Marcos Bretón: Cops offer a magnet for success

How can one child from a dangerous neighborhood fall prey to its unholy surroundings while the kid down the street goes to college?

And when they are girls? When the men from that neighborhood are locked up? When role models can't help with homework, have never finished high school, let alone college? When mom dates guys who are bad news? When friends have babies while still babies themselves?

I met two young women from these types of circumstances. They should have been derailed but have not been.

They are university bound. At 17 and 18, they are pioneers in their own families and in their Oak Park neighborhoods.

Jessica Fielding slightly resembles the actress Christina Ricci. By her own account, she's gone to at least eight schools between south Sacramento and Oak Park before graduating this month from Hiram Johnson High School at 17. In that time, she's lived in numerous apartments and bad luck unsettled her upbringing.

She said her parents never finished high school, her family is strewn with gang members, and her awareness of her situation was always keen.

"It was hard going through school and not having the same education that other kids had," she said at school Tuesday while pondering the fall classes that lie ahead for her at Sacramento State.

"I reached a point where I need to decide which way I was going to go. ... No matter how many friends I lost because they thought I was being too good."

In Fielding's neighborhood, being "too good" meant having real goals for herself.

Franchulai Perry also has goals because of family members who've run afoul of the law -- including, she said, a brother in prison for attempted murder.

Two years ago, when she was 16, her family was evicted from its home, upending her academic career at Sacramento High School. "It was bound to happen no matter what," Perry said. "I never really knew my father. I didn't care too much, but it had a big impact on my brother. My father never gave him any attention, so I guess he went out and tried to find attention somewhere else."

So why is she also going to Sacramento State? What's the secret here?

Fielding found solace in faith, a Christian youth group.

At the same time, both Fielding and Perry gravitated toward the Criminal Justice Magnet Academy run by the Sacramento Police Department on four local high school campuses.

They were counseled by cops working at their schools and got part-time jobs within the department. Sam Davis, a Sacramento officer at Hiram Johnson High School, said Fielding just started hovering around, seeking a place to go.

It might bug some, the idea that God and cops on a public school campus played a big role in throwing these kids a lifeline.

But who cares how it happened as long as it did?

Last year, of the 59 homicides committed in the city of Sacramento, 18 of the suspects were juveniles, according to Capt. Daniel Hahn of the Sacramento Police Department.

These young women could have been among them as suspects or victims.

They are going to college instead, the first in their families to do so.

There are no guarantees, of course.

But they prove that it's possible, and it should be celebrated.

"I don't feel like I've made it yet," Fielding said. "But I'm making it."

About the writer:

• Reach Marcos Bretón at (916) 321-1096 or mbreton@sacbee.com. Listen to him at 8:40 a.m. Tuesdays on NewsTalk 1530 KFBK. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/breton.