Increasingly in Cleveland, guns and teens are mixing with deadly results.

Chief investigator Duane Pohlman spent a night on Cleveland's streets where kids grow up with gangs, drugs and guns.

One teen told Pohlman, "I got shot right here. The bullet went in right here. I have no teeth over here. It landed right here in my neck where the scars at."

Another teen said, "You see guns every day around here."

And some teens refuse to carry a weapon at all.

"You just gotta move on with it and just stay out the way of the bullet ... try to stay out the way," a teen said.

But a growing number of kids are getting guns. One 18-year-old, who did not want to be identified, told Pohlman he got his first gun when he was 13.

Pohlman asked the Tremont teen, “What was your first gun?"

"SKS," the teen answered.

And that's not the only gun this teen has carried.

"Where do you get the guns?" Pohlman asked.

"Off the street," he answered.

According to police, every gun you can imagine is available on the streets and most of those guns that end up on the streets are stolen.

There are 40,000 guns locked up Cleveland Police Department's evidence room. All of them were taken from the streets.

Detective Valerie Mone said that's just a fraction of the firepower that's out there.

"Oh yeah, you should be scared," Mone said.

Many teens told Pohlman gun violence will continue to escalate on Cleveland's streets.

One teen said, "It ain't never gonna stop."

But some are trying to break that cycle.

At an event on Saturday, many youth marched to end violence. Others are walking the walk in the neighborhoods.

James Box is a minister, Cleveland community outreach coordinator and organizer for Amer-I-Can, the group founded by former football great, Jim Brown.

Box counsels, coordinates and confronts young people on the streets every day.

"Too many young people dying every day," Box said. "Together, we'll work to bring them all together so we can stop some of the violence in the city."

But Box said he and Amer-I-Can can't do it alone.

"It's time for everybody to step up to the plate," Box said.

Only then, Box explained, can dead end streets turn into avenues of hope.

One Cleveland teen stated, "Sometimes I wish I grew up in like a different neighborhood than this one. That way I had a better chance at life than I do now."

Related Links

• Amer-I-Can