As the thick smoke of a gunman’s smoke bombs clears over 36th Street Subway Station On April 12, at least four of those shot or injured in the ensuing panic were revealed to be children or teenagers.
On the ground, young people nearby and across Brooklyn flocked to hide behind the school walls, or waited anxiously as parents rushed them from street corners. Classrooms were locked, closed to visitors as students plastered their windows with messages of hope – and fear.
For many children in New York City, the Sunset Park shooting was just the latest in a disturbing series of acts of violence in which young people were injured or killed. Two years of the pandemic have exacerbated a mental health crisis among young people; over the same period, the shootings increased sharply. Students, parents and teachers say it pinpointed a profound toll on young people, both those who received bullets and those in their orbit who watched the aftermath. fruit later.
On April 12, as details of the Brooklyn shooting that left 30 people injured were still emerging, a Bronx community 16 miles away was reeling from the tragedy: a sunset memorial was set up. planned for a 16-year-old boy who was killed in an after-school shooting. .
The next afternoon, even as police arrested a subway assault, dozens of teenagers in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, cried outside their middle school, K763 Brooklyn Science and Engineering, for a friend. Beloved has just been killed.
Tatiana Barrett, 14, a student at the school and a friend of the slain teenager, said: “It’s really hard for me to admit that I’m in pain. “As the days went by, I became more and more angry.”
At least 40 children and adolescents were shot in 2022, accounting for about one in 10 victims. This number is on track to match or exceed the number of youth victims last year, when 138 people were hit by bullets.
The numbers are still significantly lower than in previous decades: At least 530 children under 16 years old just shot in 1991, for example, and 54 people died. However, the numbers show a significant increase compared to pre-pandemic years. Fewer than 65 minors were shot in both 2018 and 2019.
City officials have tried to quell the violence in several ways, including by targeting guns on city streets and expand summer job program for youth up to 100,000 positions. Meanwhile, some residents argue that the city needs to focus more strongly on poverty and the limited resources in their neighborhood.
This year, some of the most famous murders have had children as their victims. Some were casualties due to street disputes or feuds. Others were hit by stray bullets in cars, parks or on sidewalks.
For 17-year-old Kyla-Simone Sobers Batties, a placid senior year was interrupted on October 1 when a stray bullet entered her head while she was hanging out with friends in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Her mother, Nadine Sobers, said she spent two weeks in a coma and saw a frustrating world waiting.
The bullet hit Kyla-Simone’s brain, but she became absent-minded, often asking the same questions three or four times. Her vision is so blurry that she needs help going to the toilet at night. She experienced near-constant pain. Meanwhile, classmates are celebrating the milestones of their senior year.
“She had nightmares,” her mother said. “I walked into her room and found her crying on the bed. This is a child who doesn’t like arguments – and now she gets angry easily, she’s always upset. ”
“She was trying to be resilient. But that will never be easy for her,” her mother added.
The grief of several shootings has spread beyond the young people who cried for their classmates, even those who witnessed the tragedy from afar – including the Park attack. Sunset, which cannot be shared as many students pass by on their way to school.
Shahana Ghosh, a teacher at PS 24 in the neighborhood, says that days later, her first-graders know “someone has hurt a lot of people,” but they struggle with why. why and what they should do if in the same situation.
“There is fear and anxiety there. I can see it on their faces,” Ghosh said. “They were talking about helicopters in the air, how that scared them into the night.”
Two blocks away, several teenagers at Sunset Park High School – whose doors are about 250 feet from the subway station – experienced “low-level panic attacks” that morning, said Dan Wever, a teacher art staff said. He tries to keep them busy, lead them in a hands-on activity — and lure them away from the news on their phones, he says.
Many people seem to be looking for any sense of normalcy, he said, and “severing their brains” from the scene outside the window.
“The past two years have been all about trauma,” Mr. Wever said. “With Covid and now this is happening to our school, students are put in a situation that I think for many years to come, this will continue to affect them.”
Experts have long warned of long-term failures in learning and health for students exposed to gun violence. Aditi Vasan, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where gun violence reached an all-time high last yearindicates that the ramifications could come much earlier.
Dr. Vasan and other researchers noticed it two weeks after a shootingChildren who live nearby are twice as likely to have to go to the emergency room for problems such as anxiety, depression and self-harm.
“It’s amazing how quickly these symptoms can arise,” she said. “A lot of these kids are experiencing them really right away and very often.”
The magnitude of the challenge is evident across New York. 21 children and young people were killed last year, more than double that number in 2020, leaving empty spaces in their classrooms. A 3-year-old girl was hit in the shoulder in March while leaving the Brownsville, Brooklyn day care center.
The following month, Angellyh Yambo, a 16-year-old from the Bronx’s Melrose neighborhood who aspired to be a model, was killed when he was hit by a bullet while returning home from school. Two other teenagers were shot but survived, including Isaiah Duncan, 17, who told reporters that he had to struggle sleep fromnightmares because of violence.
A week after the Bronx shootings, more than 150 East Flatbush students — most of them black children ages 12 to 14 — raised candles to mourn another loss. Their 7th grade classmate, Kade Lewin, 12, was shot in the head in an identity confusion.
At one point during the memorial service, the three girls in the back row rested their heads on each other’s right shoulders, taking deep breaths. The two boys in black sweatshirts with hats hugged each other for 10 seconds, wiping their tears.
Tatiana Barrett, a 14-year-old student at K763 Brooklyn Academy of Science and Technology, said in an interview that she struggled to move forward after the shooting, making several trips to her children. the street where Kade’s family car was parked, and his mother’s house.
She has trouble concentrating, often describing herself as “brain foggy”. Her mother said she had withdrawn and asked to spend more time alone.
Tatiana mourned Kade, whom she had known for four years, at his funeral on Wednesday. Regarding his burial the next day, she told her mother that “she couldn’t stand it.”
David Walcott Jr., a 12-year-old schoolmate, asked to stay home after the memorial service and funeral, the boy’s father said. He had become nervous, worried who might be the next victim. On a recent morning, around 2 a.m., David was shaken when a noisy car drove past their home while he was watching television and made a noise that sounded like gunfire.
“Why do we live here?” His father, David Walcott, recalled his question. “He said he was beginning to understand racism. He said, ‘It just happens in our neighborhood that innocent people are dying.’ “
East Flatbush teenagers released three turquoise balloons into the sky at the end of their Kade memorial service, filled with poems and writings. The wind picked up the branch, where it swayed, reminiscent of the nagging pain at the nearby school.
Kirsten Noyes research contributions.
