The most shocking thing about them is their ordinariness. Like so many young teen-agers, they are insecure, materialistic, impressionable, not always in command of their anger and aggressiveness.
They often come from broken homes, and in many cases their mothers are hard-working women trying to build safe and comfortable futures for their children. They get in arguments that seem the petty stuff of coming of age -- a taunting bully, an insulting boyfriend, a stolen puppy. They want the things that will make them popular: Nikes, mountain bikes, presents for girls.
But what sets these few apart from other young teen-agers is that the state has called them killers. In New York City, 28 youths 13 to 15 years old were indicted last year in adult courts for murders committed in 1993. The cases were handled under a juvenile offender law intended specifically to move them out of family court and allow for tougher sentences. Thirteen of the youths have been found guilty of murder or manslaughter. Two were acquitted of murder but found guilty of lesser charges. The rest await trial.
Rodney Reid, who was 13 years old when he murdered an 18-year-old over a drug deal, says he sold marijuana to buy himself what he otherwise could not afford. "I made money so I could get myself things I needed, like sneakers," he said. Of the youth he shot, he said, regretfully, "He was all right."
Crime in general, and crime by the youngest in particular, has become a national obsession. The arrest rate for juveniles for murder has climbed 60 percent in a decade, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
But who are these youngsters? And why do they kill?
They often come from single-parent homes, seeking older friends in place of the father they barely know. But they are not all the children of a welfare-dependent, drug-abusing underclass. Half have parents or guardians who work.
In fact, the vast majority of cases are not directly related to drugs. Most of the killings were the result of robberies and disputes. The connection is often more subtle than a scrap over drug turf.
Rather, it is that the youth was high when the police say he pulled the trigger, or that his mother was an addict so he had to go live with a relative.
Most of these youths were not habitual lawbreakers. Six of them, however, had serious criminal records that provided some clue to the violence to come, according to a study by The New York Times of the 26 cases in which the teenagers have been convicted or still await trial.
More commonly, they were truants who passed their days on the streets. Ten of the youths had never been arrested. Another 10 had been arrested for lesser offenses like joy riding, fighting, or playing bit parts in the drug trade -- cases that prosecutors say were often dropped because witnesses did not show up or undercover narcotics officers were unwilling to blow their identities to put someone away for a few months.
And in a juvenile justice system struggling to handle growing numbers of serious felons, prosecutors and social workers have had fewer resources to deal with teen-agers charged with small-time offenses -- before they graduate to big-time trouble.
One factor does tie together 20 of the 26 cases: the availability of a handgun. The youths bought and borrowed guns easily. Some said they went to the black market on a street corner or in someone's house, where arsenals of were for sale.
A Fascination With Weapons
Guyce Hayes said he bought a .32-caliber handgun from a neighborhood crack addict for $40 when he was 14 years old. "I just bought it to be buying it because I had the money at the time," Guyce said in a recent interview from prison.
Others borrowed weapons. Tippy Jones, 15, got his TEC-9 from a friend he knew as "J.B." and Chauncey Forden, 15, told police that he found a .38-caliber revolver in his brother's room.
In a neighborhood equivalent of the arms race, some of the youths said they got a gun because everyone else seemed to have one. Shaul Linyear bought his first gun at age 15 for $100 on a corner two blocks from home after he was robbed twice at gunpoint.
Only four of the youths had been arrested on gun charges, though far more carried or had access to guns. A 1992 survey of New York City public high school students, conducted by city agencies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 7 percent said they had carried a handgun.
The number of juveniles New York City prosecuted for possession of a loaded firearm rocketed from 103 in 1986 to 750 in 1992, said Peter Reinharz, chief prosecutor in the city's Family Court. There were so many gun cases in Manhattan's Family Court last year that prosecutors needed a second evidence safe to store the weapons.
Most Victims Were Young
The teen-agers' victims fell into two categories: A majority were young and usually died as the result of a dispute, either as a participant or a bystander.
Eight were teen-agers. Usually, the victims were the same race as the person accused in the killing.
In contrast, all 10 robbery victims were adults. Usually they were a different race than the youths charged with killing them. All 10 suspects were black, while five of the victims were Hispanic, two were Asian, two were black and one was white. The victims were shopkeepers, cabdrivers, deliverymen or people just out for a stroll.
The weakened bonds of family and community -- bonds that have traditionally kept teen-agers in line -- also appear to have contributed to the violence, especially in urban black communities hit hardest by social and economic decay. Of the 26 teen-agers, 21 lived with a single parent, an aunt or a grandmother. Twenty-one of the 26 were black teen-age boys. All but two of the 26 were male.
A Lack of Alternatives
It makes sense, say sociologists, that the youth crime rates took off in the mid-1980's, as the growing number of children born to unmarried mothers in the 1970's entered adolescence at the same time that crack began eating away at the already weakened structure of many poor families.
Often, the youths in these cases confronted their crimes with bravado or naivete. Richard Siracusa, a criminal defense lawyer, said many youths involved in violent incidents, including his client Gerald Bunche, do not even hide out after a crime.
"These 15-year-old kids, they don't know where to go. So they go home," said Mr. Siracusa. "It amazes me sometimes, the police ask some kid to come down to the station, and they go, on their own carfare. Their own token. You or me, we'd be on the next flight to Miami. But these kids just go right in, like they're told."
ANTHONY KNOWLES, 13 Awaiting trial
Anthony was involved in a gun battle on Aug. 26 between rival groups of youths at the Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York, the police say. Toyatwenda Gillard, 17, was caught in the crossfire as she ran to the playground there to scoop up her son Donovan, 2, who had been climbing on a jungle gym. Ms. Gillard was struck by a bullet in the head and died draped over the playground fence.
The police said that Anthony, a slight, sweet-faced boy, was chasing Shaimond Johnson, 16, when he fired a .380-caliber handgun several times. Ms. Gillard's sister, Valena, said the bad blood between the two groups began with a fight during a basketball game in 1992.
Yvonne Knowles, Anthony's mother, said her her son is innocent and is being blamed for the crime by neighborhood toughs who bullied him. Anthony hung out with the wrong crowd because he was looking for older guys to substitute for the father he did not have, she said. She worried about Anthony's truancy, but was unable to get him to attend school, she said.
"I hate the projects," said Ms. Knowles, who moved after her son was charged in the killing. "They are not a place to raise any kids."
At the time of the shooting, Anthony was on probation for being a passenger in a stolen car.
GUYCE HAYES, 15 Convicted of murder; sentenced to 12 and one-third years to life
The blue Alfa Romeo throbbed with the beat of rapper Heavy D as it cruised Jamaica, Queens, on Jan. 31, Super Bowl Sunday. Guyce, a slim, reserved 15-year-old in the back seat, pulled out a .32-caliber handgun and fired a shot into the brain of 22-year-old Kevin Edwards, the driver. Then he swung the gun to the passenger side and put a bullet in 29-year-old William Cox's head.
No one, least of all his victims, had believed Guyce capable of such a bloody act. He was a shy, sickly youth who had to be taught at home by a public school teacher because he was asthmatic. His passions were rap music and cars. He hadn't even started shaving the fuzz on his upper lip.
"He was the little guy from the neighborhood," said Mr. Cox, who survived the shooting.
Guyce's father, Donald Chapman, an elevator operator, never knew he had a son until Guyce was indicted for murder and the child's mother broke the news to him. By the time they met, Mr. Chapman said, "It was too late for Guyce."
Guyce lived with his grandmother and his mother in Jamaica. They got by on welfare. When Guyce was a seventh and eighth grader, Steve Williams, a teacher of homebound students, came to their dilapidated house most weekdays. "Personality-wise, Guyce was the best," Mr. Williams said. "He was pleasant. He had a sense of humor. If I gave him an assignment, it was always done."
Guyce's friends and family say that when he was 14, he got mixed up with Mr. Edwards and Mr. Cox, known as Junior. Guyce says they pressured him to accept an old, broken-down Ford Escort that just sat unused on the street, gathering stacks of parking tickets. Guyce claims Mr. Edwards threatened to hurt him and his mother unless he sold drugs to pay off the tickets -- a contention Mr. Edwards' family called a lie.
"They forced the car on me," Guyce said in an interview. "It was a setup. They had customers on my block, and being that they knew I was always over, they tried to get me to sell to their customers."
Guyce worked for Mr. Edwards and Mr. Cox, he and his relatives said. Along the way, he bought a gun for $40. "He did whatever they told him to do," said Michael Reavis, Guyce's best friend's uncle. "As he got older, he wanted out, but they wouldn't let him out."
In his confession, taped the morning after the crime, Guyce told the police in a dull, exhausted monotone that the men were pressuring him to sell crack to pay off a $1,200 debt. Guyce said that, when he refused, the men said they were going to "strip me, beat me with a bat and throw me in the lake" at Baisley Pond Park.
Mr. Cox testified that Guyce shot them for no reason. Mr. Cox acknowledged that he had had a crack problem and had served time in prison for it, but said he was off drugs at the time of the shooting and was not a drug dealer. Prosecutors noted that Mr. Edwards, who died, had no criminal record.
After the gunfire, Mr. Cox said he called out to Guyce to duck, but Guyce was gone.
"Guyce, I trusted him," Mr. Cox said. "I went to his house. I went to his bedroom. I knew his mother. I keep thinking, 'Not Guyce. I see you every day.' "
RODNEY REID, 13 Convicted of manslaughter; sentenced to three years
Rodney shot Rafael Nunez, 18, on a street corner in Jamaica, Queens, on March 3. Rodney later went around the neighborhood boasting about the killing and trying to sell the .45-caliber handgun, the police said.
Rodney said in an interview that he met Mr. Nunez that night to buy a pound of marijuana and to return a gun Mr. Nunez had lent him. Rodney said Mr. Nunez wanted $1,250 for the drugs, but he had only $950.
"I told him to try to do better for me," Rodney said.
During an argument over the price, Rodney told the police, Mr. Nunez grabbed the gun from his waistband, the two struggled and the gun went off.
But investigators believe Rodney intentionally shot Mr. Nunez in the stomach, then chased him into a nearby bodega, where, the police said, Rodney asked if the dying victim wanted "some more."
Rodney moved to New York City from Florida with his mother and four brothers when he was a toddler. They settled in Crown Heights, then moved to Queens at age 9 to get away from crime. But violence followed.
At 12, Rodney said, he was robbed on the subway by six youths, three of them with guns. They took his designer sneakers and jacket, then ran. Rodney said he made his way home, shoeless and angry.
"They played me like I was a punk or a sucker," he said. "That was the first and last time, I make sure of that."
Rodney would not say whether he began carrying a gun after that. Rodney himself became a menace in his neighborhood and school, investigators and a school official said. He had an explosive temper and a frame as large as a man's. He routinely shouted insults at neighbors, frequently skipped classes and once even threatened to kill a teacher who reprimanded him for incomplete homework.
Neighbors and others say his mother, Jaqualine Thompson, who Rodney said was a meter maid who is now unemployed, was upset by her inability to control him. She told investigators the day of his arrest that she would consider a plea bargain on her son's behalf if it included mandatory schooling.
ROBERT BROWN, 14 GREGORY MORRIS, 14 Cases Pending
Robert testified that he, Gregory and two older youths had three bikes and wanted a fourth. Instead of going to school on June 1, they headed to Prospect Park to steal one.
During a trial last month that resulted in the conviction of the shooter, Jerome Nisbett, 17, for murder, Robert testified that they first went after a woman practicing karate, but she saw them and fled. Then, they saw a male cyclist, but he was going too fast. Finally, they found Allyn Winslow, on Quaker Hill, one of the most peaceful places in the park. Robert testified that Gregory said, "Let's get him." They circled Mr. Winslow, 42, a drama teacher, on their bikes, Robert said.
When Mr. Winslow tried to ride away, prosecutors say, Mr. Nisbett shot him in the back twice. Mr. Winslow stayed on his bike, steering down a hill, over a small bridge and out of the woods. But he collapsed in a meadow, fatally wounded.
Mr. Nisbett told the police that he fired the .22-caliber revolver, which he called "the burner." "All you could see was the smoke coming from the gun," Robert testified.
Robert and Gregory were indicted as juvenile offenders because they were 14. The two other suspects, both 16, were charged as adults. Robert agreed to testify in exchange for being allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter, a lesser charge, and to receive a sentence of one and one-third to four years.
Robert said he also has a case pending in Family Court, where he is charged with showing a gun on May 6, 1993, while another person took someone's wallet. Two years ago, he pleaded guilty in Family Court to fourth-degree grand larceny for joy riding and was given two years' probation.
Robert lived with his mother, Sarah, and several siblings on St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights. Gregory also lived with his mother, Winsome, and nine other siblings in a cramped basement apartment nearby on Rogers Avenue. They knew each other from the neighborhood.
Gregory was a troublesome student at I.S. 390, prone to angry outbursts and rude behavior, school officials said. On one occasion, he threatened to cut a dean with a razor when the dean asked him to leave a hallway where he was causing trouble, said the dean, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Eventually, the dean said, school officials recommended Gregory's transfer to a resource room in the school where he could receive individual attention.
Alicia Benton-Owens, who teaches health at the school, said Gregory "wasn't a pleasure. He'd come in with a Walkman, eating candy, and put his feet on his desk."
Gregory's lawyer, Howard Kirsch, declined to comment on the case, although his client has pleaded not guilty. Robert's lawyer, Howard Weiswasser, said his client is not guilty.
"I really don't think he's a bad kid," he said. "I think he got swept up in a series of circumstances."
LUKE DAWKINS, 14 Pleaded guilty to manslaughter; sentenced to three and one-third to ten years
It all started over a single cigarette, the police said. Nahl Finch and Luke Dawkins both wanted to smoke it. The 14-year-olds argued, and the next afternoon, July 6, they returned to Liberty Park in Jamaica, Queens.
Nahl started picking on Luke right away, witnesses said. Nahl was a neighborhood bully who had set cats on fire, and even threatened his own grandmother, family members said. Luke was afraid of him, and so that day, Luke said, he had put a steak knife in his pocket just to scare Nahl away.
When Nahl grabbed at Luke, Luke said he pulled his knife. But the knife didn't make Nahl back off. In a split second, Luke decided to use the knife. He plunged it into Nahl's neck, hitting a major artery. Luke ran home, crying, to wash the blood from his hands.
"That knife was in his pocket," said his lawyer, Bryan Levinson. "He stabbed. That's how it is out on the street. People in these areas are afraid for their lives. The whole world is a fight."
Luke lived with his mother, Pamela Dawkins, in Jamaica. Ms. Dawkins worked in the nursing department at St. Albans Veterans Administration Hospital, the police said. Luke was the youngest of six children, and he had fallen under the influence of his older brother, Alvin, now 22.
Seven months earlier, Luke and Alvin had been arrested for ambushing a Chinese food delivery man and robbing him of $67 and $19 worth of food, and Alvin was later found guilty in that case. The victim told the police that Luke had hit him on the head with a bat.
After stabbing Nahl, Luke pleaded guilty to the robbery and to killing Nahl, although the murder charge was reduced to manslaughter because Luke had not meant to kill him. Luke was terrified of prison and asked his lawyer, Mr. Levinson, "Will they beat me up?"
HEDLEY SEWELL, 14 Pleaded guilty to manslaughter; sentenced to three and one-third to ten years Hedley says he and four friends decided to rob someone, anyone, for money. He later told the police that Jorge de Leon was the first vulnerable-looking person they saw as they walked down Ryer Avenue 187th Street in the Bronx on the night of Aug. 12.
Mr. de Leon, 43, an unemployed Vietnam veteran, was headed home after visiting his wife, Rosa, at a nearby hospital. The teen-agers chased him across the street, threw him down and went through his pockets. They found 50 cents, his wife said.
They then punched and stomped Mr. de Leon, leaving him on the street, dazed and bleeding. The boys retreated down the block, hooting with excitement, a witness said.
Mr. de Leon was helped inside a nearby building, then taken home, where he died three days later from a brain hemorrhage.
Hedley, who was small for his age at 4 feet 8 inches, lived alone in his mother's apartment. She worked as a live-in helper in Westchester County, neighbors say, coming home on Saturday evening and staying only 24 hours. An older brother sometimes came by.
Unsupervised, Hedley rarely attended school, went out at all hours, played loud music and invited friends over, some of whom brought girls to stay the night, neighbors say.
"I can't tell you how many people I saw coming and going," said Margie Vega, who lives next door. "He must have given keys to all his friends."
When he was taken into custody for killing Mr. DeLeon, the police said Hedley quickly admitted his guilt. Court records show he had never been charged with a crime. Tracy Almazan, the prosecutor, said she was startled to face such a tiny defendant.
"In court, he was very matter-of-fact," she said. "Most pleadings are very emotional affairs. Some people cry, some are angry. He was stone cold."
Ms. Almazan said she was also struck by the way that the boy was eager to plead guilty, ignoring the urging of his lawyer and his mother that he contest the charge. He seemed proud, she said, and seemed to want everyone to see that he could take whatever he was dished.
TIPPY JONES, 15 Awaiting trial
From the window of his ground-floor apartment in a housing project on West 19th Street in Manhattan, the police said that Tippy Jones watched as a neighborhood crack addict and small-time drug dealer, Audrey Walker, 35, approached his building in the early hours of Oct. 18. Tippy took the Tec-9 semiautomatic handgun he kept under a mattress, stepped out his front door into a small lobby, and shot Ms. Walker four times.
Tippy had been arrested for selling cocaine in 1992 and spent a year in jail in that case, but the detective who arrested Tippy for murder said he thought the youth was too small a player in the drug trade to be the gunman in a planned execution. Tippy probably acted on his own to impress friends, neighbors and drug dealers, said the detective, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tippy was living with his aunt and her seven children. He was not in school. His mother was a crack addict, a law-enforcement official said. His father had died of a heart attack when he was 8. Tippy and two sisters grew up in Jamaica, Queens, where they were raised by a grandmother. She died while Tippy was serving a year in a juvenile detention center for the cocaine charge.
Tippy's aunt, Felicia Lindsey, said he lacked a moral anchor in his life. "Kids are looking for something to hold on to," she said. "If you teach them some morals, then when they do something wrong, you can pull them back. If you don't care what they do, they'll be out there, looking for self."
With slightly droopy eyes that seem to tinge his face with sadness, Tippy seemed to some friends to be mentally frail, frequently collapsing into tears when he was teased by other kids in the project.
"Tippy listened to other people too much," said Kareem Jones, a friend who also lives at 420 West 19th Street. "He couldn't think clearly for himself. He would always do what you want, chill when you want to chill, go to the store when you want to go to the store."
The detective who arrested Tippy said he bragged about the shooting, telling several people in the building that they should thank him for doing away with a public menace. Ms. Walker had been widely disliked. Neighbors said she regularly robbed elderly neighbors to support her habit.
Tippy acted unafraid, cocky even, when the police asked him and his aunt to come to the station to answer some questions, the detective said. But confronted with information that implicated him in the shooting, Tippy wavered, asking his aunt to go back home and let him talk to the detective alone.
"I told him, no, you act like a man and talk about this while she's here," said the detective. "Those were the words that got to him, 'act like a man.' He crumbled."
Tippy confessed to the shooting, the detective said, and said he had asked a friend to throw the gun into the Hudson River. Later, Tippy pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Edwin Gonzalez, declined to comment.
JAMES BUTLER, 14 Pleaded guilty to manslaughter; sentenced to two to six years
This killing grew out of a fight over dice game winnings, said Shannon Alexander, James's 17-year-old co-defendant.
On Aug. 18, a few days after the game, Mr. Alexander said he, James and a third young man, were in Aberdeen Park in Bushwick, when they spotted "Prince" from the dice game fight, adding that it was the third man who fired an AK-47 assault rifle at Prince. The police say those bullets missed the intended victim and struck a bystander, Derrick Johnson, 23 years old. James had the AK-47 when the police arrested him at his home. Mr. Alexander later pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the killing.
James lived with his aunt, Sylvia Graves, from the time he was 2. His mother, Paulette, lives in Manhattan and has not seen her son in years, Ms. Graves said.
He was known in the neighborhood as "Little James" because of his diminutive stature. His passion was basketball, his friends said.
Though James was quiet and polite, friends say he began hanging out with older, tougher youths in his neighborhood sometime in 1993. Danny Esquilin, a community activist who helped organize basketball teams in the neighborhood, said James was looking for a male role model. "He was looking for somebody who wasn't there," Mr. Esquilin said.
"I guess he wanted to feel like he was part of something. But this kid was no hood."
MICHAEL HARRIS, 15 Awaiting trial
According to the police account in court records, on Sept. 5, Michael's co-defendant, Russell Gaither, 16, cornered Frantz Germain on a street in Flatbush and swung a bat at him. Then Michael stabbed Mr. Germain, 19, in the chest with a knife.
Darla Harris, Michael's mother, an immigrant from Belize, did not want to discuss the case. His lawyer, Salvatore Canonico, said Michael was not the one who carried out the killing. Mr. Gaither is still awaiting trial.
WILLIAM BAILEY, 15 Awaiting trial
The police said that William shot Jerome Clark, 63, a Pepsi-Cola deliveryman, during an attempted robbery on Oct. 18 in a South Bronx supermarket.
William was not attending school or working at the time of the incident, said a spokesman for the Bronx District Attorney's office. He was living with his grandmother, Joyce Kanu, in the High Bridge section of the Bronx. A lawyer for William, Anthony Ventura, said a videotape monitoring the store's entrance did not give a clear picture recorded entering and leaving the store at the time of the killing.
CHAUNCEY FORDEN, 15 Awaiting trial
On Friday, Nov. 5, Chauncey was playing hooky in his basement with a couple of buddies. They were smoking joints, munching on sandwiches, and watching a video of "Menace II Society," a movie about guns and violence in the ghetto, he told the police.
They had already smoked "two blunts" when Chauncey started toying with his brother Shawn's black .38-caliber revolver, Chauncey told the police, adding that he picked up the gun and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled the trigger again. This time, Chauncey told the police in a deadpan voice, the bullet tore into his friend Kevin Scott's head as Kevin got up from the couch.
Kevin died the next day at Jacobi Hospital.
Chauncey grew up in the same neatly kept brick row house where he shot Kevin, in Williamsbridge, the Bronx. His parents, who declined to discuss the case or say what they do for a living, were working that day.
Chauncey admits he knew the revolver was loaded, court records show. That morning, he had taken it from his brother's room, emptied it of three bullets, then put them back in. He even wandered to the back door and fired it in the air, the record said.
Chauncey's lawyer, Lewis Alperin, said he will argue that Chauncey never meant to kill his friend and should be found guilty of a lesser charge, manslaughter in the second degree, which is prosecuted in Family Court. Mr. Alperin, who has seen Chauncey's videotaped statement, said he was taken aback by the demeanor of the youth and of his mother, Catherine Forden, who sat at his side.
"He talks about this horrible crime, and his mother just sits there," Mr. Alperin said. "There was no emotional reaction. If it was my kid, I would turn around and say, 'How could you do this?'"
Chauncey had been arrested seven months earlier on a robbery charge. And that July, he was arrested twice within two days on charges of selling drugs. The drug cases were never prosecuted, but he pleaded guilty in September to larceny and was given two years probation, court officials said.
SHAKEEM HODGE, 15 Awaiting trial
Ann Yeo, the co-owner of a Chinese takeout restaurant on Burke Avenue in the Bronx, knew Shakeem as a regular customer. On Nov. 24, the night before Thanksgiving, the police say Shakeem walked into Lee's Kitchen, pointed a 9-millimeter handgun at Ms. Yeo and asked her for the cash in her register. Two of his 14-year-old friends watched.
Ms. Yeo apparently took $19 out of the register, stuffed it into her apron pocket and then tried to push the gun away. In the struggle that followed, the gun fired and struck Ms. Yeo, 30. She died the following day. A co-worker later suggested that Ms. Yeo had been unable to take seriously a demand from a chubby kid who spent most of his afternoons in front of the video games in the pizza parlor next door.
Shakeem later told the police that he and his friends wanted money to go roller skating, a detective said. They did not intend to shoot Ms. Yeo, Shakeem said, and when the gun fired they ran out of the store without taking any money.
Shakeem's mother, Linda Hodge, who says she is self-employed, insists that her son was not capable of the crime, and the teen-ager has pleaded not guilty in the killing.
Shopkeepers in the area said a gun can turn a young prankster into a killer. Maria Rodriguez, the proprietor of a bodega next door to Lee's Kitchen, knew Shakeem for his awkward attempts to shoplift Cheetos. Donald Marajh, who works at Step Two Haircutters three doors down, said Shakeem was a harmless-looking kid who dropped quarter after quarter into video game machines.
"These kids are not used to having a gun," said Mr. Marajh. "When they get one in their hands, they want to flash it around."
Like most other teenagers in Williamsbridge, a quiet section of the Bronx near the border with Yonkers, Shakeem was from a middle-class family and had never been arrested. A reliable if uninspired student at Harry S. Truman High School, Shakeem liked gym class best, his mother said, because he excelled at basketball and swimming.
Ms. Hodge and her eight children moved to New York from the Virgin Islands in 1988 when Shakeem was 10. His father, a plumber and carpenter, stayed behind.
RAYMOND JOHNSON, 14 Awaiting trail
The police say that Raymond and an unidentified man went to an unoccupied apartment in a public housing project in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn on Dec. 3 to scare away some people who were using it as a place to party. The police believe the man with Raymond was a drug dealer who wanted to use the apartment for business.
Jerome Reeves, 21 years old, was shot as he answered a knock at the door, the people in the apartment told the police.
Housing police officers heard the shots and saw two men run from the building. One of them, whom police identified as Raymond, dropped a gun and was apprehended. The police do not believe Raymond pulled the trigger.
Raymond's lawyer, Mark Zuckerman, said Raymond was not even at the scene of the killing.
GERALD BUNCHE, 15 Convicted of murder; sentenced to nine years to life
On a cold night in February, Gerald Bunche helped two friends rob a bodega on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. While Gerald stood lookout, his friend, Dion Davis, 18, pointed a Mach 11 semiautomatic at the cashier, Jose de Leon, 39, and pulled the trigger twice, killing him.
Gerald's family had been torn apart by divorce, and Gerald had spent time living with each parent. His three siblings adapted and did well in school. But Gerald fell in with older youths and began committing crimes, his father said.
When he was 13, Gerald was arrested three times in one month: for possession of crack, assaulting a passenger on a No. 1 subway train in Manhattan, and attempted rape, Family Court records show. At 14, he served a year for car theft. He had been out only a week when he was arrested for murder.
JOE SANCHEZ, 15 Awaiting trial
Firing from a rooftop in the Bronx, the police said, Joe fatally shot Andy Vega, 16, on Jan. 25 as the victim stood outside a bodega in the Mount Hope neighborhood.
But investigators say it is not clear why he fired the deadly shot, or whether he wanted to kill anyone. He was identified as the shooter nine months after the killing and arrested.
Joe moved to the Bronx from San Juan, P.R., with his family when he was nearly a year old. His parents separated about seven years ago, leaving his mother, Carmen Olmedo, who receives public assistance, to raise Joe and seven other children. But his father, Alejandro Sanchez, who lives nearby, says he has kept close ties to the family.
Joe was a slow learner who showed little interest in his studies, his mother said. But while he sometimes played hookey, she said he was never a habitual truant.
His family said he has no criminal record and was not a troublesome child, and he has pleaded not guilty to the killing. The family maintains he had never given them reason to believe he was capable of such violence.
"My heart tells me that he didn't do it," said Mrs. Olmedo.
TAHIR TOOMBS, 13 Pleaded guilty to murder; sentenced to 9 years to life
Tahir killed for the first time in Ozone Park, Queens. He shot Clyde Scott, 35, in the back with a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun on Feb. 7 after Mr. Scott confronted him for snatching a gold necklace earlier that day.
Nine days later, Tahir killed again, with the same gun. He shot a livery cab driver, Fernando Lopez, 26, in the head while robbing him of cab fare to send two friends home that night.
Tahir had been driving his mother, Deboroah Toombs, to distraction since he was 10, straying far from the modest, working-class life she had provided. Earning $29,000 a year as a telephone operator, Ms. Toombs had raised Tahir and his younger brother in a tidy apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
She provided her boys with trips to the zoo, picnics, video games, stereos, fancy jeans and sneakers. "I used to have to tell him, 'It's not that you have it good; it's that your mother works hard,' " Ms. Toombs said.
Tahir was a quiet boy most of his life, the kind of child who did average work in school and never caused trouble. But by age 10, he began to show a keen interest in the wild life of the streets during stays at his grandmother's house in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where, his mother said, she left him most evenings while she worked the late shift.
There, Tahir came to admire young men who wore flashy gold jewelry, drove fancy cars and made quick profits on drugs sales. "I got him what he needed, but I couldn't compete with that," Ms. Toombs said. She became so alarmed by her son's friends that, she said, she wandered the streets, begging them to stay away from him.
Tahir started cutting class, selling drugs and even struck his mother. Seeking help, she said she phoned her police precinct and the city's Child Welfare Administration. She even considered sending him to a military academy until she found out the cost.
"I tried everything because I was afraid of losing him," she said.
In desperation, she convinced a neighbor to press charges against Tahir in 1991, and he served several months for assault in a juvenile detention center. But the brief incarceration did not stop his slide into crime.
A year and a half after his release, he went on the killing spree. By then, his mother had sent him to live with some relatives in Queens with the hope that they could bring him under control.
SHAUL LINYEAR, 15 Pleaded guilty to murder; sentenced to seven years to life
Shaul shot and killed a candy delivery man, Ricardo Nunez, in Brooklyn during a robbery on Feb. 19. Shaul said he had planned to spend the money from the robbery on a new pair of sneakers.
Shaul lived in Crown Heights with his mother, who had a job as an office worker and went to college at night. Shaul had been found guilty of possession of a loaded weapon two months before the murder. He was sentenced to 18 months in a residential center on the gun charge, but spent only two weeks there.
ANTHONY SMITH, 15 Convicted of weapons charges. Hung jury on murder charge. Will be retried.
Prosecutors say that on Feb. 27, Anthony shot and killed Michael McNeil, 26, the backseat passenger in a moving car, during a dispute over money. Anthony denies it.
Anthony lived with his mother, who is on welfare, in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
His father had recently been murdered in what Anthony's family described as a drive-by shooting. Anthony was devastated, said his brother, Frederick Smith. "He didn't care about things anymore," Mr. Smith said.
Anthony has a history of arrests, dating back to age 12, for robbery and weapons possession. Family Court records show he failed to show up in court on the weapons case. A warrant was issued, but he was never picked up and the case was dismissed because it was not prosecuted quickly enough.
ELIZABETH HOS, 15 Pleaded guilty to murder; sentenced to six years to life
Elizabeth admitted in court that she and her boyfriend, Anton Rogers, 18, walked into Kim Wei Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant in Sunset Park, to pull a robbery on April 1. Mr. Rogers drew his .25-caliber revolver and demanded money from the cashier, Kam Ping Kwok, 30, who told them she recognized them and would report them to the police, Elizabeth and Mr. Rogers said later.
Mr. Rogers, who also pleaded guilty to murder, told the police that Elizabeth pressured him to fire. "Beth said, 'Shoot the bitch,' " Mr. Rogers said. "So I shot her."
Elizabeth said she went behind the counter to get the money from the register. They fled to a friend's house, where they counted about $200, Mr. Rogers said.
Elizabeth -- Beth to her family -- was a truant and a runaway, her mother, Sadet Hos, told the police when she filed missing persons reports on her in the month before the murder. In March, Beth called home and told her brother she would see them when she was 18. Mr. Rogers told the police that he and Beth had done other robberies together.
Family members said Elizabeth wanted to be like any other American teen-ager, but Ms. Hos, a Turkish immigrant and a devout Muslim, thought her daughter should stay home, study and do household chores. Ms. Hos was struggling to raise Elizabeth and a younger son by herself, since the father lived in New Jersey. She worked nights cleaning offices at the Met Life building in Manhattan, leaving her children with a friend. The mother and daughter often fought, said Elizabeth's lawyer, Daniel Williams.
Elizabeth's family and classmates say she was led astray by a possessive and manipulative boyfriend. "She's not a bad person," said her brother, Gokhan, 14. "She was just hanging with the wrong people."
CATHY MAJARAJ, 14 Awaiting trial
Cathy says she was simply rushing home from school on April 5 to get ready for work when a mob of more than 25 teen-agers erupted into violence in Ridgewood, Queens. "It was a riot," she said. "I was on the floor getting all scratched up myself." But investigators say Cathy stabbed Kultos Sayaves, 21, with a kitchen knife during the melee in front of the victim's home.
Cathy was raised by her mother, Slavia Martinez, after her parents separated when she was 7 years old. Ms. Martinez struggled to make ends meet, sometimes holding down two jobs and working late into the evenings while a neighbor watched her children in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Cathy said. Cathy maintained a close relationship with her father, Pooran Maharaj, spending many weekends with him. Cathy said she kept busy with homework, chores and a part-time job selling cookies. She had no prior arrest record.
DAMON HOOKS, 15 Convicted of manslaughter; sentenced to three and one-third to 10 years
Deshawn Mayberry and his girlfriend were arguing on June 26 about who was going to look after their baby while she went to the beach. Damon, a friend of the girl's, got into the middle of the fight. "It was a little bit of chivalry," said Detective George Readding of the 40th Precinct. "Damon was trying to protect the girlfriend."
In the hallway outside Damon's aunt's apartment in Mott Haven, the Bronx, the yelling between Mr. Mayberry and his girlfriend escalated into a shoving match, said Damon's lawyer, Pat Bruno. Damon fetched a kitchen knife. When he pulled it, Mr. Mayberry, 19, asked, "What are you going to do, stab me?"
There may have been a struggle before Damon put the knife in Mr. Mayberry's heart. "Damon was trying to do what a man has to do in the Bronx," said Mr. Bruno. "This was kind of like senseless stupidity," said Detective Readding.
Damon lived with his mother, who is on welfare, in Mott Haven, a desolate, violent neighborhood. Damon had never been in trouble with the law before.
PARIS PERKINS, 15 Awaiting trial
Paris went to a party in Bedford-Stuyvesant and ended up spending the night in the apartment of Noel Cooper, 36, because it was too late to walk home to Bushwick, said Paris and his lawyer, Alan Stutman. Mr. Stutman said that Mr. Cooper was about to sexually molest Paris and, after a struggle, Paris took Mr. Cooper's .380-caliber revolver and shot him. The lawyer said Paris was acting in self defense.
Paris fled with the gun he used to kill Mr. Cooper on July 18, and also took another gun that belonged to his victim, he told the police. "I sold the guns," he said.
Paris was raised by a single mother on welfare, Theresa Perkins. He was the oldest of six children. Ms. Perkins said that her son was never the same after he was hit in the head with a baseball bat during a fight when he was about 11. Afterward, he became unruly and would often disrupt his classes.
When Paris was 14, he was sentenced to 12 months' probation for assaulting a student at Public School 369. He spent a few months at a non-secure detention center and was released in July 1992, and the school board provided him with a tutor who came to his home, Ms. Perkins said. Shortly before Mr. Perkins shot Mr. Cooper, Ms. Perkins said that she had asked a Family Court judge to send Paris to a school upstate to keep him out of trouble.
After his arrest for murder, Paris's teacher at the Spofford Juvenile Detention Center wrote: "He's a pleasant and bright person who has the potential to do anything he puts his mind to. Paris could get away with a lot because he's so likable."
GILBERTO UBIERA, 15 Pleaded guilty to murder; sentenced to five years to life
DAVID TEALDO, 15 Pleaded guilty to manslaughter; sentenced to three to nine years
Gilberto was furious when his family's Rottweiler puppy was stolen from the backyard, but he said it was his buddy David who pushed him to kill the youth they believed was the thief.
On the hot summer morning of July 20, Gilberto was showering when David came by his house. David kept nagging him, saying, "This is your chance to do "Rev," their nickname for Henry Vargas, 15. Gilberto told the police he stalled, playing records and taking his time dressing.
But when David handed Gilberto a .25-caliber handgun, Gilberto said he told his friend, "Yo, I'm about to murder someone." He said David replied: "So what? He robbed something from your house."
They tracked Henry down that day to a street in Corona, Queens. David waved the youth over to them, Gilberto said.
"David whispered to me, 'Do it now or else I'll do it,' " Gilberto told the police the next day. "I gave in, pulled the gun out of my right jacket pocket and shot once at Rev."
The murder was a bloody exclamation point to two violent, wayward lives. Gilberto and David grew up on the same block in Corona. David lived with his mother and father, a handyman; Gilberto's mother and stepfather, Yani and Goupaul Ramtahal, owned a video store in the neighborhood.
Both youths began getting into trouble in high school. David's problems quickly intensified from chronic truancy in his freshman year at Bayside High School to three arrests for robbery and attempted robbery in early 1993. (After the murder, he was convicted of robbing a convenience store and sentenced to two to six years.)
His parents said they tried everything to keep him out of trouble. "I didn't want him to become another statistic," said his father, Luis Tealdo. They escorted him to school each morning, attended counseling, and gave him a new computer and a 1991 Suzuki.
Nothing worked, not even the threat of punishment. "I tried the nice way; I tried the hard way," his father said. "What else could I do?"
Gilberto was also a troublemaker. He skipped 55 classes at Flushing High School from September 1992 to November 1992, according to a school official who spoke on condition of anonymity. When he was in class, he was disruptive and argumentative.
In February 1993, he was arrested on robbery charges after he waved a box cutter at another student and tried to steal the student's book bag, the police and others familiar with the case said. Gilberto said the book bag had been stolen from him and that he was just trying to get it back.
JEFFREY WASHINGTON, 15 Pleaded guilty to murder; sentenced to 5 to 15 years
On Aug. 8, Sixto Marte, 43, and his niece came down the stairs of a footbridge that crosses the exit ramp from the Third Avenue Bridge in East Harlem. Jeffrey approached them and asked for the girl's black mountain bike. When Mr. Marte refused, Jeffrey shot him and took it anyway.
"I asked him for the bike. He said no," Jeffrey said in a Manhattan courtroom in early March, when he pleaded guilty. He offered no more explanation for his action.
The shooting at East 129th Street and Lexington Avenue, across from where Jeffrey lived with his mother, Debra Washington, and his twin sister, Debrina.
Jeffrey and his sister grew up in Yonkers, where their father was a postal worker. But the father was killed when Jeffrey was 9, shot as he tried to rescue someone being robbed. His mother moved the family to Harlem.
Jeffrey dropped out of Richard Green Teachers High School in the ninth grade and spent the second half of the school year at home, his mother says, passing the day playing Nintendo and listening to rap. She says he planned to move to another school to study computers. He had no prior arrest record.
PARIS PERKINS, 15 Awaiting trial
Paris went to a party in Bedford-Stuyvesant and ended up spending the night in the apartment of Noel Cooper, 36, because it was too late to walk home to Bushwick, said Paris and his lawyer, Alan Stutman. Mr. Stutman said that Mr. Cooper was about to sexually molest Paris and, after a struggle, Paris took Mr. Cooper's .380-caliber revolver and shot him. The lawyer said Paris was acting in self defense.
Paris fled with the gun he used to kill Mr. Cooper on July 18, and also took another gun that belonged to his victim, he told the police. "I sold the guns," he said.
Paris was raised by a single mother on welfare, Theresa Perkins. He was the oldest of six children. Ms. Perkins said that her son was never the same after he was hit in the head with a baseball bat during a fight when he was about 11. Afterward, he became unruly and would often disrupt his classes.
When Paris was 14, he was sentenced to 12 months' probation for assaulting a student at Public School 369. He spent a few months at a non-secure detention center and was released in July 1992, and the school board provided him with a tutor who came to his home, Ms. Perkins said. Shortly before Mr. Perkins shot Mr. Cooper, Ms. Perkins said that she had asked a Family Court judge to send Paris to a school upstate to keep him out of trouble.
After his arrest for murder, Paris's teacher at the Spofford Juvenile Detention Center wrote: "He's a pleasant and bright person who has the potential to do anything he puts his mind to. Paris could get away with a lot because he's so likable."
