Kid Crime Crusader Charged in Murder

BOSTON (AP), A teen-ager who once spoke out against crime in his Boston neighborhood, asking the governor in a letter to ``put the bad people in jail,'' is behind bars after pleading innocent to murder.

Jason Meeks, 18, is accused of killing another teen h in Boston's South End neighborhood last year. He was jailed Monday.  In 1991, 10-year-old Meeks wrote then-Gov. William Weld, asking him to do something about crime in the Roxbury neighborhood where he lived.

``I want you to stop the violence,'' he wrote. ``Make the people that are selling drugs go to school and put the bad people in jail.''

In January 1993, Weld visited Meeks at his school and was photographed eating pepperoni pizza with him in the cafeteria.  In May 1998, Meeks and some friends allegedly were riding their bicycles and met up with Tari Thomas, 18, whom he apparently knew.  The teens exchanged words before Meeks pulled a semiautomatic pistol and shot Thomas in the head, prosecutors said.

Prosecutor Dennis Collins would not comment on possible motives, and he also would not comment on why Meeks was arrested more than a year after Thomas was killed.

Top of Page