- Apr 21, 2007
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- 5,593
Innocent in shooting, Nicetown youth spent five months in prison
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
By rights, Lionel Franks should have graduated from high school in June, near the top of his class.
By rights, he already should have started his freshman year at Lincoln University, studying culinary arts.
By rights, he should have been anywhere but in jail for five of the most important months of his teenage life, accused of shooting a man 12 times on a North Philadelphia street.
Franks' bad-dream detour into the city's criminal-justice system began April 9, a Friday mostly spent touring the Lincoln campus in rural Chester County. Back home in his Nicetown neighborhood by midafternoon, he changed into an Adidas sweat suit, green with white stripes down the pants and sleeves, and went shopping for sneakers at a sporting-goods store on Germantown Avenue.
Minutes into the return trip, Franks was swarmed by police. A man had just been gunned down 12 blocks away, they told him, and two witnesses had identified him as the shooter.
Franks showed the officers his bag from Olympia Sports and his new shoes. "You got the wrong guy!" he protested as they cuffed him.
READ: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...cetown_youth_spent_five_months_in_prison.html
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
By rights, Lionel Franks should have graduated from high school in June, near the top of his class.
By rights, he already should have started his freshman year at Lincoln University, studying culinary arts.
By rights, he should have been anywhere but in jail for five of the most important months of his teenage life, accused of shooting a man 12 times on a North Philadelphia street.
Franks' bad-dream detour into the city's criminal-justice system began April 9, a Friday mostly spent touring the Lincoln campus in rural Chester County. Back home in his Nicetown neighborhood by midafternoon, he changed into an Adidas sweat suit, green with white stripes down the pants and sleeves, and went shopping for sneakers at a sporting-goods store on Germantown Avenue.
Minutes into the return trip, Franks was swarmed by police. A man had just been gunned down 12 blocks away, they told him, and two witnesses had identified him as the shooter.
Franks showed the officers his bag from Olympia Sports and his new shoes. "You got the wrong guy!" he protested as they cuffed him.
READ: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...cetown_youth_spent_five_months_in_prison.html