Tulsa Police Notice Rise In Violent Crime Involving Juveniles

Tulsa Police say three shootings in just the last week have all involved juveniles. Police say they are seeing an uptick in crimes involving juveniles and it's a big concern for them right now.

Since Sunday, a 17-year-old was arrested for shooting and killing a man, a 15-year-old was shot at an apartment complex, and two more people were injured during another shooting that police say involved juveniles.

Police say it is a problem they are paying close attention to.

Officers say they see an increase in crime every summer, from property crime and petty theft, all the way up to violent crime and they say kids being out of school does play a factor.

According to police, juvenile violent crime is being addressed from the top down in the department, from administration, to investigators to patrol.

Police say their concern is if kids are getting involved in violent crime at a young age, it may continue when they're adults.

It is hard to solve it right. We can find suspects, we can identify them, identify these kids, but what we want to try to do is deter it. Anything we can do by putting more people in the area, putting more investigators in on these cases, whatever we've got to do, we are working on doing that but it is a focus," said Tulsa Police Officer Danny Bean.

Police say they do see a lot of these shootings tied to gang activity.