The number of kids arrested with guns in the Big Apple has skyrocketed 137% since 2018 and has increased for six straight years, disturbing data obtained by The Post shows.
So far this year, 427 juveniles 17 and under have been nabbed with guns, compared to 397 for the same time frame in 2023, a 7% jump.
But it’s a stunning surge from pre-pandemic 2018, when 180 juveniles were caught with firearms.
“I read all the reports that come in at the precinct level, and I see a lot of kids on it, whether it be victim or perpetrator,” said Detective Frank Gagnon of the NYPD’s Collaborative Policing Unit. “The kids there, the kids on scene, the kids around for it. It’s terrible.”
The shocking stats come as teen-agers have recently been targeted by gunfire, including four killed in separate shootings on four consecutive days last month.
“It’s a really, really bad sign,” Chauncey Parker, the city’s new Deputy Mayor of Public Safety, said.
The murder victims included Clarence Jones, 16, who was shot in Harlem Oct. 24; Malachi Deberry, 15, who was shot in the head in Brownsville the next day; Taearion Mungo, 16, who was shot in the chest in Fort Greene Oct. 26, and 15-year-old Tristan Sanders, who was killed in Crown Heights Oct. 27.
Cops said they do all they can to keep kids from guns, but are hampered by the state’s “Raise the Age” law, which mandates minors caught with firearms appear in Family Court.
Before the law changed, 16- and 17-year-olds were arraigned in criminal court and many of them ended up jailed on Rikers Island.
“There are at least two cases I know of where kids had four or five gun arrests,” said recently retired NYPD Assistant Commissioner of Youth Services Kevin O’Connor. “They were just released, released, released.”
Judges in family court aren’t even told how many prior gun collars a juvenile has, he said.
“Raise the Age dismantled the system,” O’Connor said.
The city has been relying on programs that occupy teens’ free time, like Saturday Night Lights, which offers structured sports programs for juveniles on the weekend to get them off the street, and the NYPD’s Youth Community Officers, who try to catch troubled kids before they are arrested.
Gagnon now helps oversee the program and explained officers work proactively with kids before they land in hot water.
“That may involve school safety agents … it may involve our school administrative staff to get a better idea of what they’re like in different environments or who they’re hanging out with,” he said.
Gagnon and other cops would also stand outside schools during dismissal to see if the teens were hanging out with gang members.
“No kid just takes it upon themselves to go out and find an illegal gun,” he said. “Our goal was to figure out where that influence is coming from and see if we can steer them away from that and give them a different avenue.”
One teen, who was hanging out with gang members, posted photos of himself holding a firearm on social media and told Gagnon he didn’t know owning a gun was illegal.
“He’s like, ‘It’s illegal to just post that on the Internet?’” Gagnon said the teenager asked him. “I said, ‘Having it is illegal. Posting it on the Internet is just a terrible idea.’”
The teen improved after cops got his mom involved, Gagnon said.
“The kid’s never been arrested for anything,” Gagnon said. “For him not to be arrested and no longer associating with kids responsible for a significant amount of gun violence was huge for us.”
Police were less successful in the case of another kid who had been arrested with a friend who had a gun. The boy’s parents were not cooperative, and eventually the teen brought a gun to school and was arrested.
“That’s the tough part about our job as youth officers,” he said.
