Atlanta

Investigation finds underage criminals driving force behind rise in crime

ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News is investigating violent crimes committed by young teenagers in Atlanta.

Recently, police arrested two brothers and charged them with murder. Channel 2’s Nefertiti Jaquez has learned Atlanta’s top five juvenile offenders have 101 arrests between them.

Jaquez obtained cellphone video from sources that shows some of the top juvenile offenders that trouble the Atlanta Police Department.

"It's very concerning," said Sgt. Warren Pickard with APD. "We have had four juveniles this year alone in 2016 that we have had to charge with murder."

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Jaquez has pulled police data from over the course of a week that shows underage criminals are the driving force behind the increase in the crime numbers.

Records show from October 2014 until October of this year, the top five juvenile offenders are responsible for a combined 128 crimes and have 101 arrests between them.

Of those, four of the boys have been arrested for murder. Two of those boys, Charlie McDaniel, 16, and Isaac McDaniel, screened to police at a church Nov. 13, shortly after being accused of killing a  man at a gas station in southwest Atlanta.

Charlie McDaniel and Isaac McDaniel.

“There are other people behind the scenes influencing them to be criminals," Pickard told Jaquez.

Pickard said adults with criminal records are recruiting kids to commit crimes because even if they get caught they rarely go to jail.

The data shows exactly that. Jaquez looked at the top offender, who we cannot name because he is 16 years old. He was first arrested when he was 14. And, in two years he's been arrested 34 times.

"Out of the five we consider the most prevalent juveniles to commit crime, only two of them have been recently detained," Pickard told Jaquez.