Denver Gazette reporter Carol McKinley published the first story in the ‘Kids in the Crossfire’ series Sunday. 

She talks about how she reported the tragic tale of the shooting death of 12-year-old Elias Armstrong, who police said was shot and killed by the owner of a car he and his friends allegedly stole in February.

McKinley spent weeks with Armstrong’s stepmom Turquisha Moore Armstrong, from whom she learned Elias’ older brother Torrence Lamar “Tiger” McCall, 16, also died from a shooting while fleeing police in a stolen car in October. 

This story delves into a family’s struggle to keep their children away from the lures of gang life, the statistics showing levels of youth crime in Colorado and an Aurora funeral home that’s on the front line of teenage shooting victims. 

This is the first in an occasional Denver Gazette series about youth violence and crime in metro Denver, what the community is doing about it and how children are navigating life in the era of school shootings and gang violence.