‘Kids trying to live’: A novel study in Brooklyn explores why teens are carrying guns

From the spring of 2020 to 2021, as gun violence was spiking across all five boroughs amid the COVID-19 pandemic, something unusual was happening in a covered backyard of a Crown Heights storefront.

Young people, aged 14 to 24, were trickling in, leaving beefs and street affiliations on the outside. They were paid $30 for their time, and came into a neutral space with potted plants and cozy chairs, where they sat down to answer a fundamental and complicated question: Why do you carry a gun?

The backyard was shielded by a tent to protect the identities of the participants, who in some ways were risking their safety by just being there. No one wanted to be perceived as “snitching.” But in the security of that space, they opened up, exposing vulnerabilities and thoughts they’d maybe never spoken out loud.

“I’d rather go to jail by 12 than die and get carried by six people,” said one study participant about why he carried a gun.

“To be honest, I never liked guns but I always have it on me … I had to protect myself like I always had to be there,” said another.

“If I’m going to get killed, I might as well have something on me to defend myself,” said a third.

Over the course of about six months, the researchers interviewed 103 young people, mostly young men, who said they’d carried a gun within the previous year. Reasons ranged from concerns about police, protection from others and involvement in street hustles — but they mostly shared a common theme: the fear of dying.

The data and interviews were compiled into a study, funded by the Center for Justice Innovation and exclusively previewed by Gothamist, called “Two Battlefields: ‘Opps,’ Cops, and New York City Youth Gun Culture.”

The organizers say they’re hopeful the perspectives they uncovered can change major narratives around crime, gangs, gun violence and safety, better informing the politicians and agencies that respond to these patterns.

Data and methods

Youth gun violence has perplexed the public and captured its attention for years, but qualitative data about it is limited and outdated. In 2018, the Center for Justice Innovation set out to change that, embarking on an initial project called “Gotta Make Your Own Heaven.”

After interviewing 330 participants across the Bronx, Harlem and Brownsville, the researchers found out where young people were getting their guns.

“That was the first data set of that size that had qualitative data since like the late 1990s,” said Elise White, one of the researchers. “So if you think about it, it's like people are designing all these programs, these interventions, coming up with policy and practice with data that's … very, very old.”

For the “Two Battlefields” project, the organization wanted to go deeper: What was driving young people to pick up and carry guns? The problem was building enough trust with those individuals to encourage them to talk freely and openly about their experiences.

Enter Basaime Spate and Javonte Alexander: two Crown Heights natives who had lived through their own encounters with gun violence and the justice system. They decided to try the project in their own community, where they had long-standing relationships with local street networks.

There were serious challenges: COVID was spreading, and a local war between the Woo and Choo gangs was heating up. When Spate and Alexander brought in some young people from their networks to help with the process, they said they were worried about the possible implications of sharing their experiences.

“They didn't have the voice nor like the knowledge of like, is this like telling?” Spate recalled.

With perseverance, empathy and the promise of anonymity, the researchers were ultimately able to break through. The young people wanted to talk, and provided nuanced accounts of their biggest fears: being attacked by cops, or “opps”— members of rival gangs, people in the street economy or just random assailants.

Fear

An overwhelming majority of participants said they were carrying because they were scared of what other people could do to them.

“A lot of times, the portrait that people have in their minds of gun carriers is that they're just like antisocial criminals out there who have no concern for people’s life,” White said. “In fact, what we find, almost across the board, is that they're very mindful of what it means to carry a gun. They know that it's a serious thing, but they also feel like they just don't have other choices.”

White, Alexander and Spate said the young people they surveyed felt let down by society’s usual sources of safety, especially police.

“Thirty five, like a third of the participants, said that fear that they're going to be killed by the police is a reason that they carry that gun,” White said.

For many of those participants, carrying guns – and being feared themselves – was the best way to ensure survival.

“Carrying a gun makes you feared, makes people scared. It’s fear, not respect,” one participant is quoted as saying. “Everybody want to be feared, not even respected nowadays in this age, you feel me? So it’s like they rather do something to gain the fear, instead of gaining respect and gaining trust.”

The study outlines four main reasons that participants carried guns. The researchers said understanding each category is essential for the criminal justice system responding to these offenses.

“A lot of people carry for image. A lot of people don't want to be shooters,” Alexander said.

“I think that is an important thing for policymakers and practitioners to understand, is that not all people who carry guns are doing it for the same reasons, and so every intervention is not going to work for every single kind of person,” White said.

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Crown Heights gun carriers fall into the following four categories, according to the study:

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• Carrying for protection: “I’m not trying to kill nobody. I’m not a killer,” one participant said. “It’s not about being cool or being tough or nothing. It’s just more about being safe.”
• Carrying for image: People who might brandish a gun in a group, flash it to intimidate opps, or shoot and intentionally miss, and people likely to get into beefs about false claims or representation.
• Carrying for street hustles: Drug dealers and scammers carrying large quantities of cash or goods might carry to protect against robberies, seldom intending to shoot or kill. “I’m in the streets, I’m traveling, selling all different kinds of drugs. They’re going to try to rob me or kill me for whatever I got. I feel I need mines.”
• Shooters: The smallest percentage of those surveyed were the carriers who regularly went on the offensive, killing others perceived as threats.

Surprises and Myth Busting

The researchers said they feel the study could alter common tropes relating to gun violence among young people.

While society perpetuates the idea that all gangs, and everything that occurs within them, is bad, the researchers emphasized this wasn’t always the case.

Sixty-one percent of interviewees said they’d been part of a gang or street network: some of which were just loose groups of old friends from the same block, others of which were structured, larger groups affiliated with national gangs like the Bloods, Crips or Gangster Disciples.

In many cases, the young people said their gangs helped them stay safe on the streets, providing them with resources and support where their families could not.

“People with no family can go to a gang and now he got a roof on his head, now he can eat,” Alexander explained.

One participant said fellow members of his gang had encouraged him to stay on the right path. “They used to give me advice. We used to just talk, bond. We was like family … They used to still tell me to go to school, get my money but I had to still chill with them.”

The researchers said they also hope the study will dispel the misconception that everyone carrying a gun intends to kill someone.

“Them choosing to pick up the weapon really is an act of resilience,” White said. "It's them saying, ‘I'm going to claim my own life. I'm not going to let you take it.’”

Prevention strategies and next steps

The NYPD says 67 kids under the age of 18 have been the victims of shootings so far this year. While that number is lower than this time last year, it continues an unsettling spike in violence among kids and teens that started in 2020.

Young people aged 14-24 account for 37 of this year’s 123 gun deaths across New York City, according to data from the police department. Twenty-five people in that age range have been arrested for carrying out fatal shootings. The department didn't comment on the findings of the report.

As the city works to get a handle on the issue, White, Spate and Alexander have some recommendations for officials when it comes to gun violence prevention strategies.

Alexander said paying jobs for young people are key.

“I feel like once you have something to look forward to financially, it keeps your mind away from thinking negative,” he said. “If your back against a wall, you think about stealing, you think about robbing. It doesn’t necessarily mean you're a bad person, just your back against the wall, and you might gotta make ends meet that way.”

Spate said partnering with local gangs, instead of isolating young people from them, is crucial.

“Most programs are like trying to bring a youth in, especially if they're part of a street network that's in the community, and try to isolate them from that and try to help them from there, which is not realistic,” Spate said.

Hiring credible messengers and meeting with local gang leaders are important ways to incorporate those networks, he said.

The study and methods have since extended to other cities in other states: Detroit, Wilmington and Philadelphia. White, Alexander and Spate helped direct the researchers there, and the results will be published later this year.

In the meantime, they all say they remain committed to keeping up their work with the Crown Heights youth beyond the scope of the study.

“How can we continue this, but not in a research form, right? I think that’s our challenge right now, off the information and the vulnerability we got from the youth in our community,” Spate said.

“I think it's essential that people who are designing programs, that people who are designing policy keep in the back of their minds that these are really children who are trying to live,” White said. “That's all they're trying to do, is survive to see another day.”

Neil Mehta contributed reporting.