Let’s Call the Rise in Violent Juvenile Crime What It Is: A Cry For Help

What did we think closing public schools for over a year would produce?

U.S. Marshals Service alongside partner federal agencies and local law enforcement conduct enforcement operations focusing on state and local felony cases of homicide, sexual assault, robbery and assault during Operation North Star (ONS) in the New York City, N.Y. On May 27, 2022, USMS Director Ronald L. Davis announced the launch of ONS, a month-long National Enforcement Initiative in June aimed at combating violent crime in ten cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Memphis, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., which have a significant rate of homicides and shootings. June 27, 2022. (U.S. Marshals Service photo by Bennie J. Davis III)

A ten-year old child and his older brother, 14, turned themselves in to Philadelphia police this week, implicated in the recent death of an elderly man. The young boys, and presumably their parents, probably had little choice; video and photo stills of the kids’ faces have been plastered all over the news and throughout the community for two weeks.

The entire chilling crime, in which a 73-year old man walking home the night of June 24, 2022, was first accosted, then beaten to the ground and set upon by a group of seven teenagers wielding a parking cone, was caught on surveillance video.

The perpetrators of the crime, who can be plainly seen on the video, were obviously very young from the first frame. Just how young would shock even veteran prosecutors in a city so suddenly beset by violent crime, the Mayor himself recently voiced his job dissatisfaction before adding he couldn’t wait to leave office and, presumably, Philadelphia forever.

As of today, two more suspects in the highly-publicized beating death of 73-year old James Lambert have turned themselves into police; a 13-year old girl and a 14-year old girl.