Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9308010132
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRED BAYLES ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Robert Lozano, 17, is shot in the chest at a neighborhood barbecue in Grand Prairie, Texas. The killing leaves his pregnant wife a widow at 16. His accused assailant: a 16-year-old boy angry at Lozano for sounding his car horn.
Lozano's brother, Jose, blames the gangs.
"They've shot at us about five times," he says with chilling matter-of-factness.
In North Philadelphia, Michael Douglas, 17, is shot in the back. Police arrest a 20-year-old neighbor, Michael Frazier. The two had fought earlier, with knife and stick, over a broken window.
Arthur Williams Jr. stands on a fifth-floor porch in a Chicago housing project when shots ring out. An aunt shouts to take cover, but the 13-year-old is killed by a high-powered rifle round. A 14-year-old boy is charged with the murder.
In the early hours of Monday, Ny-Aya Hill, 16, is stabbed to death, allegedly by an 18-year-old neighbor at her Brooklyn housing project. The reason: an argument over a boy.
What is shocking about these deaths is that they have become commonplace.
In some cities, teen murders have become so frequent as to defy the definition of news. They are given scant public notice - a few paragraphs in the newspaper, brief words on the evening news.
But to criminologists and public health officials charged with taking society's pulse, the deaths of Robert and Michael, Arthur and Ny-Aya are markers of an epidemic that shows signs only of worsening.
According to Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, the rate of murder among those 14 to 17 more than doubled since 1986. In the inner city, increasing teen violence has accounted for a disproportionate share of the murder rate. Nationally, on average, six teens die violently each day.
Houston saw teen homicides double between 1988 and 1990 alone. The toll is rising in Detroit: 40 youths between the ages of 13 and 19 were killed in the first half of the year; 54 died in all of 1992.
The killing is not confined to big cities. In Wichita, nearly half of this year's murders involved either victims or assailants 18 or younger.
This grim body count is dwarfed by the number maimed and traumatized by violence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that for every death, 100 are wounded.
"People often forget a lot of the violence is much more than what we see in the number of deaths," said William Wiist, a researcher with the Houston health department.
In the public mind, the violence is a crime problem, a reflection of growing lawlessness that calls for more cops and tougher courts.
But to Dr. Mark Rosenberg, an associate director and epidemiologist at the CDC, the steady rise in murdered and murdering teens points to a public health crisis.
"Epidemic is precisely the right word for it," said Rosenberg. "When people think of violence and homicide, they think of someone caught in the cross-fire of a robbery. But most of these homicides are not associated with a felony. They involve something else."
Monday. In St. Louis, Antjuan Jones, 16, is found dead behind a vacant building not far from home. Witnesses see three men shooting guns; there is little else for police.
Jones becomes a statistic: the city's 131st homicide this year, the 37th involving a victim or assailant 18 or younger.
On Tuesday, a shotgun blast kills Rason Sanford as he sits in his BMW at a Cincinnati shopping mall. Police find a gun in the 18-year-old victim's hand. Because he was arrested for drugs, police call the murder drug-related.
But Sanford's brother, Michael, says the two 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old charged in the killing were feuding with the victim.
Tuesday becomes Wednesday. Mary Hughes, 17, and a 13-year-old friend set to ambush her father in the backyard of her Houston home. She wants to kill him, police say, because she was upset with parental rules.
But the two teens argue, and Mary is shot in the neck. Her father finds the body.
Health researchers try to crack an epidemic by looking at three distinct areas: host, environment and agent.
By studying who is susceptible, contributing factors in the surroundings and the characteristics of the disease itself, cures and preventions can be developed.
Young males bear the brunt of this epidemic, representing 73 percent of the victims, Fox said. While whites account for 53 percent, black males face a five times greater risk of dying violently.
The epidemic is more pronounced in cities of a quarter-million or larger. Growth in teen homicides is taking place everywhere, except in the South, where the rate of increase is slightly slower.
Not surprisingly, young males also are the likely cause of death.
Boys kill 10 times more than girls; blacks kill six times more than whites.
Most of these homicides are intraracial. Ninety-three percent of whites kill whites; 92 percent of blacks kill blacks.
Slightly more than half kill a friend or acquaintance; 15 percent kill a family member. The remaining third choose their victims among strangers.
No matter the victim, killer and circumstance, firearms are used in three-quarters of teen homicides, a figure triple what it was in the mid-1980s.
"Our data suggests it's not necessarily that kids are fighting more, but the fights are being done with guns," Rosenberg said. "A lot of times, the only thing that differentiates the victim from the perpetrator is who shot first or straighter."
The killing continues Wednesday.
Gary Rios gets into a fracas at a Redlands, Calif., gas station. A short time later, he is killed in a drive-by shooting. Both teen-age suspects were involved in the gas station brawl.
The killing continues Thursday, Friday, Saturday . . .
by CNB