Report: Armed and Underage

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - So far this year, Indianapolis families have buried seven teens killed in shootings. Ten teens are facing charges in connection with fatal shootings this year in Indianapolis.

Every year the Marion County Sheriff's Department destroys thousands of guns collected from the streets of Indianapolis.

Some of those guns come from law abiding gun owners, but land in the hands of the wrong people. Some of the guns officers and deputies recovered were at one time in the hands of teenagers or used to shoot a teen.

The downtown police headquarters property room currently stores as many 18,000 guns or ammunition. Officers agreed to bring six boxes out to show 24-Hour News 8 - not wanting cameras inside the evidence room. The handguns are just a fraction of what officers have collected from the streets of Indianapolis.

Lt. Jeff Duhamell of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said, "We literally get up to about 800 or so a month come in."

He said if someone wants a gun in Indianapolis they can probably get one. Lt. Duhamell said many of the guns are stolen from law-abiding gun owners then traded or sold on the streets.

And, nearly 6% of metro police's firearms recoveries come from children and teens.

Like the three teens who broke into Don's Guns gun store on the city's west side, two 13 year olds and a 15-year-old. Police believe the guns, semi-automatic handguns and assault rifles, hit the streets soon after the robbery.

This year, teens have been the victims of several shootings. Some with teen suspects.

Last month, a teenager's birthday celebration turned violent when someone opened fire, grazing a 16-year-old girl and hitting a 14-year-old boy.

One week later, a Ben Davis High School football celebration ended in a homicide investigation when 18-year-old Rodney Harris II was shot in the head.

Nine days later, seven Arlington high school students walking home from school got in an argument with five former students. Police said one of the former students shot at the others, hitting a 16-year-old in the lower back.

Criminologist and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at IUPUI, Dr. Thomas Stucky said, "Pretty much as long as we've been keeping statistics criminal activity is a young persons activity. And it has always been and continues to be. So, I don't that there are necessarily drastic changes that we see."

Many of those teens end up jailed. Right now, there are 825 juvenile offenders living at Indiana Department of Correction facilities. Nearly a quarter of them committed crimes against other people with many of those crimes involving a gun.

And, teens committing the gun crimes are getting the guns illegally.

24-Hour News 8’s Gene Rodriguez went inside the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility to talk to 17-year-old Dominique Staten.

Rodriguez asked him "How easy is it for teenagers to get a hold of a gun?"

Staten answered, "It's very easy to get a gun. Get it from somebody or steal it."

It's how Staten said he got his first, second and third handgun.

Wabash Valley Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison that houses about 2100 offenders about 50 of them are under the age of 18 and Staten is one of them.

Staten said the first time he held a gun he was just 15 years old. He says it was a 3-80 special and he shot it. When asked how he got it he said he stole it. That gun, a stolen one, changed Dominique's life.

Staten said, "I didn't start robbing people, really robbing stores and stuff like that when I was 16. You know what I mean. I started robbing stores. I can get away with this, anybody can get away with this. Know what I mean, taking money. I was just money hungry. I guess at one point that day everything in my life had changed."

June 30, 2008: That's when Dominique's armed robbery spree escalated, at Mr. Gyro's on the city's west side.

Staten denied holding a gun to a woman's head, "I held the gun to her chest. I didn't hold it to her head. I held it to her chest. The only thing I heard was somebody saying hey, I kind of turned around and glanced I seen a gun pointing at me. My mind's like is he going to shoot first or am I going to shoot. So, that's how it happened."

Dominique killed 72-year-old Mario Gonzalez with a .357 Magnum he bought for $50 from a friend.

That gun, like many collected by IMPD officers from Indianapolis streets, had been stolen from a home on the city's west side just five days before the Gonzalez murder.

Police arrested Staten as he ran from a robbery scene just one week after he fatally shot Gonzalez. The gun Staten had on him at the time of the arrest was the same gun Staten used to kill Gonzalez. Within hours Staten was looking at multiple felony charges including murder.