Children and Teens in Alabama Die of Firearms More Than Any Other Cause

By Alaina Bookman | abookman@al.com This is another installment in the series “Beyond the Violence.”  Amid the deadliest year of Birmingham’s history, firearms remained the leading cause of death for Alabama children and teens, according to a recent Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions study based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Birmingham ended 2024 with 151 homicides, breaking the city’s all-time homicide record. Of people killed in 2024 in Birmingham, 10 were children, with the youngest being 5-year-old Landyn Brooks. “The prevalence of youth violence does not make it normal,” said TeAndria Ellis, founder and executive director of the Surge Project, a Birmingham nonprofit dedicated to youth and community development. Most recently, 17-year-old Gerald Andre Lomax Jr., a Jackson-Olin athlete said to always have a smile on his face, died after he was shot in front of Woodlawn High School in November. The other nine children’s names are: Aston Starkey, 13; Markell Sanders, 15; Prentice Lovell Little, 15; Cornelia Rose Lathan, 15; Jaylin Lee Jenkins, 16; Alexis Elizabeth Wise, 16; Jaquavius James Weston, 18; and Jonathan O’Dell Thomas Jr., 18. Many children also have been injured in shootings. In the United States in 2022,...