Three years ago, a 15-year-old boy was shot 21 times in the back by a group of teenagers who are now in prison for the attack.
The teens hid in a stolen Dodge Durango and waited for Zykiqurio Lofton to walk from the Citrus Grove Apartments in St. Petersburg to a gas station on the corner.
One of Zykiqurio’s slide sandals fell off as he ran for his life. He collapsed in front of Jetts’ Food N Gas. He died at the hospital that night.
Detectives said the teens targeted Zykiqurio because he was part of a rival neighborhood group and there was a dispute over drugs.
Deonte Bishop and David Moore, 17 at the time, were convicted of murder last April and sentenced to life in prison. Jeremiah Davis, then18, pleaded guilty in January in exchange for 45 years in prison.
While St. Petersburg police say the end of the case signifies an important step in fighting youth gun violence, prosecutors who handle gang crimes in the county say cases haven’t slowed. Some community members have made it their mission to end the violentcycle that has plagued parts of the city for decades.
St. Petersburg is no Los Angeles, which is known for national gangs like the Bloods and theCrips, said Assistant Police Chief Michael Kovacsev.
In fact, police don’t like to use the word “gangs” to describe the pockets of young people involved in violence. They call them “neighborhood groups” instead.
There’s the Bethel Heights Boys, the group based out of an apartment complex known today as Citrus Grove. There’s a Childs Park group. There’s the 49th Street Boys.
Kovacsev said gang violence was much more common when he started at the police department in the mid-1990s.
In 1993, for instance,trouble erupted at St. Petersburg High School when a freshman who’d gotten in a fight called on his friends, who were members of a Chicago-born gang called Latin Kings. A group of men marched single-file into the parking lot with baseball caps pulled low over their faces. They surrounded police officers and kicked at them as they were arrested. Two students were expelled for hiding guns brought to campus that day.
A large presence of gangs in 2000 led to an all-out gang war. At the time, detectives believed the conflict was between a smaller, aggressive gang called True Asian Pride and a larger group that it spun off from: a gang known alternately as the Young Bloods, the Southern Bloods or the Asian Pride Gangsters.
There was also a heavy presence of local street gangs and national affiliates.
Today, Kovacsev said there are only a handful of local neighborhood pseudo-gangs.
“Either they grow out of it, or unfortunately, they get incarcerated out of it,” he said.
The Tampa Bay Times analyzed location data of all 75 of the city’s shooting deaths in the last five years and found that 65% have occurred in the 2 miles between Citrus Grove and Childs Park. Detectives believe Zykiqurio was part of the Citrus Grove group and that the teens who killed him were from the Childs Park group.
The rate of homicides in southern St. Pete was nearly eight times higher than the total Pinellas County rate between 2018 and 2022, according to a health equity study by the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg.
Assistant State Attorney Elizabeth Constantine, who has been prosecuting cases in the gang crime unit for five years, says the “neighborhood groups” should be considered gangs.
A criminal gang is classified under Florida law as a “formal or informal ongoing organization, association or group with three or more persons who share a common name, identifying signs, colors or symbols.”
“It’s built around neighborhoods. These people are loyal to each other,” Constantine said. “Young people are brought in by their brothers, their school friends.”
Constantine prosecuted Zykiqurio’s case and said the state couldn’t establish that the shooting was due to gang involvement.
In order to prosecute a case with a gang enhancement, which can bring harsher punishment, the state has to prove that the crime benefited the gang. That can be difficult, she said.
She said her office is seeing “a steady stream of cases” involving teens and young adults shooting and killing each other over territory and drugs.
“Gangs desensitize crime for young people,” Constantine said. “The choices they make and the second they pull the trigger, lives are changed forever.”
Maress Scott understands the devastation that can come from a split-second decision.
His son, Marquis, was shot and killed by people he considered friends while riding his bike a few blocks from his grandmother’s house in 2019. He was 20.
“Our neighbors’ kids were killing our kids,”Scottsaid.
He powered his frustration into change by starting Quis For Life, a nonprofit aimed at curbing youth gun violence.
Scott said that by the end of 2024, the organization had gotten more than 5,000 local teenagers to sign a pledge agreeing not to hurt fellow youth and accepting responsibility for creating a safe neighborhood.
Group membersvisit neighborhoods where kids are most likely to commit gun violence and speak to youth about the pledge.
Scott says he almost always gets a call from a community member after a shooting. When Zykiqurio was shot, Scott focused his attention on Citrus Grove.
He visited the complex and got two young girls to take the pledge. He said he chased two boys through the parking lot to have a conversation with them.
“They didn’t want to talk, but they listened to what I said,” he said.
Though there’s been a noticeable drop in shootings over the last few years, Scott believes he must continue reaching youth.
“It’s a never-ending fight of planting the seed of accountability to protect the future of our community,” Scott said. “It’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of deal.”
St. Petersburg marked 11 homicides in 2025, the lowest since 1967.
“I’m pleased that the hard work of our officers and detectives, along with the use of the latest crime-fighting technology, is paying off and the numbers prove it,” Chief Anthony Holloway said in a news release.
The city has seen an average of about 23 homicides a year since 2016, data show. The majority are committed with guns.
“When they (youth) break into cars or steal cars, firearms fall into the wrong hands, and you see that with our numbers,” Kovacsev said.
Instead of a fistfight, he said, you get a shooting.
Many young people who face murder charges — including those who killed Zykiqurio — have a record of auto theft, records show. A 2017 Tampa Bay Times investigation found that teens were arrested for auto theft in Pinellas County more than any other county in Florida going back eight years, and more than the most populous counties in America.
Kovacsev said the department has sincepaid more attention to auto theft, devoting more resources to prevention. There were 406 auto thefts in 2025, down from a five-year average of 735.
The department also set up a Gun Response Investigative Team, Kovacsev said, four detectives devoted to responding to gun crimes even when the incidents don’t involve injury or death.
“If you don’t have detectives who keep track of where casings come from and show that they’re related to other shootings, you lose the ability to tie those other crimes together,” he said.
In many cases, gang involvement has become glamorized due to rap culture and social media, said Assistant State Attorney Elizabeth Traverso, a prosecutor in the gang crime unit.
“It’s trendy, and that’s what I think is going to prolong this,” Traverso said.
In October, Jaylen Shazell, 26, was sentenced to life in prison for causing a fiery fatal crash on Tyrone Boulevard after shooting at 25-year-old Demond Perry in 2022.
Shazell became a suspect after police uncovered a combination of text messages, cellphone location data and bullet casing matches connected to a dispute between two St. Petersburg gangs.
Traverso showed evidence in court that investigators found song lyrics by Shazell on his phone that appeared to mirror facts of the shooting: “Kill, kill. Murder, murder. We’ll chase your car with tools and flip you like a burger.”
Traverso and Constantine said they have noticed an increase in teens showing up in courtroom galleries to take photos and jokingly post about their friends who are accused of violent crimes.
Charles Price was first arrested when he was 12 and believes that’s when youth are thrown into a cycle of environmental and peer influence to commit crimes and make light of serious offenses.
Price, 50, is launching a 10-month mentorship program this month focused on crime prevention for youth ages 12 through 20 through physical and emotional wellness.
Every Wednesday, the cohort will focus on a different area of wellness. One week, they’ll have a professional readiness panel; another week they’ll exercise and make smoothies with fresh fruit to model a healthy lifestyle. Therapists will also speak to the kids about how to respond appropriately in volatile situations.
The Young Influencers Felony Prevention Program is sponsored by the St. Petersburg Police Department, United Way and the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg.
Price hopes that if kids in the program learn how to understand triggers and think in emotional situations, violent crime rates will go down.
“You make better decisions when you feel better,” he said. “Right now, youth are making decisions based on what they believe is easier.”