KCBA - Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz - News Weather-Teens Use Knives More Than Fists
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SANTA CRUZ, Calif.- A street fight once meant fisticuffs. Now police are worried teens are bringing something new to the fight.
Police officers throughout the city and county of Santa Cruz tell me they're encountering more and more people that are either carrying knives or using them in fights, especially teenagers. Central Coast News wanted to know if the perception of that good ole' fashion fist fight, has changed.
"Not just in gang culture, in popular media like rap and stuff it's cool to carry that stuff around. I don't think people really realize carrying something isn't going to make you safer, said sophomore Mattew Cox.
He and his Santa Cruz peers learned that lesson first hand, when a student unarmed got into a fight with someone who had a knife last October.
"As we saw with the tragic death of Tyler Tonario, when you engage in a verbal altercation that you maybe think is just a verbal altercation, or could be just a simple fist fight, it's now turning into tragic stabbings more and more," said Santa Cruz police press officer Zach Friend.
Santa Cruz police officer Barnaby Clark assigned specifically to schools says the amount of fights with knives on campus are rare.
"Students at santa cruz city schools don't bring those problems to school," said Clark.
But there may be a reason for that, "A knife that is a felony to carry on school grounds may be a misdemeanor off campus," said Clark. So teens wait until school's over to settle their scores.
"I've defintely been outside of school and people are showing what they have, flipping it out and showing what knife they have...usually it's just in their pocket, they don't pull it out at school but they don't have it completely conceled," said Cox.
"Acts of violence or what would start as a simple fight 10 or 15 years ago or when most of us were in high school fighting with fists, is now fighting with knives," said Friend.
And even though police say not every kid in every social circle chooses to carry a knife, "If that person has gang affiliations I'd say yes they'd be likely to have a knife," Clark said.
It all still has a lasting impact on the community and the teenagers in it, "Unfortunately, this has led to an increase in some significant violence in our area in the last couple of years with some very notorious homicides in the last year that were all due to knife violence," said Friend.
Watsonville Police Department points out that their encounters with teens and knives usually has to do with gang involvement. And with gang members recruiting at a younger and younger age, it's only natural that we'll see knives in kids hands even earlier on.
