In a city that saw a 136% increase in minors arrested with a gun from 2018 to 2024, a unique effort is underway to empower some of those young people to put their lives on a new path.

The New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice runs "Flip the Script," a 40-week program that trains at-risk teens and young adults, often with gun charges , in filmmaking. The 18- to 24-year-old participants, mainly from Brownsville, Brooklyn, and the South Bronx, are paid $20 an hour.

One of those teens, KJ Campbell, lost his father and two brothers to gun violence. The 19-year-old was also arrested in 2023 for illegal gun possession.

Campbell says that while in jail, he realized he needed to change the course of his life, "I see how people in there talk, the way they move, I don't wanna be lik

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