This is Part 2 of a series about gun violence in Bloomington-Normal. Coming Thursday: How very realistic-looking BB guns are causing trouble for police and the public.
Bloomington-Normal’s police departments have been sounding the alarm about a spike in juvenile gun crime—and are asking for the community’s support addressing gun violence across the Twin Cities.
According to Bloomington Police Chief Jamal Simington, the average gun offender in 2024 was 19 years old. Juvenile arrests jumped from 5 to 15 incidents between 2023 and 2024. Gun seizures sharply increased as well.
“The statistics are concerning in and of themselves,” Simington said. “So, we know we have a problem. That’s only the guns we have been able to seize. Those are only the incidents we get called about where we can hold somebody accountable.”
Simington said policing is a communitywide effort.
“See something, say something—that’s real,” he said. “It may seem like an old adage at this point, but truthfully, we need the community to be invested in communicating with the police so we can prevent things like this from occurring.”
Normal Police say gun violence is relatively steady overall, but juvenile incidents in the town are similarly on the rise. Officer Brad Park, a department spokesperson, said that uptick reflects both unplanned incidents—such as traffic stops or large gatherings where officers come across a minor with a gun—and those pursued through intelligence gathering.
“We haven’t had any specific programs or types of new patrols made, but it’s just officers out doing their job, responding to the calls and trying to get guns off the street,” Park said.
Increased calls for service in Normal also prompted the recent hiring of six new officers.
Risk factors
Bloomington-Normal has relatively low violent crime rates, including among youth offenders, but according to Illinois State University criminal justice studies professor Joanne Savage, the community has several of the “ingredients” leading to endemic crime.
“We have some segregation,” she said. “We do have a fair amount of impoverishment. And resources sort of come and go here. So, we would absolutely want to be mindful of not letting this devolve into something.”
Often, there’s an economic catalyst. If a major employer leaves, for example, affluent residents leave too, resulting in what Savage refers to as “concentrated disadvantage.”
Like cities, certain risk factors raise the likelihood of violent behavior among individuals. But it’s not perfectly cut and dry. Savage said teenagers who engage in criminal activity—even the most violent offenders—often do not persist into adulthood.
“There’s a random component,” Savage said. “Teenagers, especially young boys, flip a coin and see if your son’s going to get in some kind of trouble. It’s just very common among perfectly nice kids.”
One such kid was 15-year-old Cole Turner of Normal, who was shot and killed in a standoff with Bloomington Police in February. Turner had several risk factors working against him. Police said he aimed a gun at officers, prompting them to fire. It was later discovered he was carrying a realistic-looking BB gun.
Enforcement
Police data is one way of looking at gun violence in a community. Court cases are another.
The McLean County circuit clerk similarly confirmed a sharp rise in juvenile gun cases from 2023 to 2024, up to 14 from four the previous year. Fifty-six gun-related cases were prosecuted in juvenile court between 2020 and 2025, according to McLean County Court Services Director Suzanne Montoya, with all but one person between the ages of 15 and 17.
During that five-year period, 46 cases were resolved with probation. Three minors were sentenced to the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice; other cases are still pending. In an email, Montoya said, “It is important to note that the legislative purpose of the Juvenile Court Act is rehabilitation of the minor and not extremely punitive.”
Juvenile records are kept confidential and are more easily expunged than adult offenses. And juvenile offenders are often punished less harshly than adults—until guns are involved.
McLean County State’s Attorney Erika Reynolds said compared to the last five years, her office has sought more transfers to adult court in the past 18 months for repeat juvenile offenders engaging in higher levels of violence with guns.
In an email, Reynolds said her office considers “the character and history of the offender, the criminal record of the offender and the facts and circumstances of the criminal offense” when weighing the decision to recommend a transfer to adult court, something she said happens about twice a year.
“There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” she said. “The analysis starts with the juvenile prosecutor but is discussed with a team of prosecutors to determine if transfer is appropriate.”
Juveniles 16 or older accused of first-degree murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault or aggravated battery in which a firearm was discharged by the offender are automatically charged in adult court. In McLean County, those charges make up about two or three cases per year, Reynolds said.
Reynolds said the presence of a gun is almost always an aggravating factor.
“People fighting one another is not something that anyone wants to see, but there is a difference between two people getting into a fistfight and a fight that involves the display, threat or even discharge of a firearm,” she said. “It automatically moves a simple fight into a situation where someone, including innocent civilians in the area, could die.”
‘These are children.’
According to Illinois State University criminal justice studies professor Charles Bell, the pandemic should not be overlooked as a root cause of increasing juvenile violence.
“Post-COVID, we are in this environment where a group of children—they weren’t even allowed to go outside for most of their early lives,” said Bell. “Now they are interacting socially in person, many of them for the very first time.”
Bell said as a result, young people are lacking problem-solving and conflict resolution skills.
“We forget that these are children, and they are struggling to make sense of a world in which, hey, I was able to go outside, and now I couldn’t.”
Bloomington Police officer Bryce Janssen, a department spokesperson, said increased interest in firearms has contributed to the spike in youth gun crimes specifically, with firearms frequently trading hands and perpetuated on social media.
“It’s a commodity,” he said. “They’ll post pictures of themselves with it, kind of bragging, like, ‘Look what I’ve got.”
Police have also noticed an uptick in “hybrid gangs,” alliances of younger teens than those typically seen in organized crime.
“What we see with these younger hybrid gangs is they’re not quite as organized, but they still are causing a lot of issues,” said Normal Police officer Brad Park.
A gang without a name
Bell said kids see guns in media such as television and social media. Guns are viewed as cool and fun—as part of the culture.
“A lot of kids just want to test it out,” he said. “They want to see what having a gun feels like. And just holding in your hand as a child makes you feel tougher, popular—it gets you more respect.”
But the impulse to display toughness is also a coping mechanism for fear, Bell said, prompting teens to “one-up” a bully, for example, and build alliances for protection. Despite the presence of strict security measures in schools, he said, unmonitored spaces like school bathrooms, playgrounds or the route home from school are vulnerable to violence. Add social media to the mix, and a teen experiencing bullying has very few places where they feel safe.
“I don’t think that school officials or even law enforcement officers really understand that the lack of safety measures—and particularly when they don’t buy into the existing safety measures—how that fuels these gang-like attachments,” said Bell.
Such attachments have the potential to spill into the street, Bell said, resulting in the hybrid gang activity and youth gun violence noticed by police.
“When you think about what gang really is, it’s just an informal alliance that has an agreement to protect one another, share resources,” said Bell. “So, I don’t even think these students realize they’re in a gang. They’re just in a gang without a name.”
Survival mode
Youth brain development could also factor into juvenile violence. The frontal lobe, responsible for planning, impulse control and decision making, typically doesn’t reach maturity until around age 25. Advocates for prison reform say this is one reason to push for more leniency in the juvenile justice system—even when teenagers are charged as adults.
After more than 30 trips to the state’s prisoner review board, Ronnie Carrasquillo was granted a new sentencing hearing by an appellate court, based on an argument that his brain development was stunted growing up in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood in the 1970s.
“What released me from the system was the frontal lobes not working—the brain not working,” said Carrasquillo, who was sentenced to 200-600 years in prison for killing an off-duty Chicago police officer at age 18.
Carrasquillo spoke as part of a panel discussion at Heartland Community College last month. His father was mostly absent. His mother died when he was 15 years old.
“From the violence and the stuff that we’ve seen as children, my brain stopped at 15 years old,” Carrasquillo said. “So, I couldn’t be culpable for what I did at 18 years old. Basically, I had to prove that I was insane.”
Carrasquillo was released in 2023 after 47 years in prison.
Brian “King Moosa” Harrington of Bloomington is a hip hop artist and activist who advocates for decarceration and juvenile justice reform. When he was 14, Harrington was prosecuted as an adult in Winnebago County. He was involved in a “gun deal that went bad” and pleaded guilty to murder in 2007. Gov. JB Pritzker granted Harrington clemency in 2020 after serving more than half of his 25-year sentence.
“The result of why people act the way they do is just perpetuated harm,” he said. “These kids grow up in survival mode. They never learn how to live; they never learn how to be OK. So, when they play the cards that was dealt to them, they end up with a record. Now, once you end up with a record, you’re playing from behind.”
Fatima Monteiro, another speaker on the Heartland Community College panel, knows about playing from behind. She was 22 years old when she committed a crime.
“I look back now, and I just see a young, single mom who couldn’t figure it out, who couldn’t make ends meet,” she said. “And I just feel like I would want people to know that it can happen to anyone, and when your back is against the wall and you need to feed your kids, you’re going to do what you need to do.”
Today, Monteiro is an Illinois Prison Project ambassador and the community engagement manager for the John Howard Association, leading statewide listening sessions on accountability, reentry and prison reform.
Violence interrupters
Those who study violent crime have two key suggestions: Give kids something to do and listen to them.
“A lot of kids are frustrated because they feel that no one’s protecting them,” said Bell, “and then they’re criminalized for protecting themselves.”
Bell said increased security measures at schools — armed police officers, metal detectors and security check points, for example — make adults feel safe, but give little assurance to teenagers.
“We’ve never really asked students what makes them feel safe,” he said, “and when you talk to students, it’s relationships. It’s building that trust. When you set a guard with a large gun in a school—that just makes everybody feel uncomfortable... They have no idea what’s happening, and a lot of times they have no buy in or say so whatsoever.”
Restorative justice practitioner Kevin Jones similarly said proactive community building is the most effective way to curb youth violence.
Jones has worked with McLean County youth and families for 40 years, beginning at the Baby Fold in 1985. For two decades, he supported high-risk youth at the Regional Alternative School in Bloomington and the Regional Office of Education. Through his organization, Pathways 2 Restorative Leadership, he leads listening circles and has trained police officers, teachers, school administrators and corrections officers in conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques.
“Once we build relationships and community, we can manage conflicts a lot better,” said Jones. “Then when little things come up, we can address them in the moment and not wait ‘til they blow up.”
That means wraparound support from parents, teachers, clergy, social service agencies and extracurriculars, not to mention police. Bloomington and Normal's police community engagement units have created programs increasing positive interactions with officers. Both departments also host summer youth academies aimed at redefining cool, introducing teenagers to careers in public safety and building relationships based on something positive.
When things do “blow up,” Jones said negative behaviors are often a trauma response—and most conventional forms of punishment are passive. Detention, suspension and even encounters with the criminal justice system, he said, don’t deter youth from offending again because they don’t require them to admit the harm caused. In some instances, such punishment can also escalate the risk of retaliation.
Jones said restorative justice produces tangible, measurable results, particularly when it’s applied proactively. But sometimes, tragedies still happen. While Jones is no longer working at the Regional Alternative School Cole Turner was attending at the time of his death, he’s checked in with former colleagues.
“I know the great work they do. I know they worked hard with this young man,” he said. “And I know even after he was shot, that the Regional Alternative School put out something saying there’s another side to this person. Don’t let this be how we judge that person.”
A key piece of his work, Jones said, is “separating the deed from the doer.”
“You call out the behavior; the person has intrinsic value,” he said. “Because otherwise, you stigmatize and shame people and push them out of our community. You label them ‘bad kid,’ ‘bad parent,’ ‘bad police officer.’ And when you push people out of our community with stigma and shame, we push them into other communities who have been pushed out."
