Was the Roxborough shooting another case of an adult using teens as ‘boy soldiers’ to commit crimes?

There is a dark underbelly to the gun violence that’s plaguing our community. It is defined by relationships between men and boys, between leaders and followers, between perpetrators and victims.

I saw it this week when 15-year-old Troy Fletcher surrendered to homicide detectives in connection with the shooting death of 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde and the wounding of four other teens after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School. Fletcher will be charged with murder and other offenses, but he is not the only person who’s been accused.

There is also 17-year-old Zyhied Jones, who was arrested last week, and Dayron Burney Thorne, a 16-year-old who was still at large as of this writing. They are accused of unleashing dozens of bullets on teens who were going to their locker room after a football scrimmage. Like the victims, these accused shooters are children. But Yaaseen Bivins, who is in custody after police said he purchased 100 rounds of ammunition illegally and used it to carry out the shooting, is 21 years old. He is a grown man, and he’s accused of committing murder with a group of kids.

This is the reality we face as we grope for answers in a world where young people seek guidance wherever they can find it. Unfortunately, as we are learning from a case in which investigators said a man helped a group of boys to murder a child, the search for guidance sometimes leaves our children lost. This, unfortunately, is not new, and it plays out far too often in the world of gun violence.

» READ MORE: After the Roxborough shooting, I’m left wondering why our children are so willing to kill each other | Solomon Jones

As executive director of ManUpPHL, a nonprofit that provides mentoring, stipends, and jobs to young men to keep them away from gun violence, I’ve heard the stories far too often. While running our Listening to the Streets initiative, which brings in young men to talk about the causes, effects, and solutions to the scourge of gun violence, we have often heard about the mentoring that takes place in the streets. It is predicated on toxic leadership that uses boys to carry out violence. In exchange, the boys get acceptance, or jail sentences, or death.

One of ManUpPHL’s early participants, a 21-year-old Black man from South Philadelphia who’d been in and out of the criminal justice system, described what happens when young boys are swallowed up by the streets.

“It’s a whole different time,” said the young man, whose initials are Z.A. “The 30-year-olds, they not doing nothing. The young boys is really running the game right now … That’s how it is. Because I been in this jawn my whole life, bro. I know how the streets are going right now. You know what I mean? They all following 21-year-olds right now, because back when we was 18, 16, 15, all the old heads was leading us wrong, leading us to be crash dummies and all that.”

» READ MORE: Why the war on gun violence is also a battle against systemic inequality | Solomon Jones

He went on to explain that “crash dummies” is the term used to describe young boys who are used to carry out dangerous acts of violence at the behest of “old heads” — men who are often 30 or older. As Z.A. explained, boys are more apt to follow adults who are closer to their own age. Men who are 21 can hold tremendous sway over children who are desperately trying to find their way.

“Men who are 21 can hold tremendous sway over children who are desperately trying to find their way.”

I don’t know if that’s what happened in the Roxborough shooting. But when I heard that one of the suspected shooters was 21, while three others were minors, Z.A.’s words — which ManUpPHL recorded and transcribed for a 2021 academic study on gun violence — kept reverberating in my head.

Our children are being used as crash dummies, and like boy soldiers in brutal wars, men of ill will are marching them into harm’s way.

In order to confront that reality, we must first understand that those who would abuse our children will pretend to be their friends. They will feign interest in their well-being. They will give them the attention they crave, and then they will lead them like lambs to the slaughter.

Parents must accept that this is true, and then we must fight to position ourselves as our children’s primary leaders. The streets are always willing wage war to snatch our children. We must not allow the streets to win.