‘No fear of punishment’: Teenage crime in Springfield on rise, police say
SPRINGFIELD — A decade ago, a juvenile arrest for murder was a rarity in the city, according to a top detective.
Over the past two years, however, there have been three juvenile arrests for homicides. The suspects were 14, 15 and 16, respectively, statistics provided by the Springfield Police Department show.
All were homicides by gunfire and occurred in the city's struggling neighborhoods. In all three cases, their victims were 19.
On Jan. 12, Semaj Brewster was shot by the 15-year-old, police say. They described the fatality as essentially a "thrill kill," when a carload of youth began shooting indiscriminately out the window of a moving car on Oakland Street. The suspect and the victims were strangers to one another, police said.
On Oct. 19, Matthew Chaney was shot by a 16-year-old in a Liberty Heights housing project. Marcos Noguera III was later publicly identified when he was indicted and charged as an adult in February. Authorities say Noguera robbed Chaney of his backpack. Police responded to a ShotSpotter alert after midnight and found Chaney's body on the pavement.
On April 2, 2024, Railyn Paulino was shot on a sidewalk in broad daylight on Phoenix Street. His suspected killer, Legacy Lopez, 14, was arrested and later charged as an adult. The motive in that shooting remains under investigation.
A homeowner on Phoenix Street reached this week said, on that day, he heard several gunshots sometime after 1 p.m. and saw what looked like a young boy running down a pathway behind his house. Between his and his neighbor's home surveillance cameras, there was footage of the events that unfolded.
It was an unsettling occurrence on a street that's fairly quiet.
"We'll hear loud music or loud voices or cars. But never loud gunshots," said Hamror Gabriel, who lives with his family on the street. "And we are pretty new to America. We came here as refugees from Sudan, where there are wars. We came here for a safer life."
In all three cases, the alleged shooters had previous arrests for property crimes, at minimum, Police Capt. Trent Duda said.
These three examples illustrate two things: Violent crimes among youth are on the rise, and most youth who commit violent crime start with lower-lower level offenses, Duda added.
Springfield Police Capt. Trent Duda investigates a case in 2018. (Greg Saulmon / The Republican, file)Greg Saulmon / The Republican file
"It's a ... progression, like a gateway drug," Duda said. "Juveniles are driving violent crime. They have no fear of punishment."
The challenge of tracking juvenile crime rates in Springfield is linked to outdated data collection technology, according to police spokesperson Ryan Walsh. Adding to that, most juveniles receive a criminal summons to court, and the department cannot search those by age.
But anecdotally, Duda and his staff of detectives are facing rising numbers of car thefts and firearm-related arrests.
This year is on track to outpace 2024 numbers in terms of stolen car and gun arrests, Walsh said.
In 2025 so far, 14 youth have been arrested on firearms charges and 15 for receiving a stolen motor vehicle.
In all of 2024, 23 youth were arrested on firearms charges and 19 for receiving a stolen motor vehicle.
The 16-year-old police say was involved in the Nursery Street shooting was on a "spree," Duda said.
"He was wrapped up in stolen cars. He was locked up dozens of times. Once, he showed up at the hospital with a gunshot wound in a stolen car," the detective recalled. "These are 16- or 17-year-olds who are neck deep in violent crime."
Sgt. Donald Denault, the detective in charge of investigating property crimes, said car thefts can occasionally yield "benefits" for youth living on the edge: weapons.
"There are sometimes guns in these cars they steal," Denault said. "Then, they'll crash cars all over the city. They usually run (from police), and they don't know how to drive."
He estimates people under the age of 18 are responsible for about 80% of car thefts in Springfield in recent years. With the advent of a TikTok trend of video tutorials on how to easily steal certain makes and models of Hyundais and Kias, the thefts show no sign of slowing.
Springfield is not alone in this, according to published reports.
More than 10,000 children were referred to the state's courts, including both arrests and summonses filed against them, in fiscal 2023. That was a 67% increase from two years earlier, according to the state's Juvenile Justice Policy and Data Board .
A report found more than 4,000 youth were arraigned — a 70% increase. The number of Massachusetts youth sentenced to the custody of the Department of Youth Services also increased for the first time for two consecutive years, from 90 in fiscal 2021 to 185 the following fiscal year.
In 2024, a statewide initiative to keep more children out of the justice system expanded. Those candidates are typically accused of minor crimes, like shoplifting and vandalism. Child advocates have called for more youth to join diversion programs run through the Juvenile Court.
Research also has shown Black youth were nearly four times more likely than white youth to be charged with an offense and were almost five times more likely to be arrested and brought to court. Latino youth were three times more likely to land in court than their white peers.
But Springfield police believe too many youth — who are both endangered and might become dangerous — have no fear of long-term repercussions, because they keep getting away with few or no consequences for the "gateway" offenses.
"Half the time our guys don't even know these juveniles are back out on the street until they arrest them again," Duda said.
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