A Deeper Dive: The impacts of gun violence on the Tampa Bay area

"I don't know what to think, I don't know what to feel. I'm numb," 13-year-old Ty'Quan Johnson's mom Clarareather Johnson said back in November 2021.

Her son was shot and killed riding a scooter just five minutes away from his home. You don't know the pain a family like hers feels until it hits home. 

"My daughter is never coming back. You have to think about what you put the families through," LaMaria Smith, the mother of 21-year-old Savannah Mathis said after her daughter was killed in December 2021.

Family after family in our community suffers a loss never easy to bear. 

"Breathing is different without him. It's just something missing," Shanika Staten, the mother of 21-year-old Jaquan Brown, said. 

Brown was a father to a 5-year-old girl and the latest taken in Tampa by a pulled trigger. It's a new normal Tampa police officers are trying to stop. So far nine people have lost their lives to bullets in Tampa.

"It's working with the community," Tampa's Interim Chief of Police Lee Bercaw said. "It's not just the police department, we need everyone's help."

He said the department is on the right track and making progress despite the recent rise in shootings and deaths.

"Last year, our violent crime involving a firearm was down nearly 6%," Bercaw said.

When asked at what moment he realized shooting deaths were rising and starting to become a problem, he said the pandemic. 

"The rise in violence was at that point and it wasn't just in the city, it was nationwide," Bercaw said. "Fortunately, in Tampa, we didn't experience it like other cities."

The city of Tampa started to see a gradual rise in deadly shootings over the last few years after seeing a dip in 2018. Nineteen people were killed in 2019. That number jumped to 35 in 2020, 37 the following year, then 38 in 2022.

The trend is almost reversed across the bridge in St. Petersburg

"The city has seen a decrease in violent crime, but you know, that could change tomorrow," St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway said. 

At least seven people have been killed so far this year, one from a pulled trigger. His department saw a sharp increase during the pandemic after seeing a decline from 2018 to 2020. After 10 people were shot and killed in 2020, 30 people were killed in 2021.

"I mean, every time you'd turn around, someone was being cited with some innocent people that were being shot and killed in our city," Holloway said.

He said it was time for people to put the guns down and have the conversation back when K'Mia Simmons was shot and killed in the passenger seat of the car while holding her baby. Her 3-year-old was in the back seat. The 21-year-old's death marked the city.

"Think about what that 3 or 4-year-old's got to live with for the rest of his life," Holloway said. "It was to the point where yeah, I was just frustrated and said 'we've got to stop this. We got to stop this now.'"

In 2022, the department cut down homicides by almost half with 16 people killed. St. Pete's crackdown started with more officers on the street. The GRIT, or Gun Response Investigation Team, was created to respond to shooting calls. 

"They will canvass the area to see if there are any witnesses and the most important thing, they will look for shell casings," Holloway said. "So we can see what type of weapons are being used and we can tell you if that gun was used at that scene, another scene and where these guns are being used throughout the city."

Detectives learned the majority of shootings were happening because of drug deals. Their tracking led to a takedown of groups profiting from their sales.

"Soon as we arrested those two groups that were selling so much narcotics in our city we saw our shootings go down again," Holloway said.

But the problem seems to persist in younger generations: Fifteen-year-old Zykiquiro Lofton was killed in St. Pete on the fourth day of this year. Six days later, James Lett Jr. was killed in Tampa at just 12 years old. In each case, those arrested were 18 and younger.

"I've seen the average age is around 17 for homicides and related to kids in the inner city," Bercaw said.

In both Tampa and St. Pete, guns are ending up in teenage hands. Police say the grand majority are stolen.

"Those young kids that are breaking into those cars, that's what they're looking for," Holloway said. 

Officers there are still averaging somewhere between 20 to 30 guns a month that are still being taken out of cars.

"Last year, we had about 200 that were taken out of unlocked cars and some of those firearms are used in offenses here locally," Bercaw said.

While officers continue to ask people to do their part and lock their cars, they're trying to give kids opportunities to get off the street like Tampa Police Department's "Shielding Our Teens" program, meant to help mentor those at-risk and give them positive alternatives through job opportunities.

"There's people that care," Bercaw said. "People are invested and it's not just a teacher, it's not just a family member, it's a business, it's the police, it's the community all coming together."

It's about a community coming together so they don't lose another one of their own...because hundreds of families have already lost too much. 

"We're gonna get justice," Staten said. "We definitely gonna get justice and we need the community to step up."

The Tampa Bay area communities continue to try and help teens stay off the streets. TPD's mentorship program helped 95 students get job offers from local businesses for this summer. In St. Pete, officers continue to try and crackdown on crime. Of the 16 death investigations in 2022, only one remains unsolved.