by , , , and | An analysis of hospital claims data in Florida found that firearm injuries of children disproportionately hit families in a handful of ZIP codes, almost all of them in Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, or Tampa Bay
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Just west of the St. Johns River, which divides this sprawling city racially and economically, 2-year-old A’mahri Robinson was murdered in his mother’s arms.
Ladonna Johnson was rocking A’mahri to sleep in March when he was shot in the head with a gun she kept for protection.
A’mahri loved going outdoors and taking rides in his pull-along wagon. His mother called the toddler “sweet” and “affectionate.” When he was around, she said, “you just felt love.”
Two-year-old A’mahri Robinson was murdered while in his mother’s arms in March. | Ladonna JohnsonThe child was close with Steven Dodson Jr., his mother’s boyfriend, who had reached for the gun during an argument. Dodson, 21, in June pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated child abuse and was sentenced to life in prison.
A’mahri died in one of Florida’s most violent places for children: Jacksonville. This city has three ZIP codes that rank among the 10 worst in the state for firearm injuries involving children.
Every year, hundreds of children are hospitalized in Florida with gunshot wounds, and overwhelmingly, they come from a tiny number of ZIP codes, an exclusive analysis of hospital data by KFF Health News and The Trace found.
Hospital billing data obtained from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration shows that from 2018 to 2024 more than 4,000 children 17 or younger were hospitalized for firearm injuries — a rate of about 1.5 a day.
The newsrooms gathered data that the state’s hospitals use to collect payments from insurance companies or the government. The information does not identify patients but includes details about where they lived and their age, race, and other demographics.
The number of children killed in Jacksonville has grown so large that a nonprofit, Families of Slain Children, built a “Wall of Compassion” memorial listing hundreds of people killed by gunfire in the city. Memorial organizers have stood up a second wall nearby that is filling with names.
Jacksonville kids were shot most often in racially segregated neighborhoods — a legacy from the early 20th century of state-sanctioned discrimination in housing, banking, and investment. These areas today are plagued by pollution from defunct city-run trash incinerators, garbage-strewn lots, dilapidated housing, poverty, and other problems that local leaders have been promising to fix for more than 50 years.
Nearly all the Florida ZIP codes with the highest rates of firearm injuries for children have large Black or Latino populations.
Perhaps nowhere is the toll of gun violence more evident than at UF Health Jacksonville, a safety net hospital and the only Level I trauma center in northeastern Florida.
As chief of acute care surgery, Firas Madbak sees firsthand the toll exacted by guns.
“You see it day in and day out,” Madbak said. “I’m working tonight, and I suspect I’ll see a couple victims.”
Jeffrey Goldhagen, a UF Health pediatrician and former health director for Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, said state and local leaders have failed to address what he called the “root causes” of preventable firearm injuries and deaths, such as poverty, lack of opportunity, and neglect.
“The bottom line is nobody gives a flying f— about these young men,” Goldhagen said.
Gun violence victims and their families face increased risk of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental health problems.
Throughout U.S. history, local governments have pushed industrial plants, oil refineries, and highways through Black neighborhoods even as research linked them to increased risks of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer, preterm births, and gun violence.
But the Florida Department of Health does not focus on gun violence as a public health threat, Goldhagen said, despite its being the nation’s leading cause of death for children and teens.
The State Health Improvement Plan, a set of goals developed by the health department and an advisory committee, does not mention guns, the toll they take on children, or efforts to reduce firearm deaths and injuries to young people.
Instead, its goals include preventing or reducing sudden unexpected infant deaths and youth drownings, emergency room visits for motor vehicle crashes, and hospitalizations for traumatic brain injuries.
And yet, no one with the authority to address this public health crisis would agree to talk to KFF Health News about gun violence and its toll on Jacksonville’s children — not the Florida health department, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Mayor Donna Deegan, or 18 of 19 members of the Jacksonville City Council.
Only Council member Jimmy Peluso responded. Peluso said the city has long ignored the needs of neighborhoods with high rates of firearm injuries among children.
“A lot of these neighborhoods have just felt like the wealth has left them,” he said, “and the city didn’t come in to put in the amount of work they needed to.”
DeSantis, a Republican, in public comments has called for few limits on how people purchase or carry firearms. He signed a bill to allow Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
When then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis in 2024, DeSantis called the advisory an “unconstitutional power-grab.”
DeSantis said Florida would not follow the advisory, which recommended policies including universal background checks for gun purchases and requirements for secure storage.
DeSantis spokesperson Molly Best declined an interview request and to answer questions about the governor’s gun policies.
“There isn’t an agenda to end gun violence in the state of Florida,” said Jean Francis, a former pediatric nurse who leads the Jacksonville chapter of Moms Demand Action, part of a nonprofit that advocates for stronger firearm laws.
Research has linked increases in pediatric gun deaths from 2011 to 2023 to state-level gun policies.
States with permissive gun policies, such as “stand your ground” and open carry laws, reported higher rates of firearm deaths among children than states with strict regulations, such as weapon and age restrictions, according to a study in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study ranked Florida among a group of 30 states with the most permissive gun policies. Four states with comparatively strict gun laws — California, Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island — saw a decrease in pediatric gun deaths over the same time period.
Florida law prevents cities and counties from enacting stricter gun safety measures.
Research shows kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods are up to 20 times more likely to suffer firearm injuries than their peers in the most advantaged areas.
“It’s disheartening,” Madbak said. UF Health Jacksonville treated 255 patients for gunshot wounds in 2024, including 32 who were 17 or younger, he said.
In 2025, the hospital treated 269 patients for firearm injuries, including 22 who were under 18, according to Dan Leveton, a hospital spokesperson. As of Aug. 19, the hospital has treated 137 patients for gunshot wounds this year, including 18 who were 17 or younger.
Preventing gun violence “shouldn’t be a political issue, even though it is,” Madbak said, adding that there is a lot of room for more effective advocacy for violence prevention.
“It’s really an American issue,” Madbak said, “and our state has been impacted tremendously by this kind of violence.”
The Pain of Mothers, Grandmothers, and Aunts
In Orlando, one ZIP code — 32805 — had the state’s highest rate of children under 18 hospitalized for a gunshot wound from 2018 through 2024, with a total of 25 children, or 125.8 per 100,000.
On New Year’s Day 2018, Bryce Williams, 17, was shot in a neighborhood park in Casselberry, an Orlando suburb. He was found dead after crashing his blue Kia into a home near the park.
Williams’ death devastated his family, his grandmother Kim Crow told WFTV in Orlando.
“First off, you can’t believe that someone is taken from you so violently,” Crow said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
In April, Daesean Moctezuma Orland, 18, was fatally shot while attending a house party outside Orlando. Two others wounded in the shooting were taken to the hospital. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy about a month after the shooting and charged him with Moctezuma Orland’s death.
Where Florida’s Gun Violence Exacts Its Biggest Toll on Black and Latino Children