Antwan Ash was a 16-year-old high school drop out on October 25, 2005 when he murdered and robbed Kendrick Sparrow.  Now he will spend the rest of his life in prison.  Sparrow, who was in his early twenties, was a high school graduate who had turned down a full scholarship to go to college because, as he told his Dad, he “was making too much easy money selling drugs” to worry about college. His father was stunned.

It took a Brunswick County jury less than an hour to convict Ash, despite the fact that he was so young.  We are seeing more and more young people doing really violent crimes.  I do not have the answer as to why—lack of parental support, lack of education, lack of positive role models, lack of opportunities for alternative community activities, poverty, and the list goes on.  We have all heard the excuses.  I am not saying that those various “excuses” are not a contributing factor, but I still maintain that in the end, it is generally a matter of “choice” by the individual; a choice to sell drugs for a fast buck rather than to go to college, a matter of choice to rob and murder instead of working.

Well, my office has made a choice to. After the verdict, my assistant, Lee Bollinger said,  "I think the message that the jury is sending is we are not going to tolerate young people who are not in school, don't have a job, and are trading in illegal drugs and violence. Jurors are sick of it, people who live in these communities are sick of it, and this office is sick of it." 

             My office, in partnership with Communities in Schools, has run  Teen Court for nearly ten years.  It is designed to give first time offenders a chance to overcome the life-long effects of an early wrong decision.  This fall we will be teaming up to expand the program into Middle school with our Peer Court model.  We have a parenting program that is part of both projects.  We are going to continue to be proactive in trying to change future behavior by making a difference today.

            However, we are not going to tolerate the escalating violence.  Our communities and schools need to be places where we can feel safe and be safe. Assistand District Attorney  Bollinger was quoted as saying this about the situation:

           “Young people should pay attention. We have one young man who paid for his involvement in the drug trade with his life and we have another young man who is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. You've got two ways to go if you deal with drugs and one way is the graveyard and the other way is the state penitentiary."

That’s our position.