Violence cuts young lives short
Recent slayings of teens in Northern New Mexico — allegedly at hands of their peers — concern community
In many ways, adolescence is when life really begins. Marking the end of childhood, this new chapter is flooded with new responsibilities and freedoms, such as starting high school, dating, getting a first job and leaving for college. With these challenges and opportunities, teens inevitably do a bit of soul-searching, steadily finding their place in the world and exploring who they want to become as adults.
But for too many young people in the Santa Fe community this year, their time as a teenager has not been a beginning; it’s been an end. In just a three-month period, at least three teenagers were slain — allegedly by other teens — in Northern New Mexico.
Perhaps the most high-profile death was last month, when Santa Fe High basketball star Fedonta “JB” White was shot and killed at a party just outside of Santa Fe early Aug. 1. Although White was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, he lost consciousness and died later that morning. Estevan Montoya, 17, will be tried as an adult in the case.
White was just like any other teen, with dreams as high as the clouds. For him, many of those dreams were already coming true.
He graduated early from high school and, as a top 100 recruit, had plans to play basketball at the University of New Mexico this fall.
For those who knew and loved White — meaning much of the Santa Fe community — his murder came as a shock.
“It was JB White, he was so well known around [New Mexico], it’s so crazy that this happened to him,” said Rayes Baros, a sophomore at St. Michael’s High School, who met and played basketball with White for the first time just before White’s death.
“It’s crazy because I met him literally just like a week or two before he got killed,” Baros said. “It really had me thinking about how life can just be taken from you out of nowhere without any of your control really.”
Another teen killed in recent months was Aiko Perez, a recent graduate of the Academy at Larragoite and Engage Santa Fe high school programs, who was fatally stabbed June 5 by a friend. Matthias Hutt, 18, faces a count of first-degree murder after allegedly telling police he was under the influence of LSD during the altercation.
Another unexpected murder came not even one month before White’s death, when 17-year-old Ivan Armando Perez Chumacero, a rising senior at Capital High, was shot and killed on the city’s south side
July 15. Mario Guizar-Anchondo, 17, faces multiple charges in the shooting.
According to the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, New Mexico had the seventhhighest gun-death rate in the U.S. in 2018. Of the state’s 438 gun-related deaths that year, 33 were children and teens age 19 or younger.
Additionally, of the 20,360 deaths of people under the age of 19 in the U.S. in 2016, 3,143 were due to a firearm-related injury — the second highest cause only after car crashes, which resulted in 4,074 deaths — according to TheTrace.org, a journalism nonprofit focused on gun-related news.
Also according to TheTrace.org, rates of death from firearms among those ages 14 to 17 are now 22.5 percent higher than motor vehicle-related death rates in the country.
“It’s frightening that these kids can get a gun so easily,” said Rayes Baros’ mom, Yvonne Baros, a nurse in Santa Fe. “Minors have no business with guns. Here you can be 18 and go join the service, but you can’t drink till you’re 21, so you really shouldn’t be able to own a gun until you’re old enough to drink. People need to be older, and no way should kids have access to guns.”
Yvonne Baros said she wholeheartedly supports the Second Amendment but believes that only responsible adults should have any access to such weapons.
“A lot of the time, [kids] get guns from their parents, and that’s where you have to be careful about the type of kids your kids hangout with,” she said, adding she has a strong opinion on the role parents play in this type of violence.
Young people “need guidance,” she continued, later adding that because their brains aren’t fully developed, there’s “too much stuff out there that they aren’t ready for and they need to be raised and taught right to go into the world and see these things with a mature mindset.”
Still, parents like Yvonne Baros recognize there is only so much control they have over this type of violence. Yvonne Baros said her cousin was shot and killed at a party just a few years ago, and now she is much more worried about her children leaving the house without her there to protect them.
“You know, with JB, he just went out to a small party, thinking it would be just a small party, but then a bunch more kids show up and one of them had a gun,” she said, calling the death “senseless.”
“JB was climbing Mount Everest, not just for himself, but for his grandma and his entire family, and he was almost right at the top of Mount Everest, and someone just pushed him off,” she added.
One group working to address this issue is New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, an activism group “whose mission is to reduce firearm injury and death through public health, education, advocacy, and public awareness,” its website reads. The group works with all levels of the community and has done work to prevent gun violence through public education, murals and legislation, and it has a pledge for students to denounce guns.
As groups and individuals continue their fight to end murder by gun violence, the Santa Fe community clings to hope that things will change.
“The last few months have been extremely sad and scary, but I feel like the community has been brought together in a way, and I know that we will all work together to create change and make Santa Fe the best place it can be,” Rayes Baros said.
Ian Jose Hernandez Rojas is a sophomore in The MASTERS Program. Contact him at ianhernandezrocks@gmail.com.