Police award helped teen offender reinvent himself as a future law student
Once a high-school dropout and known marijuana dealer, Jonathan Reynolds, didn’t appear to be destined for career success.
Despite his record as a convicted felon, the 21-year-old is now about to graduate from college and expects to start law school in August at the University of South Carolina, reports the Tennessean.
Reynolds says he began attending college on a whim, but those who know him tell the newspaper he has been a diligent student and worked hard at a legitimate job while attending.
He credits happenstance with helping him turn his life around: While working in Nashville as a bicycle taxi driver in 2012, he intervened in a robbery attempt. That resulted in Reynolds receiving a citizen award, bestowed by the Metro Nashville Police Department.
“I grew up not liking police, to getting an award by them,” Reynolds told the newspaper. “It just felt wonderful being appreciated, really euphoric. It was then my school and lifestyle turned around. It was definitely reaffirmation of what I was trying to do.”
He successfully completed his probation in a drug case last month, and prosecutor Jason Lawson, who recommended that the 15th Judicial District case be closed, said Reynolds is a rare success story among repeat juvenile offenders.
“You don’t have too many people showing such a significant change in their life,” Lawson said.
