LEWISTON — On a recent evening in a school cafeteria, parents sat at tables where their children usually have lunch, as the police chief and school superintendent flashed slides on a screen — photos of a 9mm pistol, a replica .357 revolver, and more.
Police officers explained what certain guns look like and encouraged parents to search their kids’ rooms. They should look for guns like these, and for drugs, the officials said as interpreters translated the proceedings for some parents whose native languages include Somali, Swahili, Portuguese, and Spanish.
The meeting was one of dozens of similar gatherings as authorities here try to combat a dramatic rise in gun violence.
The horrific mass shootings in October 2023 that left 18 people dead and another dozen wounded put Lewiston on an unenviable map of cities that have endured one of America’s high-profile, signature pathologies. But Lewiston has for much of the last decade struggled more quietly with a rise in gun violence among young people, prompting a host of measures in recent months, including a curfew and a police tip line to report violence.
In a city where some 10 percent of the population is foreign-born, many of the victims and perpetrators of youth violence are the children of the African immigrants who helped revitalize this old mill city two decades ago. And enlisting their parents in the fight against youth violence is a key goal of city officials and community advocates.
The number of shootings in the city, many of them involving teenagers, has more than tripled over the last seven years, according to police statistics (The statistics list shootings as events when evidence of gunfire is found, not necessarily if someone is hit.)
The issue came to a head in August, when gunshots rang out at a public park where some 300 residents had gathered for a family fun day event. No one was injured, but the incident spurred city officials and community leaders to act.
A month earlier, 17-year-old Sahal Muridi was shot and killed, allegedly by other teens, and pushed out of a car in front of his home. A senior at Lewiston High, Sahal had a job and worked as a mentor to other youth at the Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services office downtown. He was about to launch a podcast for young people; he was planning to devote the inaugural episode to gun violence.
Amran Osman, founder of Generational Noor, which works to reduce stigma surrounding substance abuse and mental health, helped organize a meeting in September aimed at finding solutions.
Two months later, the City Council approved a curfew, prohibiting minors from being outside after 10 p.m. — a time when, as Police Chief David St. Pierre put it, “nothing good happens.”
But the limitations of curfews surfaced in December, when gunshots rang out in the middle of the afternoon in the downtown residential area, where children were getting off school buses. One man was shot and seriously wounded.
A resident of Walnut Street described two groups of young men firing at each other. She assumed they were drug dealers.
“Absolutely crazy,” the resident said.
In an interview, St. Pierre said the curfew is only a tool for police, not a panacea. He said when police encounter a young person out at night after curfew, they give them a ride home and talk to their parents.
Police Sergeant Tyler Michaud said police took 71 guns off the street last year, and that so far this year there is a similar pace of seizures.
Such efforts have led to a decline in violence, St. Pierre said. Police recorded 25 shootings from January 2024 through August. Since then, Lewiston has experienced a 43-day period without any shootings, and there were only two shootings in January, one in February, and one in the first week of March, according to police statistics.
Gun violence in the city began to increase dramatically around 2018, police figures show. In the decade before, most years saw less than 10 reported shootings. But in 2018, there were 18 and by 2021 it was up to 27. In 2022, it was 42, then 38 in 2023, and 35 last year.
Citing police statistics, the Sun-Journal newspaper in Lewiston reported that about a quarter of identified suspects in shootings during 2023 and 2024 were under 18, while about half were 21 or younger.
Both police and residents believe drugs and easy access to guns are at the root of the problem. Some drug dealers are from out of town and out of state.
Mohamed Khalid, 26, co-director of the Community Organizing Alliance, a social justice agency that engages with immigrant youth, said that when he was a student at Lewiston High School a decade ago, it was unheard of for a teenager to have a gun.
Now, he said, it is common. He said the phenomenon is not confined to “bad kids.” He said even kids who have never been in trouble may arm themselves for protection.
“The kids we work with, they are afraid. A lot of them are afraid to go outside,” Khalid said.
Jake Langlais, the superintendent of Lewiston schools, said many fights that originate outside of school spill into school and some students have approached him, showing all-night back-and-forths on social media that precipitated violent fights.
He urged parents not to let their kids take their phones into their bedrooms.
“They get into social media fights,” Langlais said.
Osman, who is supportive of police and efforts to get parents more involved in their children’s lives, said many young people, in communities of color especially, fear the police. She has urged police to work harder to build rapport with kids.
St. Pierre acknowledged that “maybe we come across as a little cold” in some encounters, citing time constraints on officers, but vowed to build more trust with immigrant communities.
Osman and Khalid believe adding more police officers of color would help.
Angelynne Amores, the city’s director of marketing and communications, said nine of the city’s 78 police officers are people of color, or nearly 12 percent, in a city that is 81 percent white.
“We recognize the importance of continued efforts to reflect the community we serve,” she said.
One father, who emigrated from Angola, was incredulous that guns are so prevalent and easy to get. Police said teens who aren’t old enough to buy them legally can obtain stolen guns on the black market. A gun seized Jan. 23 after a car carrying teens was stopped by police had been stolen from a home in Lewiston.
Amores said police officers have attended more than 60 community events since August, part of the city’s ongoing effort to build trust and address gun violence.
Mayor Carl Sheline vowed to continue meeting with parents and other community members.
“These community safety education sessions here in Lewiston are important for community engagement,” he said. “They give parents the tools and information they need to keep their kids and their neighborhood safe. We’re headed in the right direction.”
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at kevin.cullen@globe.com.