Baltimore activist discusses uptick in youth violence following shooting death of high school student
BALTIMORE - A Baltimore activist discussed the uptick in youth violence that has struck Baltimore City in 2023.
Dr. Ted Sutton, from the group "Men Against Murders," is a former gang member who knows better than anyone what is going on in the streets of Baltimore.
Sutton also created the "People Can Change Youth Movement" and "People Can Change Ministries."
"I've been to too many funerals of 15 and 16-year-olds in just the last couple of months. It's almost at a staggering number," Sutton said.
On Monday, a Patterson High School student was gunned down at Joseph E. Lee Park, nearby the school, shortly before school dismissed for the day.
That marks another Baltimore City Public School student who has been killed in less than three months this year.
In January, 16-year-old Deanta Dorsey, a student at Edmondson-Westside High School, was killed during lunch time at nearby Edmondson Village Shopping Center.
D'Asia Garrison, a 17-year-old, was the first murder victim in 2023.
In late January, Forest Park High freshman LaRon Henderson was murdered near his school.
Sutton said some of the uptick in crime can be blamed on the pandemic, with children being out of school for so long, parents losing jobs and children feeling hopeless.
"You had children that, once you opened up the school, everything was just going to be rainbows and cherries, and that wasn't really the case," Sutton said. "It was almost like being traumatized. There should have been some wraparound services for some of these youth because a lot of them came back with almost a loss of hope. When you lose hope, you create almost the perfect criminal, with nothing to lose."