TUCSON, Ariz — Tucson is far from the only place where a weekend, anger, poor judgement and the free flow of guns left people wounded or dead. Tucson has been working to reduce guns on the street and reduce the mindset that makes young people more willing to settle their scores with a gun.
In the past few years a drive-by shooting at a house party near University of Arizona killed 20 year old Erin Jones. Teens aged 17 and 18 were charged in the case. Two have murder trials coming up. Two are already in prison after pleading guilty to lesser charges.
Tucson Police say in a shooting outside a Hookah Lounge shooters fired more than 200 rounds, even though there was a police car with its emergency lights on working another call nearby.
In March two groups of teens encountered each other in Park Place Mall. There was a shooting. One teen was wounded. Another was arrested.
Tucson Police say last year 46 percent of homicide suspects were 25 or younger.
Most were 18 or 19.
The City is working to stop young people who have more firepower than sense.
Isaac Durgen works to cool down angry young men now. But he remembers when he was 17. He saw swarms of police at a friend's house and heard his friend Lalo was dead.
“I remember the first thought in my mind was ‘Oh, I got a gun’ , and I went home. I got the gun. I met up with these other teenagers. We all had guns. We had beef with other neighborhoods, and we were all in that car with our guns, and we're going to go over there. We're going to go because we knew it was them, right?”
He says they stopped short of shooting when they learned it wasn’t a gun that killed their friend. It was drugs.
A new effort called Scaling Safety brings a national organization’s support to help coordinate and pay for a wide range of organizations working to steer young people off the road to violence.
Boys to Men has mentor programs in 24 local schools. Counselors like Jah Hopkins give young people a place to talk out their issues so they don’t act them out with violence.
“They have the opportunity to express their emotions, what's going on, to talk about things that are maybe triggers. This is a way we kind of like to get them kind of before the violence intercedes.”
The city also uses a program called VIVA to track hot spots for gun violence and apply focused enforcement. The city says VIVA gets results with gun crimes dropping 75 to 80 percent in the four areas the program attacked.
