How social media fuels youth gun violence

As teenager Oswin Ortiz Jr. lay shot outside his home in 2019, his father approached him and asked who had shot him.

“All he could say was ‘Snapchat’ and pointed to his phone,” police wrote in a probable cause affidavit for the arrest of Joshua Grow.

After Ortiz’s death, police officers went through his and Grow’s Snapchat accounts. There, they found videos Ortiz took of THC he was trying to sell, according to the affidavit. And hours before Ortiz’s death, Grow was trying to find someone he could rob.

“Where a lick,” read a message from Grow’s Snapchat account to another acquaintance, using slang for a robbery target. “I need money.” Grow, who was 18 at the time, eventually pleaded guilty to a charge in connection with Ortiz’s shooting and was

See Full Page