Several children at the Langston Lane Apartments in Southeast Washington, D.C., saw the body of 15-year-old Gerald Watson after he was chased down by two assailants, shot and killed in December.The shooting happened just a short walk away from the TraRon Center after-school program, a community anti-gun violence resource and refuge to some two dozen children, which is housed in the same apartment complex where Watson lived and was killed.The circumstances of the high schooler’s death — having been chased down and shot 17 times in the stairwell of his apartment — were especially unnerving for neighborhood residents, but served as an unfortunate reminder of the routine nature of violence in the area.More than 3,500 children and teenagers in the United States were injured or killed in firearm incidents last year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. These sort of incidents have fallout far beyond the immediate damage of the bullet, including the lingering trauma of friends and classmates dealing with the violent death of a peer.In the District of Columbia, 160 people, including 13 minors, were killed last year. A majority of these homicides occurred east of the Anacostia River, where Langston Lane Apartments is located.“The kids, they want to go outside and play, but they know they can’t. Not yet,” said Marilyn Wiggins, a volunteer at the TraRon program and grandmother to several children who live in and around the neighborhood.Gunfire is a familiar refrain in the area, Wiggins said, estimating that sometimes she hears shots fired every night.But the shooting death of Watson, a high school freshman and role model to many of the young boys at the TraRon Center, had a sharp impact on neighborhood children, who are now struggling with the trauma of losing one of their own.
