Deadly violence among kids alarms advocates even as homicide rate dips

Two days stood between Xavier Fairley and graduation.

The 17-year-old had returned to Indianapolis in February to finish his senior year with his friends in the city where he grew up.

He promised his mother, who lives in Phoenix, that he’d call when he was ready to move into his dorm at Arizona State University where he was going to study computer animation and she could come get him.

More than two months after her son’s death, Rebecca Ridpath said she still feels like she’s waiting for him to call.

Fairley was shot and killed May 30 at an apartment complex on the southwest side of Indianapolis. Ridpath said her son was at a party where she was told a fight occurred, and he ended up getting shot. Fairley died shortly after arriving at a hospital. No one has been arrested in the case.

“It’s messing with my head drastically,” Ridpath said over the phone. “I just miss him so much.”

Fairley that day became one of several teens and children killed in Indianapolis so far this year – a pattern that officials are eyeing.

While the homicide count nearly nine months into 2022 is lower than the same time last year, the city's deadliest on record, the number of killings against people age 17 and younger is not following that downward trend.

Twelve juveniles have lost their lives to gun violence in Indianapolis as of Aug. 24, outpacing the number of teens and children fatally shot during the same time frame in each of the past five years. As of Aug. 24 last year, six minors had been killed. At the same point in 2020, 10 teens and children were killed in the city, and in 2019; seven minors died, according to IndyStar's analysis of police homicide data.

When it comes to non-fatal shootings, the latest police data show Indianapolis is just over a dozen victims shy of reaching last year's total of 79 kids, with four months left in 2022. Two of the most recent cases include a 9-year-old girl who was shot in the hand in a neighborhood on the northwest side of the city and a 7-year-old who was shot inside a car on the east side.

A noticeable trend

Community leaders and stakeholders acknowledged the deadly issue.

"We are seeing and hearing from our weekly shooting reviews and daily conversations with IMPD, community organizations, and schools that more and more youth under the age of 18 are being impacted by gun violence as a victim or perpetrator," a spokesperson with the Office of Public Health and Safety said.

Indianapolis in the first months of 2022 recorded a series of violent crimes waged against youth. In March, best friends Da’Vonta White, 14, and Isaiah Jackson, 15, were shot and killed in Dubarry Park. Weeks earlier, gunshots fired outside a Chuck E. Cheese tore through the pizza restaurant, creating chaos and fear among families inside. No children were injured, but a man was fatally shot in the parking lot. In April, Michael Duerson III, a 16-year-old student at Ben Davis High School, was killed on the east side of Indianapolis. Police after the arrest of two people in the case said they believe the shooting involved the sale of a gun.

Gun possession charges against juveniles are rising as well, officials said. A spokesperson for the Marion County Prosecutor's Office said there have been 418 firearm possession-related cases involving juveniles since 2020, "certainly" an increase over previous years.

As a response to the deadly problem, the city’s Office of Public Health and Safety for the first time in its search for applicants for grant money − up to $100k − said it will prioritize programs that directly intervene in youth gun-related criminal activity.

"The most promising crime prevention models and violence reduction strategies include those that target specific neighborhoods and communities," the grant reads, "for place-based intensive interventions, and those that provide targeted, evidence-based interventions to individuals."

Yet when it comes to an explanation behind the troubling trend, there’s no cut-and-dry answer.

No easy answers

Kia Wright, executive director of VOICES, said she can’t point to one catalyst behind the increasing number of Indianapolis teens or kids killed in homicides.

Guns, she explained, remain as accessible as a "candy bar" to some kids, as they have for years. On the flip side of the coin, there's been more support for grassroots organizations aimed at violence prevention, she said.

“Folks are doing a good job at working together across organizations,” she said. “I’m not really sure what is causing the uptick.”

One long-standing problem that's still rearing its head, Wright said, is fights on social media that end in gunfire. At the time she spoke to IndyStar, Wright said one of the organization’s students was the victim of a non-fatal shooting in the week prior, which came after an argument online.

“It’s scary,” she said. “It is one of the biggest, if not, the biggest problem in our opinion of what we’re seeing is causing a lot of this.”

Wright said the fights start in any number of ways, from songs posted online with lyrics making fun of each other to fake accounts targeting someone − sometimes a person's deceased relative.

"Now you're enraged and angry because people are laughing about it and now you've got to avenge the death...it's crazy," she said. "I tell parents all the time: (Pay) attention to your kids' social media, you'll know everything."

Last year, an argument on Instagram was said in court records to have been the motivation behind the stabbing of a 17-year-old North Central High School senior by another student.

Indianapolis police said violent crime that's stemmed from "beefs" on social media has been a problem for years.

“We’ve seen throughout the past several years that conflict via social media, whether it be Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or other types of social media, has precipitated various types of violent acts, including homicides, non-fatal shootings and other types of aggravated assaults,” said Lt. Shane Foley. “It’s conflict that really shouldn’t be happening.”

Foley said various employees within the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department monitor social media, particularly when tips come in, or when they see threats brewing. Depending on the severity of a post, officers may reach out to parents or if necessary, school police, to see if they can intervene.

But social media fights don't explain away every case of youth gun violence in Indianapolis. Wright further noted violence can be a symptom of underlying issues, such as hunger or poverty.

Wright said her best guess is the city’s youth, particularly underserved children, are just now feeling the lingering effects the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent shutdowns of programs and schools had on mental health.

“There’s a lot of hurt that’s happened,” she said. “It’s been heavy. These kids grew up in that. They’re only 14, 15, 16, 17 and think about what they have seen and endured?”

Additional funding

The city last year received an unprecedented amount of federal funding, $150 million of which is being used toward a three-year violence reduction plan.

The money helped expand the city's peacemakers program, which is housed under the Office of Public Health and Safety and employs people who work to directly prevent violence from escalating or serve as mentors. As of late July, the peacemakers program reached a staff of 50 people, among them being 19 outreach workers, 18 life coaches and seven violence interrupters.

While the program aims to help people 18 to 35 years old that make up the majority of gun violence victims or perpetrators, the office said its new grant is meant to invest in Marion County youth facing the same issues to "hopefully prevent them from becoming an individual that feeds into" those statistics.

The peacemaker program overseer, who handles cases involving youth directly, said she remains eagle-eyed for crimes involving juveniles that have seen an increase, such as robberies or carjacking incidents.

"I definitely notice it," Shardae Hoskins said about the increase of violence involving youth. "We're definitely trying to stay up on the trends and stay connected to the community and the stuff they hear."

Hoskins said she met with administrators from Ben Davis, North Central and Warren Central high schools "on a weekly basis" in the summer to see if a peacemaker could be stationed on campuses a couple days a week during the school year to help at-risk youth.

More:Who are peacemakers? A quick guide to the Indianapolis program aiming to curb crime

Whether the program will see results, beyond juvenile homicides, will be determined in the years to come.

For Ridpath, "anything" is appreciated when it comes to money being invested toward violence-prevention efforts against youth. No amount is too large.

Because her son, she said, is priceless.

Contact Sarah Nelson at 317-503-7514 or sarah.nelson@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Juvenile killings in Indianapolis outpacing 2021, city's deadliest year