Thoughts, prayers and programs: Denver metro communities invest in preventing youth gun violence

One in four Colorado teens say they can access a loaded weapon in less than 10 minutes — an important number for researchers, since suicide is often a rash and impulsive act. Delaying access to firearms can save lives.

“The fact is that access to a firearm matters,” said Erin Kelly, a researcher at the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz. “Whether it's in the face of suicide or in the face of community violence, more people are likely to die if a gun is used.”

Still, Kelly postulates that many teenagers who carry guns are simply trying to feel safe.

“Carrying guns and then using them for self-defense or pulling them out in a threatening way — a lot of that is fundamentally because you feel unsafe,” Kelly said.

Against this backdrop, experts say policymakers have focused too much on symptoms over causes. Ongoing research continues to develop the best reporting systems and active shooter training for schools, but there has been little evidence to show clear backpacks, security cameras, metal detectors or arming teachers make students safer.

“You’ve already lost if you’re just looking for guns at the door,” Marc Zimmerman, co-director of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention at the University of Michigan, said during a November press briefing sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to review recent research in the field. 

In the fallout of tragedy, public discourse tends to focus on school security gaps. That’s not the full picture, Zimmerman argued. 

“What happens in the school building is just one piece of the picture,” he said. “We have to think about the interactions of students and the community.”

In Denver, organizations are trying out a range of approaches to prevent gun violence. 

Some are handing out gun locks and advertising safe firearm storage. Others take a more holistic view. The Sims-Fayola Foundation, for example, says gun violence prevention means supporting young men “from cradle to career.” The group focuses on everything from reading levels and graduating rates to gainful employment.

The group is one of dozens to receive funds from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s $450,000 gun violence prevention grant this year. “The organization is a direct result of everything I needed and didn't have as a young man of color growing up,” Dedrick Sims, the foundation’s CEO, said in a Zoom interview. 

Raised in a violent household in Pine Bluff, Ark., Sims credits a teacher for putting him on a better path.

“It was teachers who showed me something outside of my four-block radius,” Sims said. “When I saw that there was more, then I started to strive for more.”

Ever since, Sims has been trying to provide similar opportunities to young Black men. He’s carried that philosophy throughout his career, which has spanned everything from teaching high-school biology and being a principal to founding three charter schools.

Since 2014, he’s tracked a 60% reduction in suspensions and discipline incidents among the 16,000 young men who connected with the organization. The key, Sims said, is listening to youth — not simply forcing them in programs that can feel stigmatizing and punitive.

“A lot of times we've been guilty of doing things to them and not necessarily with them,” Sims said. “We have these ideas about what they need and how we can support them, but we rarely ask them the questions.”

Communities, he said, can be structured to foster gun violence — or to prevent it. “No kid wants to wake up and shoot or get shot, so there's a disconnect somewhere.”

Just over the city line in Aurora, a small team at the local police department is rethinking how law enforcement interacts with the community and whether more positive exchanges can prevent more crimes. As co-director of Aurora Standing Against Violence Every Day (SAVE), Michael Hanifin, an Aurora Police Department captain, talks about preventing violence through early intervention and relationship building.

In a Zoom call, Hanifin outlined the program’s efforts to offer resources to individuals who may be likely to engage in violence or retaliation. Along with resources, police also give a stern reminder that wrongdoers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Whether the program succeeds may ultimately come down to whether the department can rebuild community trust. It’s still under a consent decree with the state over racial profiling and excessive force, following the 2019 in-custody death of Elijah McClain.

“Establishing trust and legitimacy is certainly one of our biggest challenges with this program,” Hanifin conceded. “We do it week by week, contact by contact.”

As proof of concept, Hanifin pointed to a recent case handled by the SAVE team. A 16-year-old had been targeted by gun violence twice. Authorities feared he might try to retaliate. 

Hanifin recalled knocking on the young man’s door, flanked by social services and community advocates. They were met by the teenager’s father, who told them he didn’t trust cops. 

“That's where we started from,” Hanifin said — but “as we started to talk with him and explain what our goals and objectives are, he confided in us that he's a former gang member himself, and that it was very hard for him not to retaliate on behalf of his son.” By the end of the conversation, Hanifin felt he’d made a connection with the father. “I told him that your prior history and the things that you did in your past were not at my concern,” Hanifin explained. “We are about how we can help support you going forward so that your son doesn't experience those same challenges.”

As a young program, SAVE has just two full-time officers and a part-timer. The group is currently collecting data on the program's efficacy. It will likely take more than three officers to heal relations between the Aurora Police Department and young people growing up in the 80010 — Aurora’s most crime-dense zip code, which receives the most law enforcement contact and officer-involved shootings.

When it comes to gun violence, after all, many young people fear not just their peers but also cops. "Six months ago, my boyfriend was killed by the cops,” Tristian, 14, told Courthouse News just a few blocks from Nome Park, while waiting for her ride at a church where she receives tutoring.

That incident happened June 1, two miles east, on Dayton Street. Police initially decided to approach a group of teenagers dressed in unseasonably warm hoodies. When several ran out of a convenience store carrying vape cartridges, the officers suspected theft. 

Police chased Jor’Dell Richardson, 14, as he ran away down an alley wearing a white hoodie with a pellet gun in his waistband. Officer Roch Gruszeczka tackled Jor’dell to the ground and shot him, killing the young Black teen. 

An internal investigation cleared Gruszeczk after concluding Jor’Dell had taken part in the robbery and that responding officers believed he was carrying a loaded firearm. The Richardson family disputes these findings and is pursuing a civil suit against the Aurora Police Department. For Tristian, who quietly retells the story in a tone of disbelief, it’s as if she’s still trying to wake up from the nightmare. She and Richardson had been friends for a few years before they started going steady, she said. He was sweet and funny. “His mother raised him right.”

When she graduates, Tristian wants to be a lawyer. She attends tutoring twice a week. Not because she’s struggling, but because she wants to be the best in every subject.

"Everyone tells me — even Jor'Dell told me — that I love arguing and I always win arguments,” she said. “Even before he passed, we decided I was going to be a lawyer. Now, I want to do it even more because of cases like his." Asked how to make teens safer, she offered a unique suggestion. If cops can’t be trusted with guns, she said, then maybe no one should have them.

A bullet can travel 1,800 miles an hour, taking or altering a life in the fraction of a second. That’s roughly the speed of a jet plane. The only way to stay ahead is to think ahead.

At the nonprofit Make a Chess Move, operations coordinator Mauryell Smith El said that process starts with learning the rules of the game. “Chess is what we do,” he said. “However, it's only 5% of what we do, because we teach the kids about making decisions and critical thinking.”

With a background in journalism, Smith El moved to Denver in 2019. He began playing chess during the Covid-19 pandemic and joined the organization shortly after. 

Research has shown chess can help young people foster critical thinking, math and risk management skills. Smith El also believes the game helps kids look beyond short-term gains that might compromise the long game, and give them tools more powerful than a gun.

Smith El, who is Black, says many young Black men are indoctrinated into a culture where being tough means being loud and being armed. There simply aren’t given enough opportunities to brandish their brainpower instead.

In an effort to counteract that, Smith El now spends his days in local schools, teaching chess moves like the King’s Gambit and the Reti Opening. He shows students how to clear pawns and disable rooks and reminds them to always keep the endgame in sight.

Like a seasoned coach, Smith El draws constant parallels between chess and life, life and chess. The more you play, the more you see patterns. The more you see patterns, the more you win. Chess is a warrior’s game, he argues — but one won with brilliance, not bullets.

As Smith El has mentored young people in the game, he says he’s seen changes in their mindset. “They are so loud when it comes to saying something negative, but when it's actually time for them to sit in front of a room and display their brilliance, they're quiet as a mouse,” he said. That changes as they spend more time in front of the chessboard, quietly plotting ways to take out the opposing player’s king.“If you give them more positive examples, they'll start to expand outside of thinking they need to be tough and tote a gun or hurt somebody.”

Follow @bright_lamp

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit