A 7-year-old boy in St. Louis was shot and killed Monday -- the latest in a recent string of deadly shootings of children in the St. Louis area.
But this summer has been particularly violent, especially for young children, experts said. Among the children who have died by gun violence is a"It's not unusual for teenagers under the age of 18, let's say between 14 and 18, to be shot and killed, unfortunately. But for children under the age of 12 to be killed in the numbers that have occurred in the last year or so in St. Louis is unusual," said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Rosenfeld added that St. Louis has"the conditions that give rise to high levels of firearm violence that every other city with a firearm violence problem has, but to a more extreme degree." Among the factors he cited: racial segregation, high levels of joblessness and poverty, and many drug-related incidents of violence.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately return an inquiry from NBC News about how many youth were fatally shot in prior summers. Rosenfeld said he suspected that more young children were being shot this year because of"the greater use of automatic weapons and more rounds discharged at a target."
"If the target happens to be near a child, the child is more likely than in the past to be killed," he said.drug-related activity“This case should be solvable,” he said at Monday's press conference. “This can’t be, ‘I’m afraid to talk to the police.’ I’m hoping people will listen to my plea.”
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