BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEWPORT -- Two teen-agers, one never before in trouble with the law, face murder charges after a man was shot in the back Thursday after an apparent robbery attempt.
It was an off-duty police officer's call that tipped authorities to the identities of the accused 15-year-olds. Officer Mark Crank had seen them near the scene just minutes before the crime. Because he recognized one of the boys as someone often causing trouble, he called the department to alert his colleagues that something might be going on.
The man, Charles Johnson Jr., was shot to death shortly after Officer Crank called. Matching a witness's description of the boys with Officer Crank's sighting, detectives knew relatively quickly whom they wanted to question, Sgt. Phil Liles said.
Mr. Johnson, 59, was shot shortly before 11 p.m. near the corner of Third and Monmouth streets, just three blocks from his home. Thirty minutes later, he was dead in University Hospital's emergency room.
The witness, a Cincinnati man driving along Monmouth Street, saw Mr. Johnson struggle with the boys and get away from them, Sgt. Liles said. He was preparing to get out of his car and help, he said, when one of the teen-agers shot Mr. Johnson in the back as he walked away from them.
"He saw it all," Sgt. Liles said.
The teen-ager well-known to police is the accused shooter. Both he and the boy without a record are charged with murder and robbery. They remained in Mason County's juvenile detention center Friday.
A hearing to determine whether they should be tried as adults is expected, but had not yet been scheduled, Sgt. Liles said. They likely will be tried in adult court because Kentucky law requires the transfer of juveniles 14 or older who are accused of committing crimes with guns.
Even though one boy is accused of pulling the trigger, both are charged with the crime.
"He knew what they were going to do," the sergeant said. "He knew they had the gun. He was involved in the whole thing."
Police recovered a small-caliber revolver.
Sgt. Liles, a department veteran, wanted to assure residents that the way Mr. Johnson died -- in an apparently random street robbery -- is not a common or growing problem in Newport.
"It's the first one I'm aware of in a long, long time, if not ever," he said. "Especially by two 15-year-olds."
