ORLANDO, Fla. — Two young children were shot and killed in Central Florida this summer, adding to a troubling pattern of youth gun violence that 9 Investigates has tracked for seven years.
9 Investigates, along with KFF Health News and The Trace, analyzed Florida hospital discharge data from 2018 through 2024. The records break down gunshot injuries by age, race, gender and ZIP code.
The analysis found that more than 4,000 Florida children younger than 18 were treated for gunshot wounds during the seven-year period. About 260 of those children lived in Orlando.
Among residential ZIP codes statewide, 32808 recorded the highest number of children treated for gunshot wounds: 62. The ZIP code includes Pine Hills, Rosemont and Orlo Vista.
The data identify where the children lived, not necessarily where they were shot.
Other areas that stood out included:
- 32811, covering areas around Oak Ridge and the Mall at Millenia: 40 children
- 32805, including Parramore, Washington Shores and Holden Heights: 25 children
- 34744 in Kissimmee: 12 children
The figures reflect children ages 0 through 17 treated at Florida hospitals for gunshot wounds. They do not capture every Florida child who was shot, including children who died before receiving hospital treatment or whose cases were not reflected in the discharge records.
A family’s grief
For Lizzy Moctezuma, videos stored on her cellphone are now among the memories she has left of her grandson, Daesean Moctezuma.
Her grief remained too raw to discuss publicly after his death. She is now speaking for the first time about losing him and the questions his family still cannot answer.
Daesean, 18, was killed during a shooting at a Davenport house party in April. Investigators said he was not the intended target.
Daesean had recently reached adulthood, placing him just outside the age range examined in the new hospital data. His family’s experience reflects the broader toll gun violence continues to take on Central Florida’s young people.
“It’s hard,” his grandmother told Channel 9. “It’s hard knowing that he was just ripped from you.”
She said their final conversation was like so many exchanges between a teenager and a grandparent.
“‘I’ll clean my room when I get back home. I love you, okay? I’ll see you,’” she recalled him saying.
Those were his last words to her.
Daesean’s aunt, Noemi Moctezuma, said he had gone to the house to spend time with friends when another teenager opened fire.
“You can call him an innocent bystander. You can call it the wrong place, wrong time,” she said. “He was literally just there, hiding behind a door, and not even a door can shield you from something like that.”
A 16-year-old was later charged with manslaughter.
Noemi said the case demonstrates how children’s access to firearms can turn a momentary decision into permanent consequences. She also said an arrest cannot undo her family’s loss.
“There’s no closure,” she said. “Not even if the person that did this goes to jail. There’s no closure in any of it. You just keep asking yourself why.”
A problem tracked for years
9 Investigates began examining youth gun violence in 2019 after Bryce Williams was shot and killed months before his 18th birthday.
That investigation found 8,612 people ages 21 and younger were injured or killed by gunfire across Florida during the preceding five years. Nearly seven in 10 of those young victims were Black.
Across Orange, Brevard, Volusia, Seminole, Osceola, Lake, Marion and Polk counties, the investigation identified 1,569 gun-related injuries or deaths involving people 21 and younger.
Doctors told Channel 9 at the time that youth gun violence should be treated as an epidemic. The latest hospital data show that children continue to suffer gunshot wounds in many of the same Central Florida communities.
The numbers represent individual children and families whose lives changed in an instant.
For Lizzy Moctezuma, Daesean is the teenager whose final words to her were that he loved her. He is the grandson who left to spend time with friends and never returned home.
“My heart is broken,” she said. “This will never be the same—not for me or any other parent or an uncle.”
Lizzy and Noemi Moctezuma decided to speak publicly in hopes of reminding the community that children should never become statistics in the continuing toll of gun violence.
WHAT WE FOUND: A LOOK BACK AT 9-INVESTIGATES’ REPORTING ON YOUTH GUN VIOLENCE
Daesean’s death is not an isolated story.
In 2019, 9-Investigates began tracking the toll of gun violence on young people, analyzing hospital discharge data to determine who was being injured or killed, where those shootings were happening and how often children and young adults were caught in the violence.
At the time, the data showed that in a five-year period, dating back to 2014, 30,453 people statewide were injured or killed by gunfire.
Of those, 8,612 were 21 or younger — about 28%.
Nearly seven in 10 of those young victims were Black.
The numbers were particularly striking across Central Florida.
Looking at Orange, Brevard, Volusia, Seminole, Osceola, Lake, Marion and Polk counties, 9-Investigates found 6,025 gun-related injuries or deaths during that five-year period.
Of those victims, 1,569 were 21 or younger — about 26%.
Doctors who treat injured children told us then that youth gun violence should be considered an epidemic.
Dr. Tom Lacy, a pediatric trauma specialist with Nemours Children’s Health System, put the scale of the problem into perspective.
“If a thousand kids died from something else, it would be on the news every day,” Lacy said.
The victims and their families told us the statistics were more than numbers.
They were sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Families left searching for answers
Kim Crow was still grieving her 17-year-old grandson when we spoke with her in 2019.
He had been killed execution-style in a Casselberry park, just months shy of his 18th birthday.
Despite a terrified eyewitness who was in the car that day, no one had been arrested at the time of our report.
“I’m not me anymore,” Crow said.
She described the pain of losing someone so young.
“You can’t believe that someone is taken away from you so violently and to realize they were only 17,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking. It’s hell.”
Jeanina Washington was also searching for answers after her son, Tamar Harris, was killed in Sanford.
She told us she struggled to understand why someone would shoot her son — and why help did not come when he needed it.
“What could he have done so bad for someone to just want to shoot at him?” she asked.
Washington described the loss as a club no family would ever want to join.
“I always think to myself this is a club that I wouldn’t want any mother, brother, sister, cousin, uncle to be a part of,” she said.
Guns stolen from cars
Our earlier reporting also examined how some guns used in crimes enter the community.
Larry Zweig, then chief deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, told 9-Investigates that guns are frequently left inside vehicles and can be stolen.
He said some groups were targeting cars in large numbers.
“Some of these guns are being stolen that way,” Zweig said. “We have some groups that’ll go out, hit 10, 20, 30 cars a night.”
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office stores guns seized by Central Florida law enforcement agencies in a warehouse.
At the time of our 2019 report, Orange County alone had seized nearly 8,000 guns over five years.
A problem families say has become normalized
We also went to Mercy Drive, where 20-year-old Melkevious Lake grew up in the Windsor Cove apartments. The area had a history of gun violence, and resident Sonya Maye said she eventually moved her sons away. Lake was killed in a parking lot in 2014. “I can name so many friends I lost on Mercy Drive,” Maye told us. “It almost becomes normal.” Maye said Lake was not perfect, but that did not make his death deserved. “My son wasn’t perfect,” she said. “But no one deserves to be murdered.”
Years later, the question remains
In 2019, Kim Crow told us something that still resonates with the families grieving today. “We should not be losing a whole generation of young people to gun violence,” she said. Seven years later, the data continues to show children are being caught in that violence.
For the Moctezuma family, Daesean is not a statistic. He is the teenager whose last words to his grandmother were that he loved her.
He is the child who went to spend time with friends and never came home.
And for his family, there is still the same question.
“Why?”
This story was produced in partnership with KFF Health News and The Trace.
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