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This story was published as part of Next City’s Detroit News Hub, a reporting project funded by the Kresge Foundation. The hub includes BridgeDetroit, Planet Detroit, and Chalkbeat Detroit.
Armani Arnold was a 16-year-old Detroit high school student walking home from a bus stop when a man in a car pulled up next to her, catcalling and trying to get her to talk to him.
Arnold ignored the stranger and began walking fast to get away from him. He persisted.
“I’m scared because I have a heavy book bag. I have on a dress and I just — I can’t run,” she told Chalkbeat. She started to cross the street, but he cut her off with his car in the crosswalk. So she pleaded with him.
“I’m only 16,” she said, thinking she was about to be kidnapped. “Please leave me alone. Please don’t hurt me.”
The plea worked, and he left.
Safety is a serious issue for young people in Detroit. Chalkbeat talked to teenagers — and the adults who advocate for and with them — to understand how their daily lives are shaped by such concerns. The possibility of getting attacked on the way to or from school is a constant safety issue in Detroit. But youths also worry about bullying, school shootings, and detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Crime rates in Detroit suggest that the city has become a safer place. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of homicides in Detroit dropped 19% — the lowest number since 1965. Rates of nonfatal shootings and carjackings decreased during the same time period by 25% and 15%, respectively.
Although Detroit’s gun violence has declined, school shootings across the country have increased since 2020 — a persistent fear for many students.
While some measures indicate that Detroit is a safer place, the city’s youth consider many factors — not just violence statistics — when describing what makes them feel safe or unsafe.
Fears of violence have likely seemed valid given recent events: A 4-year-old and an 18-year-old were fatally shot last week at a Detroit park, prompting a citywide effort by community violence prevention groups to reach out to youths and get them connected to activities this summer that will keep them busy and safe. Over the weekend, a 15-year-old was killed and his 13-year-old sister was injured in a home shooting. During the annual Ford Fireworks on June 23, a popular event that attracts lots of youth, a dispute fight led to gunfire. And in May, gun shots rang out near King High School on the night of the senior prom, leaving teens dressed in their fancy attire running for cover.
A sense of uncertainty or fear can affect young people in many ways, from mental health and well-being to school attendance and academic performance.
“Those traumas or those fears — those are barriers to learning,” said John Carlson, professor of school psychology at Michigan State University.
“If you can’t even feel safe — that basic need of safety that we all have — then how can we expect you to do something a little bit more complex,” like reaching your academic potential, or being fully engaged in the learning process, he said.
Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, agreed that feeling unsafe or unsupported can cause “stress, anxiety, and reduced confidence.”
In an emailed statement, Vitti said the school district has students complete a mental health screener, offers mental health services, including access to therapists, ensures schools have guidance counselors, and asks students to take an annual survey to “better understand how students perceive their learning environment.”
When students are safe and supported, “they are more resilient and better positioned to succeed,” he said.
Common stressors for youth, like trauma and feeling unsafe, may be more acute in Detroit than they are in some other areas. “The data clearly show that in urban environments, those stressors are much greater than in rural or suburban communities,” Carlson said.
On the day Arnold was harassed, she was simply trying to get home from a day spent learning at Cass Technical High School.
The Detroit school district doesn’t provide school bus transportation for most high school students (students with disabilities are among the exceptions). Instead, it pays for bus cards to take city buses. Her city bus route was out of service that day, so she took another one home.
When she made it home, she told her guardian what happened.
“She basically blamed me … she said, well, that’s what you get for taking that route home,” Arnold said. She felt like no one cared about her.
That lack of support is part of the reason Arnold, now 23, serves on the Youth Action Board for the Detroit Phoenix Center, an organization that provides programs and services for youths in the city experiencing homelessness, as Arnold once did. She wants them to have the support she lacked.
Students learn to assess unsafe situations
For years, students in Detroit have had to deal with dangerous commutes to school.
Calvin Colbert, executive director of Detroit Impact, started a Safe Routes to School program in 1995 in which community members monitored kids on their way to and from school. The program, which succeeded in reducing violence, became a model for a similar federal program. But its funding eventually dried up, Colbert said.
“Everybody felt like, ‘well, it’s over,’” he said. “No, the intensity of it may be over, but the existence of violence is still there.”
Colbert said sexual predators pose a threat to students trying to get to school.
“What they do in the early mornings — they scour the bus stops. They identify students who catch the bus. They follow them. They become aware of them,” he said.
Although she could walk to the School at Marygrove, Malaya Ramsey gets a ride from her mother to avoid unwanted attention from men.
“I’m a 15-year-old with a more mature body. So when I go into the outside world, it be like men trying to talk to me and stuff like that,” she said.
Some students carry pepper spray and personal alarms to protect themselves on the bus or walk to school. They make a point not to talk to strangers on public transportation.
“There’s a lot of things happening right now in the world. … People go missing, or somebody can just do something to you at any point if you’re alone,” said Dulce Bravo, 18, who graduated from Western International High School this spring. She carries pepper spray and a personal safety alarm.
“I didn’t feel safe anywhere, or I would always have to keep an eye out,” she said.
Having to be so aware of her surroundings used to weigh on her. But, she said, it doesn’t bother her as much anymore. “As time is going on, I think I’m just starting to accept the fact that things do happen.”
School security measures don’t make all students feel safe – and the effects of trauma linger
Schools’ security practices vary widely. Some have metal detectors, security guards, and locked doors, but they may not make students feel safer.
Some students said their peers, or even strangers, can get around the metal detector — their security guard isn’t adequately equipped or trained to protect them.
At one school without metal detectors, students reported that teens from a rival school have come in and started fights.
Other students were concerned that their schools’ active shooter drills or fire drills haven’t gone smoothly — and some students don’t take the drills seriously.
When fights and conflicts break out, multiple youth said they’d like to see teachers and administrators get more involved in resolving the problems. Sitting down with the students involved helps sometimes, but “some are more mature than others,” said Ja’Nya Street, 16, a student at the School at Marygrove. Sometimes, the bullying doesn’t stop.
Teachers “tell us to ignore it, ignore it, ignore it until somebody — sometimes people just reach their breaking point,” Street said. “Check up on the incident that happened … don’t just tell them to ignore it and just act like it’s nothing anymore.”
Tiarra Hall, 18, who graduated from WAY Academy West Campus this spring, is a safety ambassador with Detroit Impact. She said fights are the most common safety problem that comes up in her work with the organization.
Detroit Impact helps youth “stay calm in a situation that might disrupt their future,” Hall said. “We’re trying to help them with resolving their issues without beating each other up, and giving them ways to resolve their anger without hurting themselves or people around them.”
When conflicts arise, “they just go to whatever seems the most convenient, and in those cases, it’s physical violence,” she said.
Situations that make youth feel unsafe can cause lasting trauma.
Responses to trauma can be cognitive, psychological, or behavioral — and “our emotional responses can wax and wane,” Carlson, the MSU professor, said. “When we get support, we can have improvement. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have something arise in our life two months later that brings us right back to that traumatic experience.”
And if someone keeps experiencing the stressor, their responses to it can accumulate, so “it doesn’t make it easier the next time, it actually makes it worse,” Carlson said.
For that reason, continuous monitoring of youth who need support should become a natural part of procedural safety processes, he said.
Some young people in Detroit aren’t safe at home or face homelessness
As a child, Alexis Escoto, 23, a member of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Youth Advisory Panel, dealt with violence at home because of a family member’s drug problem. And one of his cousins was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Escoto said those traumatic experiences caused him to withdraw. He started skipping school and acting out enough that his teachers would kick him out of class.
“I didn’t want to talk to no one,” he said. “I was paranoid. If I talked to someone, I’m afraid they’d hurt me somehow, or I’d hurt them if they pushed my buttons.”
Children and teenagers who live in unstable home conditions or experience homelessness face extra layers of safety concerns.
Some may live in unsafe situations, such as in homes without running water or heat, said Courtney Smith, CEO of Detroit Phoenix Center, which provides housing and mental health resources and other assistance.
Two children who died in February while living in a van drew widespread attention to the dangers for children living unhoused.
Some families also don’t feel comfortable calling the police for a variety of reasons.
With the Trump administration’s widespread efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, students are concerned about ICE agents coming into schools and communities and taking people away. Escoto said that in his majority-Hispanic community, some people avoid the police because they think they are working with ICE.
When police are around, some youth say they feel more policed than protected, but others want police to be more present in their neighborhoods.
Relationships are key, some advocates say
Even in seemingly safe home situations, youth may feel unsupported.
Many children and teenagers don’t have strong relationships with their parents or guardians, said Camille Hollenquest, 24, executive director of the youth-led organization Detroit Heals Detroit. In those situations, the children “can’t come to you about the things that they’re going through,” they said.
“If you’re not actually curious about what their experiences are, other than just, like, how your day is … actually being invested into who they are as people,” that can cause safety issues, they said.
Many organizations around Detroit have built safe spaces for youth, where they can be who they are and get the support they need. Some of the services they provide respond directly to safety concerns. Others have different functions but also give youth access to trusted adults and peers they can connect with.
Darrell Hall, youth director at Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance, said relationship building is key. “You don’t know anything about what safety issues are present if you don’t know the youth,” he said. “How do you build relationships so youth can say, ‘I’m unsafe at home, or when I’m walking down the street by these abandoned houses,’ or whatever it may be?”
Several of the youth included here go or have gone to these organizations for support, but they also give back themselves, to create safe spaces for others.
One way Escoto moved forward from trauma was by leaning into the community advocacy work he’s been doing since high school. Through various organizations, he has worked “to help the community to be more engaged, get the resources they need, and live in a safe, friendly environment,” he said. “I love seeing the younger kids now having a space in the community center to play soccer or make art or do whatever they want in a safe space.”
Sirrita Darby, co-founder of Detroit Heals Detroit, turned over her executive director role to Hollenquest, so the organization is fully youth led. Hollenquest said they appreciate the opportunity “to be able to show up as a young person in these spaces that aren’t traditionally familiar with catering to the voices and the wants and needs of youth.”
“Sometimes you just need to be in a space with other youth to where it’s like, I understand and I hear you, I feel you, as well as making sure that the youth who are in that space — they have the tools to further navigate situations when another young person is coming to them with the heaviness of their experiences,” Hollenquest said. “Until we have that, I don’t know if youth will be able to actually feel safe.
Youth are coming up with solutions to the safety challenges they’ve faced, Smith said. “They’re building food pantries inside of schools, they’re advocating for policy changes. They’re talking with their state legislators,” and in addressing safety issues, “we need to center solutions that are rooted in youth voice and youth power,” she said.