Children keep seeing grown-ups killed in the nation’s capital. They’re victims, too.

Jennifer Long, who is the co-founder of AEquitas, a Washington-based organization that provides resources to prosecutors and holds the goal of “ultimately preventing future acts of violence,” says sometimes children happen to be witnesses and sometimes perpetrators want them to bear witness as an extra punishment.

“There is a level of disregard,” she says. “But then there is also a level of someone who is so violent, so hateful, that committing the act in front of the children is part of the crime — it’s part of the injury they are trying to cause.”