly across U.S. cities
and towns, skewing the overall picture to suggest
youth violence is up everywhere.
“What goes up generally comes back down,” Fox
said. “You don’t want to minimize the severity of it
when someone talks about thousands more people be-
ing killed. But let’s not also conclude that the trajec-
tory will continue.”
Adding to the youth homicide toll are teen gun sui-
cides. Suicide attempts by firearms are fatal 90% of
the time, one study released in 2019 found. Compara-
tively, 8.5% of all suicidal acts reviewed by the study
resulted in death.
Youth suicides and attempts, particularly among
girls, have increased over the past decade. In 2020, su-
icide was the second-leading cause of death for 10- to
24-year-olds, behind unintentional injury, according
to the CDC.
Accidental shootings by those under 18 have also
jumped. From the start of 2015 to the end of 2020,
there were at least 2,070 unintentional teen shootings,
causing 765 deaths, according to Everytown for Gun
Safety.
Already this year, there have been at least 77 acci-
Adam Duvernay
Register-Guard
USA TODAY NETWORK
Ollie Taylor COURTESY OF THE TAYLOR FAMILY
dental shootings by youth, resulting in 31 deaths, ac-
cording to data from the group.
Where do young people
and teenagers get guns?
Experts and community members cite many rea-
sons — poverty, instability and trauma as well as a lack
of hope, education, opportunities and mental health
resources — for the rise in gun violence among young
people. But they also seek to figure out where the kids
are getting guns.
Some minors grab legally owned firearms from their
homes, stealing from a parent, guardian, relative or
friend. Others commit home burglaries and car break-
ins, including of police vehicles. Still others get guns
through gang connections.
Federal and state laws generally bar people younger
than 18 from purchasing guns.
But experts also say young people are increasingly
using homemade firearms typically purchased over
the internet, according to the ATF.
Elmore, 18, a senior at Olathe East High School in
Kansas, allegedly used a camouflage-decorated 9 mm
ghost gun. Exactly where he got it has not been dis-
closed.
Ghost guns, as they’re sold now, are typically as-
sembled from kits and carry no serial numbers, mak-
ing it nearly impossible for law enforcement to track
their origins.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire-
arms and Explosives, along with Salem Police Depart-
ment detectives, in March recovered dozens of home-
made firearms and firearm parts in various stages of
completion during a raid of two Salem homes.
It was believed to be the largest case of ghost guns
in the state, but Salem police detective said they’ve
seen an “exponentially” increasing number of private-
ly made firearms seized in police operations in recent
months.
In mid-April, President Joe Biden moved to crack
down on ghost guns with new restrictions on the sale
and distribution of the guns and parts. The new rules
include requirements on manufacturers and sellers of
ghost guns to do background checks and stamp the
weapons with serial numbers to make them traceable.
From the start of 2016 through the close of 2020, the
ATF reported some 24,000 suspected ghost guns were
recovered nationally by law enforcement from poten-
tial crime scenes. Roughly 325 homicides or attempted
homicides were committed using the weapons.
“A person can make a gun for themselves … and
that’s perfectly legal,” said John E. Ham, ATF’s Kansas
City-based spokesman, so long as purchasers are not
convicted felons, convicted of domestic violence, ad-
dicted to narcotics or in the country illegally.
He stressed that “the caveat on the federal law is
that a personally made firearm cannot enter com-
merce. So it can’t be sold. It can’t be traded. You can’t
give it to your buddy.”
Ten states and some cities have moved to curtail
ghost guns, which can also be made from 3-D printers.
Washington is among them but Oregon is not.
Many teen shooters get guns at home
Ghost guns still make up a very small share of the
overall gun marketplace, Bryant said. Most guns that
wind up in the hands of young people come from the
home, according to gun control advocates and the ATF.
“If you can’t find a gun in under two hours, you
aren’t looking hard enough,” Bryant said, noting that
many states have lowered restrictions to owning and
carrying firearms.
“These kids get these guns from their houses. They
break into houses. They break into cars,” Bryant sai-
d. In most cases, he said, “They don’t have to build a
gun.”
Nicole Hockley, co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise,
an anti-gun nonprofit founded after the 2012 Sandy
Hook Elementary School shooting, said 68% of gun-
related incidents at schools have involved shooters
who took guns from their own homes.
The percentage grows to about 76% when relatives’
homes are included.
Research from Carmel Salhi, a Northeastern Uni-
versity professor, shows that 70% of parents believe
their children can’t get to the guns in their homes.
But in his research, Salhi found that some 30% or
more of teens from 13 to 17 years old reported they
could gain control of a loaded gun kept in their home in
under five minutes. Half could gain access in less than
an hour.
Law enforcement and gun-control advocates also
note the 64% year-over-year surge in gun sales in 2020
— making 2020 a record year for firearms purchases.
The ATF’s Ham said to curb the surge in violence,
the country needs to look beyond law enforcement.
“There are a lot of guns in circulation. It takes more
than one federal agency or one law enforcement agen-
cy” to quell the violence, he said. “It takes community
involvement, it takes responsible gun ownership, it
takes parents taking steps to make sure that those
guns can’t walk out of their house.”
Statesman Journal reporter Virginia Barreda con-
tributed to this report.
Follow reporters Andrea Sahouri and Eric Ferken-
hoff on Twitter: @andreamsahouri, @EricFerk.
Oregonians rebuilding homes and businesses af-
ter the wildfires of recent years can take advantage
of new cash incentives from Energy Trust of Oregon
for using design features that are both energy effi-
cient and wildfire resistant.
The nonprofit now is offering to help homeown-
ers build using design features serving both pur-
poses. People rebuilding their homes and business-
es after wildfires are qualified for even larger cash
incentives.
“Sadly, we’re seeing wildfire seasons lasting
longer and becoming more severe,” Energy Trust of
Oregon Executive Director Michael Colgrove said in
a news release.
Energy Trust programs are offered in coopera-
tion with Oregon’s Department of Energy and Ore-
gon’s Building Code Division programs, with incen-
tives covering single-family homes, manufactured
homes and commercial buildings.
Energy Trust cash incentives are normally of-
fered for energy-efficient features such as advanced
framing and lighting, high-performance windows
and efficient appliances, heating and cooling, ac-
cording to the news release.
Energy Trust now also offers new cash incen-
tives for design elements that both increase effi-
ciency and strengthen homes against wildfires, in-
cluding:
h Triple pane windows adding another layer be-
tween the interior of a home and the fire;
h Exterior rigid insulation that is highly flame re-
sistant and can provide considerable energy sav-
ings;
h Unvented attics which can save energy and
lower fire risk because they can help keep embers
from entering a home
Public Notices
PUBLIC NOTICE
CITY OF SILVERTON
RESOLUTION NO. 09-27
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF SILVER-
TON DECLARING SUPPORT FOR, AND
ADOPTING CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS RE-
LATED TO, THE FAIR HOUSING AMEND-
MENTS ACT OF 1988
LET IT BE KNOWN TO ALL PERSONS of the
City of Silverton that discrimination in the sale,
rental, lease, advertising of sale, rental or
lease, financing of housing or land to be used to
construction of housing, or in the provision of
brokerage, rental services because of race, col-
or, sex, disability (physical or mental), familial
status (children) or national origin is prohibited
by Title VIII of the federal Fair Housing
Amendments Act of 1988. It is the policy of the
City of Silverton to support the Fair Housing
Amendments Act of 1988 and to implement a
Fair Housing Program to ensure equal opportu-
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race, color, religion, sex, disability (physical
and mental), familial status (children) or
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does hereby pass the following Resolution:
BE IT RESOLVED that within the resources
available to the City of Silverton through city,
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(children) or national origin in the process of
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sponsibilities and rights under the Fair Housing
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THE FAIR HOUSING PROGRAM, for the pur-
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Housing law and complaint procedures, will at a
minimum include, but not be limited to: 1) the
printing, publicizing and distribution of this
Resolution; 2) the distribution of posters, flyers,
pamphlets and other applicable Fair Housing
information provided by local, state and federal
sources, through local media of community con-
tracts; and 3) the publicizing of locations where
assistance will be provided to those seeking to
file a discrimination complaint.
Adopted by the City Council of the City of Sil-
verton the 6th day of July, 2009.
Silverton Appeal
May 18, 2022
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