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The Bulletin
April 14, 2025
Like many other American cities, Philadelphia experienced a pandemic-era surge of gun violence. But now, even as homicides there plummet, more children and teens are wielding guns.
In 2016, only three kids were charged with homicide in Philly. By 2024, The Trace’s Mensah M. Dean reports, that figure had ballooned to 26 — a nearly ninefold increase that marked four straight years of double-digit teen arrests for homicide. By comparison, from 2018 to 2022, just 20 kids were charged with homicide. The number of youth charged with nonfatal shootings was also up.
As Dean notes in his latest story, published…