BATON ROUGE - According to Baton Rouge Police, 15 percent of all of last year's felony arrests were teens 16 and younger.
Baton Rouge Police Chief 'T.J.' Morse says his officers are arresting some of the same kids over and over.

17-year-old Eddie Monroe Jr. has been arrested for three separate shootings, two of them fatal, in the last year.

"When you have a 17-year-old that's been arrested three times for murder or attempted murder in a year in a half -- there's something wrong with that and we need to look at the bonds, we need to look at how quickly we can get to the trial to hold people accountable," Morse said. 

Monroe was out on bond for attempted murder at the downtown Christmas parade when police say he shot and killed Victor Lapharohs in June.

Just last week, BRPD arrested five teens ages 17 and 18 for an armed robbery and shooting back in January.

While Monroe and those teens are considered adults by law, some of the crimes they've been previously arrested for happened when they were still juveniles.

"In 2024, we arrested 16 juveniles for committing homicides. That's not for just shooting at somebody or wounding somebody, that's actually for killing someone and that's 16 or younger, so 14, 15, 15-year-olds getting their hands on guns and shooting people."

Morse says this year, so far, they've arrested nine.

"So we're on pace, or maybe even a little bit more this year, for arresting juveniles for committing homicides."

Morse says there's no single reason why kids are increasingly committing crimes.

"Whether it's the family, whether it's church, whether it's school, whether it's community organizations -- there's a lot of systems that have failed to make a 15-year-old want to pick up a gun and shoot somebody."

One way BRPD is hoping to combat the problem is by going into schools to reach younger kids in order to help build their trust of the police.