Three Raleigh murders, 4 teens arrested: Looking for answers to spike in juvenile crime

Just this week, Raleigh police announced that another teen was arrested in connection to a homicide.

Officers believe the 16-year-old played a role in the January shooting death of Luis Gerardo Guzman-Perez. He is the second teen to be charged with murder for the incident that happened on Cumberland Creek Road.

WRAL News has reported on four young people who have been arrested related to three separate homicide incidents. Three of those suspects were just 14 years old.

Raleigh police arrested two teens in connection to a January shooting on Cumberland Creek Road.

Then, in February, young teens were connected to two separate shooting deaths on the same day. One of them happened on Poole Road and another on Bragg Street. Officers arrested 14-year-olds in each shooting.

“We’ve got to start thinking of gun violence as a disease,” said Michael Easley Jr., the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina.

He said there a several reasons for the spike, including declining mental health, the pandemic’s effects on productive extracurricular activities and more access to guns.

“As we have loosened gun laws and increased proliferation of guns in our community, we’ve outpaced the knowledge and understanding … on how to keep those guns secure and safe and out of the hands of dangerous people or young people who don’t know how to use them and don’t have respect for firearms,” Easley said.

Just last month, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told WRAL News that her office was handling at least 12 homicide cases with a suspect under 18 in the span of a year and a half.

Another issue to consider in this conversation is the change in state law that now classifies 16- and 17-year-olds as juveniles.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety 2022 annual report on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention shows a marked increase in the state’s overall delinquency rate. It rose by 49% in 2022, more complaints were received in 2022 than in 2021. In 2022, 44% of all complaints received were linked to 16- and 17-year-olds.

Late last year, a new law went into effect that made changes to the juvenile justice system. It allows a judge to decide whether to release names, photos and other information about juveniles who are suspected of violent crimes and could pose a threat to public safety or to themselves. In emergency situations, it will allow law enforcement to release that information without a court order.

Another section of the new law requires 13- to 15-year-olds accused of first-degree murder to be tried in adult court, not juvenile court, if they're indicted by a grand jury, or if a judge finds probable cause that they committed the crime. It will also require 16- and 17-year-olds to be tried as adults for violent crimes like armed robbery, rape or manslaughter, repealing some of the discretion current law gives to prosecutors in those cases.