RUNAWAYS

allowed to prevent a child from running either by restraining them or physically blocking a doorway. ey also want help from the Colorado Department of Human Services, which includes the child welfare division, in creating better collaboration between youth residential facilities and local law enforcement o cers who respond when children try to run.

Workers also reported that when they write required reports about children running from a center, they take the blame, feeling “the assumption was that they had not done everything in their power to keep youth from running.” Often, the only option is calling the police. e law that prevents physical intervention leaves no room for state data on gun deaths.

At the time, e Sun found that 20,669 people died from rearmrelated injuries between 1980 and 2018, and the death rate, after dipping in the early 2000s, was on the rise.

Now, with the reverberations from a shooting at Denver’s East High School still ringing and lawmakers again hotly debating a slate of gun bills, e Sun decided to revisit that what a parent would want, sta complained.

“If I was the mother of one of those children, I would want a voice,” one sta member reported to the study authors. “I don’t think we listen to our families enough in that interpretation. I used to get numerous phone calls, ‘How do you let my kid run away? I put him there for him to be safe. How can you just say that you guys let them walk away?’”

Kids who have run away say that when they are returned to residential centers they feel like they are punished, the study found. “Like you can’t change your clothes. You can’t wear shoes. You have to wear your slides. You have to only wear scrubs,” one child said. “You can’t wear your personal clothes. You’ll be separated, so you won’t be with the unit.”

One child described it plainly — they run because they want to go home.

“I honestly just didn’t want to sit earlier analysis. e number of those who have died from rearm-related injuries has increased, of course. Between 1980 and 2021 — the most recent year for which nalized mortality data is available — 23,493 people were killed by gunshot wounds, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. But more surprising is that the rearm-related death rate in 2021 here and do another six months of treatment,” the child said. “It’s really hard because a lot of us, me, we, have so many people at home that we care about. For my speci c situation, I have two little sisters, and I’m missing my little sister’s rst days of kindergarten, and she’s getting bullied in school right now. And I have to hear about it over a phone. It really sucks. So, I guess I just wanted to leave. at’s pretty much why I ran.” e task force is named for Timmy Montoya-Kloepfel, who was 12 when he ran from Tennyson Center for Children in Denver in June 2020 and died after he was hit by a Chevy Tahoe. His mother did not know for 26 hours where he had gone after running from the center. was the highest since at least 1980. e new analysis shows the state recorded 18.2 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, far exceeding any other year in that time span. e previous high was in 1981, at 16.3 deaths per 100,000 people. ese numbers include all deaths caused by rearms — homicides, suicides, accidents and incidents eir deaths and the escalating runaway problem at some residential child care facilities sparked calls for investigation and allegations from residential centers that they were su ering from years of inadequate state funding. Some called for review of state regulations that prohibit centers from locking their doors or using physical force to prevent children from running away. e task force, which includes former foster kids, foster parents, social workers, a police o cer and county child welfare o cials, must submit reports to the legislature by October 2024. is story is from e Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support e Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. e Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

Timmy and Andrew Potter, 15, were killed in separate incidents with similar details — both were struck by cars late at night after running away from di erent centers, two years apart.

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