Thursday, May 04, 2000
The system didn't weed family tree
By KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEWPORT — Mike McIntosh is a convicted killer at 18.
I'm not surprised. He was headed for trouble, and nobody did enough to steer him straight.
Now he faces life in prison, and a young man named Petey Greene is dead.
Our system must do more to protect communities from dangerous juveniles. At the same time, it must find a way to save such youths from their own sorry lives.
Mr. McIntosh was convicted last week in the 1999 murder of Mr. Greene. The victim, an 18-year-old basketball star, was shot while trying to protect a friend.
Mr. McIntosh had five previous felony convictions on his juvenile record.
“That's unbelievable for an 18-year-old,” says Jack Porter, assistant commonwealth's attorney.
Boy with a history
At my request, District Judge Mickey Foellger released more information on some of those cases. State law permits this, if the crimes are serious enough.
Mr. McIntosh committed his first felony, a theft, at 11. He was probated to his father's care, Mr. Porter says.
In 1994, he was convicted of wanton endangerment and probated to the state Cabinet for Human Resources. Later that year, he was involved in a riot and was committed to the Cabinet's custody again.
Soon enough, the young man returned to Newport, where he has lived alternately with his mother and grandmother.
In 1996, at age 14, Mr. McIntosh stabbed another youth, collapsing the young man's lung, records show. As a result, he spent seven months at Lincoln Village in Elizabethtown, one of 12 state centers for delinquents.
Then, as usual, he returned home.
In October 1997, he and two other boys broke into a house and stole a necklace, records show. Again, Mr. McIntosh was sent away — this time to the Northern Kentucky Youth Development Center in Crittenden for 13 months.
This time, his caseworkers in Newport were adamant: He must not return to the community, says Mr. Foellger, the district judge.
They wanted him placed in a group home or in therapeutic foster care. But it was not to be. Mr. McIntosh was released to his mother, and seven months later, Petey Greene was dead.
A mother's efforts
A juvenile justice spokeswoman declined to explain the decisions made in Mr. McIntosh's case, citing confidentiality rules.
But Donna McIntosh, 35, tells me she did the best she could for her son.
She took him to relatives in Eastern Kentucky but ran out of money and had to return. She can't work because of pain related to her breast implants, she says.
Her own record includes convictions for fourth-degree assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Three months after her son shot Mr. Greene, she was arrested for pulling a gun on a Newport street and shooting at her boyfriend, records show.
Mr. McIntosh's father, Robert McKenzie, has owed thousands of dollars in child support. In the 1980s, he was arrested numerous times for disorderly conduct and assault.
It's no wonder caseworkers worried about the couple's son.
Did the system screw up, or was this young man doomed by poor role models and his own moral failings?
I suspect the truth lies in all three.
Karen Samples is Kentucky columnist for the Enquirer. She can be reached at 578-5584 or ksamples@enquirer.com.
SAMPLES ARCHIVE
