KING COUNTY, Wash. — If it seems like teenagers are involved in more crimes of gun violence than in the past, and more young teens seem to be caught carrying arsenals of guns, our KIRO 7 investigation confirms, that both of those things are true.
According to King County gun violence data, since 2017, 58 teenagers ages 11 to 17 were killed in gun violence in King County alone. According to police and prosecutors, the majority of the triggers were pulled by other teens. Those numbers are trending higher than the previous ten-year span.
Multiple police sources tell KIRO 7 they’ve never seen more teens carrying automatic weapons. Last July, Seattle police caught three teens, two 14-year-olds and a 13-year-old, carrying stolen handguns that had been modified to be fully automatic.
KIRO 7 requested evidence photos and details from several police agencies of guns confiscated from teenagers, and they supplied dozens of examples.
Three weeks ago, three guns were taken from one teenager after a high-speed chase in Auburn. Auburn police say the guns were stolen and all were modified to be machine guns.
“The least little aggravation and they’ll pull out a gun and start shooting,” said Cloyd Steiger, who now teaches homicide detectives, after solving murders for the SPD for 22 years. Lately, Steiger has noticed a clear pattern.
“They just assume nothing’s going to happen to them. And you know what? They’re right most of the time,” he said.
According to Seattle police, a 15-year-old recently arrested in Seattle with a stolen gun in his waistband had been arrested only months before for drive-by shooting with a different stolen gun. According to Title 13 of Washington State Law, the teen had to be released both times without an extended period of detention.
On March 5, 2023, when 29-year-old Karel Juarez was gunned down in front of his girlfriend and three-year-old daughter in White Center, 16-year-old Charles Anthony Baker was arrested and charged with his murder. King County Prosecutors discovered Baker had been arrested two previous times with stolen guns in Snohomish County, but state law required Baker to be released from custody each time. Because the latest charge includes a murder case, Baker, who is now 18, is now charged as an adult. He has pleaded not guilty.
State law says a juvenile can be arrested for gun possession five times, with five different guns for five different gun-related crimes, before a judge even has the legal option to send a teen to detention for longer than 30 days. Steiger says it’s no wonder the same teens make deadly choices again and again.
“Because there are no consequences,” he said. “You have to have that threat, that hammer of the law over your head that if you don’t do these required things, it will fall, and you’ll just go away. To wait five convictions is outrageous!”
King County Prosecutors told KIRO 7 there are seven teenagers currently charged with either murder or first-degree assault after previously being convicted of unlawful gun possession as a juvenile. Some of the suspects have multiple previous arrests for gun possession, or using a gun in a crime, and all of them were released sooner than the 30-day maximum.
State Representative David Hackney, a Democrat from the 11th Legislative District proposed a bill to stiffen penalties for teen gun crimes, but his idea died without even getting a hearing.
So where are all the guns coming from?
You might see signs in parking lots warning you about this. FBI data shows overall, the vast majority of guns are stolen out of parked cars than anywhere else. In Renton last year, 86% of stolen guns were taken in car prowls.
KIRO 7’s investigation spanning six years of data shows in Seattle alone — an average of 407 guns are reported stolen every year, the majority coming from car break-ins. From 2018 to 2023, two-thousand, four hundred, and forty guns were reported stolen. In 2005, then Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske reported his Glock 32 stolen from a car parked at 4th and Olive downtown. The gun has never been recovered. Steiger noted once teens acquire stolen guns, they tend to pass them around.
“Frequently we find guns involved in a drive-by over here, it was involved here,” he said. Steiger told KIRO 7 he matched a stolen gun used by a juvenile to another unresolved murder six years before. Same gun, but the trigger was very likely pulled by a different killer.
Deputy Chief Ryan Rutledge of the Renton Police Department is trying an innovative approach, that seems to be working.
Renton’s Violent Crimes Unit is dedicated to getting stolen guns — and teens making violent choices — off the streets. Deputy Chief Ryan Rutledge says the effort has led to a significant drop in juvenile crime since last year.
“We don’t believe that just putting somebody in secure detention without any plan is going to be a great idea,” Rutledge said, noting a program called LINC (it stands for leadership intervention and change) works to inspire teen offenders with influence and guidance from mentors, counselors and officers.
“So, while they are in custody it’s an intervention,” he said. “It’s a new chance to connect, it’s touch point, where that youth has a support system before they get released.”
“They have not attended school for multiple years.”
“We actively ask the judges to hold those children in detention,” said Jamie Kvistad, the Senior Deputy Prosecutor for juvenile crimes in King County. Kvistad told KIRO 7 she charges kids for gun possession virtually every day, and she says one thing connects almost all of them.
“I see these kids screened in on a detention referral, I read their detention screening notes, and it says they have not attended school for multiple years,” she said.
Kvistad analyzed almost 60 cases of kids arrested for gun possession, and she found nearly 90 percent had not been enrolled in school. Sometimes, they’d been truant for years. She believes reconnecting at-risk kids with school earlier changes everything.
“I could tell you, it will solve violent crime for juveniles if we could do that,” she said.
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