PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014In the last two weeks, we\u2019ve covered tragedy after tragedy involving teens in the Valley: teens involved in gun violence and even a deadly case of drinking and driving.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re digging into why our kids are making dangerous decisions.<\/p>\n
This week alone, a teenage girl from Gilbert died Monday after a car she was driving slammed into a tree.<\/a> The car was full of teens, and police say they were drinking.<\/p>\n Then two back-to-back shootings happened<\/a> Thursday night.<\/p>\n The first one occurred near 37th and La Salle streets in south Phoenix. Around 7:30 p.m., police found three teen boys shot, one of them dying as a result. Detectives are still working out what they were doing and why they had guns.<\/p>\n In the second shooting that night, on 31st Avenue and Park Street, officers found another young boy shot. What happened there is still a mystery, too.<\/p>\n \u201cDrinking, guns, violence escalating, you\u2019re looking at dis-regulated emotions and taking out those dis-regulated emotions on other people,\u201d said Katey McPherson, a mental health advocate who works with teens.<\/p>\n McPherson says the reasons kids turn to violence are more than just \u201ca bad day\u201d. Genetics, environment, inability to cope, and substances are all factors. A major one is also social media.<\/p>\n \u201cThe clicks and likes we saw with the Gilbert Goons and Preston Lord and social media plays a role in accelerating what\u2019s going on,\u201d McPherson said.<\/p>\n She also pointed to the recent violence across the country that kids have access to seeing with a click of an app.<\/p>\n \u201cWith social media, I mean here in Arizona I feel like last month with Charlie Kirks memorial, the shooting in Minnesota it was madness pure madness. I got so many phone calls from parents from one side and the other like \u2018how do I talk to my kids about this?\u2019 He saw him [Charlie Kirk] shot on TikTok. I mean that\u2019s outrageous that our kids can access that,\u201d McPherson added.<\/p>\n McPherson says there\u2019s no \u201cquick fix,\u201d only education. She\u2019s calling on parents to be more in tune with their kids, but also acknowledging they\u2019re struggling too.<\/p>\n \u201cParents have never been as stressed as they are now, I think the whole environment is noisy and stressed and is always going to be a part of how a child acts to the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n All three cases mentioned are still under investigation. It\u2019s unclear whether any arrests have been made or if the teens will face charges.<\/p>\n See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n