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Uity Region
Falcons quarterback: Humble, caring star or brutal animal killer?
By PAUL NEWBERRY
AP National Witer
ATLANTA (AP) - There’s
more than one side o Michael
Vick, the star quarterback.
This is a guy who can throw a
football harder and farther than
just about anyone on the planet,
but thats only half the profile.
He'’s one of the most thrilling run
ners the NFL has ever seen, slicing
this way and cutting that way ala
Barry Sanders, becoming the first
at his position ever to gain 1,000
yards in a season with his legs.
Maybe there’s more than one
Young children housed with violent teens in psychiatric hospitals
ATLANTA (AP) -
Menaally ill children as
young as six years old have
often found themselves
housed with teens charged
with rape, child molestation
and other crimes in
Georgids state psychiatric
hospitals, according to offi
cals.
“There is concern that
children who are small in
stature and powerless to
defend themselves are not
safe in state hospitals,”
wrote regulators with the
Department of Human
Resources in 2000, after
investigating complaints by
two adolescent patients
who said other teens
artacked them at Central
State Hospital — which has
one of the two adolescent
units in Georgia’s state psy-
A review of incident
tianaxxdodnr7£|hl.icdoc
uments by Atlanta
Journal-Constitution
lent teens with criminal
i ooy g,
over
side to Michael Vick, the person.
Everyone from family and
friends to coaches and teammates
describe him as a hard worker
who cares for those around him,
who never shows the sort of ego
one would expect from someone
of his staggering skills, who would
rather hang out at home playing
video games than go out on the
town.
Bur a stomach-turning federal
indictment portrays him as a sin
ister thug who used his big payday
to satisfy a lust for blood, who
tumned dogs into killers and signed
off on gruesome executions when
staffing, creates an atmos
phere conducive to fighting
and sexual assaults.
In 2001, for example, a
12-year-old boy in the ado
lescent unit at Georgia
Regional Hospital/Atanta
reported that his room
mate, an older teenager,
tried to rape him.
In 2005, a 15-year-old
boy at Central State, in
Milledgeville, said another
adolescent patient had sex
ually assaulted him. The
other patient said the sex
was consensual, records
show, so state investigators
Other cases allege beat
ings and consensual sex
between male and female
Placing teens with violent
patients leaves the children
“vulnerable, extremely vul
nerable,” said Dr. Andrea
Bradford, the state hospi
uls' former medical direc
tor.
“may not to report
(assaules) or defend them
selves,” Bradford said.
AUGUSTA FOCUS
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Michael Vick
they wouldnt fight, who never
don't have enough workers
to monitor the older
patients, many of whom are
in the insttutons to be
evaluated for their fithess to
stand trial.
The state says it is taking
steps to separate adolescent
patients by age groups. But
officials have acknowledged
young forensic patients
with menally ill children
creates a dangerous situa
" Thi s
i ing, a Superior
Court judge ordered
Cuw;)lrStanc to admit a
evaluation. e teen
became the third in the
adolescent unit facing
felony sex crime dwi
and the ninth sent
unit by juvenile court
judges.
In a memo, obuained by
the Journal-Constitution
under Georgias open
records laws, Bruce
Gt O e v
treat
ment and forensic services,
said Central State’s adoles-
See To®ns, page 14
scrambled away from the shady
friends or rites of manhood
picked up on the hard-scrabble
streets of Newport News, Va.
Who's the real Michael Vick?
“There was no indication, no
signs, no whispers that he could
be involved in any of this kind of
behavior,” said Adanta Falcons
general Rich McKay, sounding as
baffled as everyone else that Vick
might have thrown it all away in
the seedy underworld of dogfight
ing.
The charges still must be deter
mined in court. If nothing else,
though, it seems dear that Vick —
Judges gather to work against unequal treatment
By DANIEL YEE :
Assodiated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) — About 200 judges
gathered Sunday, July 29 at the tomb of
aivil rights leaders Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. and Coretta Scott King to reaffirm their
efforts to promote fairness in the legal sys
tem.
The judges, part of the National Bar
Association’s Judicial Coundil, gathered
with King's sister, Christine King Farris, to
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born 27 years ago to par
ents and raised largely Ey his
mother in a neighborhood where
gangs and drugs and poverty were
a constant reminder of one’s
sanding in life — never quite
shook off the code of the ‘hood.
Machismo and loyalty help
keep you alive from one day to the
next. Not even a $l3O million
contract, luxurious cars and a
mansion in the suburbs can nec
essarily change that.
“Is difficult for people to
understand, particularly the mid-
See Killer, page 15
place a wreath before the tomb. The event
was part of the National Bar Assodiation’s
annual conference, which began Saturday
in Adanta and continues through Friday.
Civil District Court Judge Michael
Bagneris of New Orleans, standing before
the reflecting pool that surrounds the tomb,
recalled a quote by Martin Luther King that
said the law cannot control a man’s heart
but can restrict the heartess.
“I encourage all of my ‘bretheren of the
See Unequal, page 14
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