Posted on 01/22/2006 5:55:09 AM PST by Ninian Dryhope
Jonathan Finkelman was 16 and had a good home and a good future, but bad choices changed everything
Jonathan Finkelman, 16, lived in comfortable suburban surroundings and attended one of the city's best public high schools. He had lots of friends, boyish good looks and a nature that led him to donate half of his bar mitzvah gifts to a children's outreach program.
His death last month during what police are calling a botched drug-deal-turned-robbery was worse than anything his friends could imagine. For Bellaire High School parents, it was a reminder that nothing guarantees their children's safety — not affluence, access to a good education or even active, interested parents.
"It shook everybody to the core," said Finkelman's classmate and former football teammate Clayton Ivey, 17. "Even people who didn't know him are changed by it — who they choose to be friends with and what they choose to do. It's made everybody take a close look at themselves."
Like every teenager, Finkelman faced temptations and distractions. The young man who once made 60-yard touchdowns on the football field also flirted with drugs and faced disciplinary problems at school, classmates said. He occasionally drifted into the wrong crowds, alarming some of his oldest friends. And he sometimes showed extreme loyalty to others when it was not in his best interest, they said.
On Dec. 27 — just three days after returning from a family cruise to Belize and Cozumel with his father and his brothers — Finkelman was shot in the head in his car at the edge of a Meyerland-area park less than a mile from his mother's home. Police think he was attempting to sell prescription painkillers.
Warren Payne, a 15-year-old Bellaire High freshman and son of a local patent attorney, also was shot but survived. A third Bellaire student escaped injury and hid behind a nearby home while trying to call 911 for help.
Nearly a month later, the killer's identity remains a mystery. An accused accomplice arrested two days after the shootings has been little help to police, claiming he doesn't know the gunman's real name.
In the driver's seat where Finkelman died, Houston police found two unlabeled plastic bottles containing an estimated 250 pills thought to be Loricet, an opium-based painkiller related to Vicodin. The pills are awaiting official identification by a laboratory.
"The bottles were just soaked in blood," said Houston Police Department homicide investigator Tom Cunningham.
The gunman didn't get the drugs, worth an estimated $300 to $500, but swiped Finkelman's wallet, which likely contained far less.
Father says son was set up Houston police have not found any prescription showing Finkelman had a doctor's authorization for the medication, said homicide investigator P.J. Guerrero.
But more than one source told police that Finkelman was the person selling the pills that night, Guerrero said.
Others aren't so sure. Finkelman's family declined to be interviewed for this story, but his father, at a recent news conference, said police have not proved the pills were his son's. Alan Finkelman said he found no drugs among his son's belongings at home.
"Jonathan was set up to be robbed," the elder Finkelman told the Houston Chronicle when he complained about the newspaper's initial stories on the case. "It was prescription drugs. This wasn't like LSD or some funky-ass stuff. It was less money involved than you or I carry in our wallets."
The other Bellaire students in Finkelman's car that night are cooperating with police but have provided no real leads. They claim not to know the gunman. The Chronicle's attempts to interview them were unsuccessful.
Police provide this account: Several hours before the shootings, Payne purchased eight Loricet pills from Finkelman for $20.
Later that night, they met again. Finkelman was at a friend's house watching movies when he received nine phone calls from Payne, who claimed he was with some people wanting to "get high," police said. Cell-phone records show all of the calls were made after 9 p.m. Finkelman agreed to meet them, police said.
Shortly after 11 p.m., Finkelman drove to Godwin Park to meet Payne and his buddies, police said. Finkelman selected the park as the meeting place, police said.
It wasn't as if Jonathan Finkelman needed money from illicit drug sales.
His father is president and CEO of Scope Imports, a wholesale men's apparel company with offices in Houston, and lives in a 4,300-square-foot home in Bellaire worth about a half-million dollars. Appraisal-district records show the house has a spa and swimming pool.
Finkelman's parents divorced in 1996 when he was 7, and his mother lives in slightly more modest surroundings in the Meyerland area. The Finkelman children enjoy a life of comfort, traditionally taking a winter cruise together each year.
Jonathan's older brothers, David and Joshua, drew notice as football players at Bellaire High School. But they also ran into trouble with drugs. Harris County criminal records show Bellaire police arrested David in 2001 for possessing less than 2 ounces of marijuana, and West University police arrested Joshua in 2003 for possessing between 1 and 4 grams of cocaine. Both brothers successfully completed deferred adjudication.
Joshua Finkelman also was ordered to spend 15 days in the county jail over a two-year period, but his father later asked the judge to reconsider.
"He has changed the majority of his past acquaintances. On many occasions I have heard Joshua say to someone that he is unable to play football or attend an out-of-state university because, 'I screwed up,' " Alan Finkelman wrote in a letter to state District Judge Don Stricklin in 2004, asking that the jail time be dropped.
Stricklin declined to waive the jail time, but he did agree to let Joshua Finkelman attend a university in Florida, court papers show.
Jonathan followed his brothers' lead in more ways than one. He joined Bellaire's football program as a freshman in 2003, but trouble soon followed.
During his sophomore year, he missed some football practices and seemed distracted, friends said.
'Jonathan, you gotta stop' "I knew he wasn't always as focused as he was when I first met him," said friend Nkeonye "Kay" Okafor, 17, the only girl on the Bellaire High School football team. "Honestly, I think he just got into the wrong crowd."
Of Finkelman's mother, Okafor said, "When she picked us up after practice, she said, 'Jonathan, you need to start cleaning up.' She knew something was happening. "
Finkelman admitted occasionally using prescription drugs, said his longtime friend and teammate, Bellaire junior Stanton Scheuermann, 16.
"He gradually grew into more and more as he drifted away from football and from other people and me. ... I would be like, 'Why are you doing this?' He would say, 'I don't know, man' and change the subject," Scheuermann said.
During the spring semester of his sophomore year, Finkelman left Bellaire for a private school. The details about why are unclear. His father says Finkelman wanted a better education, but Scheuermann said the absence was prompted by a bout with mononucleosis.
But when Finkelman returned to Bellaire for his junior year, he hinted to classmate Charles Cheeks, 17, now the football team captain, that he had landed in trouble because of alcohol or drugs.
"He never did say what specifically it was," Cheeks recalled. "He told me (school staff) kept an eye on him — I guess that part he didn't like."
Finkelman no longer played football but appeared more enthusiastic when he returned, classmates said.
Even so, there were troubling signs. Okafor said she heard Finkelman was still dabbling in drugs. When they last spoke before Christmas break, she urged him to straighten up.
"I was like, 'Jonathan, you gotta stop. You already got in trouble, and you don't want this kind of stuff on your record for the rest of your life,' " Okafor said. "He said, 'I am. I'm getting there.' Jonathan's not the best liar in the world — I could always tell when he was lying."
Arriving at Godwin Park, Finkelman parked his 1999 Mitsubishi Diamante on the wrong side of the street, next to a curb in the 5000 block of Dumfries, a street lined by middle-class homes. Payne and the unidentified gunman climbed in the back seat and began discussing the drug sale with Finkelman and his friend in the front seat, Guerrero said.
Gunfire in Godwin Park Two minutes later, as the money was being counted, the so-called buyer pulled a gun and demanded everything the others had, Guerrero said. The gunman and Finkelman struggled over the weapon. Three shots were fired inside the car. The first missed Finkelman; the second or third stuck him in the left side of his head, police said.
"Oh my God, oh my God," Payne stammered in the back seat. Then, everyone in the car jumped out and ran.
As Payne fled across the park, a shot pierced his liver, went through his lung and almost clipped his aorta before exiting his body, police said. He ran another 20 to 30 yards before collapsing. Other youths at the park ran up to help him as the gunman fled in a getaway car. During the fracas, the left rear tire of Finkelman's car was shot, flattening it, in an apparent attempt to stop him from driving away, Guerrero said.
The other Bellaire student in the car, an 18-year-old senior whose name is being withheld at the request of his father because of concerns about his safety, ran to a nearby house and tried to call 911. Then he called Finkelman's best friend, who came to the park with his father, a doctor, and performed CPR on Finkelman until paramedics arrived, police said.
Within days, police charged Jeffrey Rene Lopez, 20, an older brother of one of Payne's friends and a Texas Southern University student, with aggravated robbery.
Lopez — accused of riding in the getaway car with the gunman — claimed he was surprised by the robbery and knew only the killer's street name, Guerrero said.
Payne also professed ignorance, Guerrero said.
Authorities have not decided whether Payne will be charged with anything, Guerrero said.
Meanwhile, Finkelman's family has teamed up with Crime Stoppers to offer a reward of up to $25,000 for tips leading to an arrest and charges in the case.
His violent death stunned those familiar with his generous side, including those familiar with his volunteer efforts to help Jewish children overseas.
"On some level, I understand he was an adventurous kid. He was probably also naive in some ways," said Emily Lehrman, strategic development director for Tikva Children's Home, an outreach group with offices in New York that aims to help homeless and abandoned Jewish children in Ukraine. "I have to believe he didn't know what he was getting into. I can't imagine that he did."
He was a smart kid. He knew darn well what he was getting into, but he didn't think things would turn out like they did, although he had to know that getting robbed and shot was well within the bounds of the possible, given his activities.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Pity.
It just seems to me the press always has a longer than usual story when a Football Player dies, than a regular Joe.
A Jewish football player?
Does anyone's parents stay married anymore?!
The notion that divorce has consequences for children that are not financial seems to have escaped both the Finkelmans and the reporter who penned this story.
Spoiled brat teenager wading into unknown territory for nothing more than a thrill. His father is a pitiful example for defending his sons behavior and blaming others.
Obviously, he didn't deserve to die for it. Crying shame it happened. I pray to God my sons don't involve themselves in this type of risky behavior... I'll do whatever it takes to coax them away from it.
Now find the shooter and roast him.
I have said this for years. I have wonderful loving parents, a nice and stable home growing up, attended fine schools at every level of my education, and look at how big a jerk I turned out. :-)
No grudge or anything like it.
A while back I noticed the local paper had a story about a guy getting killed in a car wreck, a one car wreck. The guy was out of school for a year, they went back and interviewed the coach, and so forth. A while before this I saw a dead guy lying in the street while the cops discussed who had jurisdiction because the accident was on a border. I never found an article in the local paper about who this guy was.
Now if the second guy was a Football Player, the mystery would of been solved.
I have nothing against Football Players, my comment concerns a possible trend in the way the Media responds.
As far as the Football Player in this story goes, I really don't care, he knew he was doing wrong, and he got burned.
My parents have been married 45 years, so far.
Just so, but it would be insensitive to point it out donchya know. After all, divorce is just a change to a "alternate" lifestyle. Everybody does it. Nothing to see here...
Well it might be enough to keep him away from "funky-ass stuff" like LSD,
but Poppa Finkelman still hasn't earned my vote for Father of the Year.
Well they need to "post" the reasons for their success
Drug use is a victimless crime bump.
Number 1 is that they put God first in their lives. My father really is the head of the household and my mother defers to his wisdom in making decisions. They do discuss problems and situations, but the final say-so comes from my dad. If I did not have godly parents, there is no way I would have had a stable upbringing and I know their marriage wouldn't have lasted this long.
Your preaching to the choir here
;>)
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