Social Worker: Tulsa Youth Services Helps At-Risk Teens Avoid Trouble

Three teens were arrested Monday after a Texas trucker was gunned down Saturday, while making a delivery to a midtown Tulsa Papa John's pizza restaurant. Since the juveniles haven't been charged, police are not yet releasing their criminal records, but local social workers say they wish they had a chance to talk to these young teens before the killing happened.

A 53-year-old man is dead, and now three 17-year-olds are behind bars. Tulsa Police say Jermaine Savory, Damian Anderson and Frankie Jackson were attempting to rob Robert Horton when someone pulled the trigger and killed him.

Tulsa Public Schools says Savory likely dropped out of school, Anderson attended school at the juvenile center, and Jackson dropped out of an alternative school about two weeks ago.

3/25/2013 Related Story: Tulsa Police Arrest 3 Teens For Murder Of Papa John's Driver

According to police reports, Savory told detectives he stayed in the car while Anderson and Jackson committed the robbery. But police say Anderson told them he's the one who stayed in the car as Savory and Jackson robbed Horton. The reports also show Jackson only admitted he was in the vehicle driving around with Savory.

"You always wonder what could be different. If we would have gotten a hold of them earlier, could we have made a difference?" said David Grewe.

Grewe has worked with at-risk teens for 26 years. He's currently the assistant director of Youth Services.

"The services we provide run the gamut from prevention level services to intervention level services," Grewe said.

Youth Services also runs Tulsa's Community Intervention Center, which is a system to rehabilitate and council kids who are arrested for delinquent and misdemeanor crimes.

"One of the challenges of working with teenagers is, developmentally, they act impulsively and sometimes they don't put together the consequence of this action," Grewe said.

Grewe said the Community Intervention Center has about an 89 percent success rate.

"An incredible success in my view in the number of years that I've provided these services," Grewe said.

According to an Office of Juvenile Affairs report, the number of teens committing crimes has decreased by 30 percent, from 2005 to 2012. The report also says the number of violent crimes committed by juveniles has dropped by 17.8 percent.

"I think statistics show that juvenile crime is down, but those crimes that are happening seem to be pretty tragic," Grewe said.

All three suspects were booked into jail as adults for first degree murder.

We spoke with the mothers of Anderson and Savory. Both women don't believe their sons were involved.