Rising youth gun violence a concern for Lane County DA, judge and police

Police and criminal justice leaders say they’re worried youth in Eugene and Springfield have grown increasingly comfortable with gun violence.

“It’s startling,” Lane County District Attorney Christopher Parosa said. “Some of our very serious cases over the last couple of years have been cases involving people anywhere from 14 to 16 engaged in gun violence against one another.”

“And that is really troubling. Really troubling,” Parosa added.

Parosa said he’s working with Eugene and Springfield police to apply for grant funding to support fresh approaches to a problem increasingly recognized by those working with youth.

More than 40 individuals attended a recent meeting organized by Lane County Circuit Judge Valeri Love to discuss youth gun violence, with police, district attorney’s office and youth justice coordinators joined by advocates working with youth in the community.

“One of the things that has struck me is youth seem to be way more comfortable with the idea of being around or handling a firearm than I could ever imagine,” Love, chief juvenile judge in Lane County, said during the May 21 meeting of the Public Safety Coordinating Council, an advisory group.

Springfield police in recent years have “observed trends involving juveniles carrying firearms, possessing stolen firearms, and using firearms during disputes and while committing other crimes,” Deputy Chief George Crolly said in a statement.

“SPD is responding to incidents that are, increasingly, involving guns, significantly increasing the risk of serious injury or death for victims, bystanders, and the offenders themselves,” said Crolly.

Love and Parosa both said there’s a lack of available data on the number of juvenile criminal cases involving guns.

Parosa described the types of violence collaborators are looking to prevent.

“A lot of what this is, is individuals who have some kind of a beef that arises and, in the heat of passion around that beef, it turns violent very quickly,” Parosa said.

Parosa said he reached out to Eugene and Springfield police after the Feb. 17 shooting of 14-year-old Major Clemens in Eugene.

The family of Major, an eighth-grader, says he continues to have a long road to recovery after sustaining a traumatic brain injury and undergoing multiple surgeries. Prosecutors have charged a 16-year-old Springfield boy with attempted murder and first-degree assault, with the case pending in juvenile court.

Upon learning of the shooting, “it was kind of a moment where it was like, something’s got to be done about this,” Parosa said.

After the shooting in Eugene’s Harlow neighborhood, Eugene police said they received initial reports of people running and vehicles fleeing the area, in addition to a report of shots fired.

Videos provided to Lookout of a physical fight involving Major show multiple youths involved. The videos are said to be from two days before the shooting, and show Major being punched by two youths at the same time and also a fistfight between Major and a different youth.

Parosa said law enforcement leaders have not observed sophisticated criminal street gang activity.

“That’s not really what we have up here, but we do have youths that travel around in packs together and kind of adopt some of the same mentality,” Parosa said.

Approach to grant funding

Parosa said the application for grant funding must be submitted to the state Criminal Justice Commission in June, with the amount of the request yet to be determined.

He said he wants to seek funds for a gun buyback program, but he’s not looking to put out an open call for people to bring in their guns. 

Instead, Parosa said he would like to reach out to families of youths already involved with guns.

“It would be nice to be able to go to their parents and ultimately say, look, we believe that your child has access to a gun, we’d be happy to buy that back from you to avoid the potential of them having that in their possession and maybe doing something really dumb with it,” Parosa said.

Eugene police have met with Parosa about grant funding, spokesperson Melinda McLaughlin said in a written statement May 28, but “it is too soon to determine how the grant funding will be used or what specific initiatives EPD and our regional partners may undertake.”

“Together, we are working to identify effective strategies and coordinate our efforts to enhance safety and support for young people throughout the region,” McLaughlin said of Eugene police.

Crolly said June 2 that grant funding “would provide a critical financial boost” for investigators working on cases involving firearms that he said are often complex and time-consuming.

“Many of these investigations extend well beyond a patrol officer’s normal shift and require detectives, officers, and supervisors to work significant overtime in order to identify suspects, recover firearms, and build prosecutable cases,” Crolly said.

Parosa and Love discussed separately the need for prevention and for talking to youth before problems begin.

With grant funding, Parosa said he would like to create “an educational component, where we’d maybe partner up with some other agencies and our law enforcement partners to go to schools to talk about violence … and some of the consequences.”

Parosa, speaking about the grant application, said, “the thought was one part interdiction, one part education, and then another part potentially using money to buy guns from these families that we’re interacting with out there on the streets, to try and take some of the guns off the streets and out of the hands directly of the youths.”

Love, at the May 21 meeting, spoke about hearing from others concerned with youth violence.

“I think everyone agreed about the need for, what can we do in terms of intervention and mentorship?” Love said. “Those positive relationships and interactions we can have with youth, how can we develop that?”

“There’s a lot more work to be done,” Love said. “But it was really nice to have so much interest in this issue, and frankly, it’s scary, right? I think everybody knows if we can intervene now when folks are younger, maybe we can have a greater chance of them being successful when they’re older.”