Ean Polke served five years in prison for a 2002 shooting in Trenton. He graduated from Rutgers University in May.
TRENTON -- The last time Ean Polke was featured in local newspapers was 2004. He was the defendant in a murder trial, charged with gunning down a city teen two yeas earlier.
During one court session, a prosecutor held up the gun Polke used and photographers captured Polke's baby face staring at the firearm. It was front page news. He was 22.
Late last month, Polke, now 34, posted the news photo on his Facebook page as a throwback. But on top of it was an updated photo of him: wearing a Rutgers University graduation gown, staring at a medal he wore in commencement exercises in May.
He planned the post carefully, he said, juxtaposing the medal with the gun, to announce his accomplishment on social media that he was indeed a college graduate.
It came with a long message, which said in part:
"There isn't anything wrong with us inherently. We aren't born with the urge to be violent. We adapt to our environment...I'm not much different than I was in the bottom photo, what has changed dramatically however is my environment...'Success' varies from environment to environment. Our issue is having the opportunity to change environments."
Polke accepting his Rutgers diploma.
It was shared over 2,000 times, astounding Polke.
"I just wanted to show people coming up they can do something different," he said. "We are not all savages."
"It's not about Ean Polke," he says. "It's about where Ean Polke came from. Not everyone's going to get that option - they don't get the chance."
Polke was convicted of the 2002 shooting, taking a plea in 2005 for manslaughter after the 2004 ended in a mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a verdict. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
Fourteen years after the crime, and nine years after getting out of prison, Polke discussed that chance, and how he went from state prison to earning his bachelor's degree last month. It's a journey that had a surprise ending: President Obama as speaker.
It started with one question posed to him while an inmate at Mountainview Correctional Facility in Hunterdon County: "Are any of you guys interested in college when you leave here?"
The question came from Donald Roden, a Rutgers professor who founded the Mountainview / NJ STEP Program in 2005, which recruits prisoners and aids them in pursuing college degrees once released.
At first, Polke was not interested. Academics was not the issue. He graduated from Nottingham High School in Hamilton and racked up 23 college credits as a state inmate at Mountainview.
"I was just reluctant," he said.
Because he served so much time in the county jail after his arrest in 2002, Polke was released from state prison in 2007.
Instead of college, he chose barber school in Piscataway and cut hair after he completed his training.
But Roden was never far from his life, nor was Mountainview, he said.
Polke came to the realization, he said, that he needed more in his life. He needed an education.
And he was swayed to rejoin the Mountainview program after he started hanging out with friends from the prison who were in the program.
It was the moment that changed everything, he says.
He likened the moment to people drowning in a cesspool and they all have their hands raised, reaching for the hand that will rescue them.
"There aren't too many hands reaching down," Polke said. Roden did, and Polke latched on.
"There's a lot of people out there like me, and there not a lot of Dons," he said.
THE PROGRAM
Polke enrolled in Rutgers in the fall of 2010 as part of Mountainview / NJ STEP.
NJ Step is the prison-based courses, and Mountainview is the post-release college side.
Christopher J. Agans, the current director of both programs, said Polke did not start out as a stellar student.
"He was pretty withdrawn," Agans said. "He was not really open to connecting and joining the community."
Agans said the Mountainview program on campus is intensive and has to be, because students who enter a four-year college with a break from high school have more obstacles and are statistically more likely not to graduate.
Add a felony conviction and recent incarceration to the mix and the attrition numbers skyrocket, he said.
Mountainview graduated 10 this past May, and 110 have completed the program since the first class, in 2005.
Polke with a fellow Mountainview graduate.
The program, which has anywhere from 25 to 35 students at any time, sets up regular monitoring, encourages students to socialize together and assist each other.
"The first semester is intense," Agans said.
Polke pushed through and broke out in his sophomore year, becoming a leader in the program.
"He blossomed," Agans said. "He was the one who showed up to the optional events."
Polke's self confidence soared, and he started becoming an academic too. "And he became so politically conscious," Agans said.
Again, Polke said it was not the academics the first year, he was more of a student.
In his second year, he immersed himself in the Mountainview program.
While many in the program have typical college worries, like where to get their next meal, and worries about girlfriends, Polke suddenly wanted to talk about the electoral college and mass incarceration in year two.
Polke said it was the college courses the stirred his passions.
He said people still find his major ironic - African American studies and criminology - but it was a perfect fit for him.
He loved learning about police procedure, prosecutions, and not the nuts and bolts, but the theories about justice that are debated every day in the country.
"The professors gave it a uniqueness," he said.
With everything presented in a book or a white board, he would often think of other students in his classes - which were regular university, not just for Mountainview students.
"The smallest things, like policing, they hadn't seen it," he said.
"I've seen it, I've experienced it, I lived it," he said.
Polke said he came to find out that while many in the program, obviously, had convictions, he was unsure how people would react to his crime.
He talked about it when necessary, or relevant to class. "But If it didn't come up, it didn't need to," he said.
THE CRIME
Polke shot 17-year-old Kevin Wilson on June 18, 2002, near Stockton and Academy streets moments before a summer evening downpour that sent residents - and witnesses - scattering for shelter.
Polke said during his defense - and now - that he fired at Wilson in self defense, fearing Wilson would shoot his cousin. Trial testimony showed Wilson was armed too.
And while he's not interested in blow-by-blow recaps of the case, he does not shy away from talking about it.
Polke said his crime, and more importantly, growing up in Trenton, is all about environment.
He grew up in the Oakland Street and Hoffman Avenue projects and said he was targeted for street fights at an early age.
To this day, he said only those who live it understand it. He said he wanted to move, but his mother, a home health aide, simply did not have the means to pick up and move to a safe suburb.
So he learned to defend himself.
"You don't really know, you're not in that predicament," he tells people of his childhood.
Obama at Rutgers: 'Ignorance is not a virtue'
He admits to carrying a gun, he said, because after high school, while hanging out in Trenton, he was attacked - "jumped" - two times. A third time, a gun was pointed in his face.
On the evening his cousin and him started beefing with Wilson, both young men were armed and the confrontation came down to a choice, Polke said. Shoot or have his cousin, or himself, shot by Wilson.
Looking back, he says now, he finds it ironic that police officers are lauded for their decisions in such a situation. "The gun argument used to convict me is used to acquit a police officer," he said.
Polke said he's not had any contact with the victim's family, but apologized to Wilson's family through his lawyer in 2005 after pleading guilty.
He's interested in speaking with them again, if possible, he said. "I wish I could iron out the wrinkles with the family."
But he's not dwelling on the crime, he said. He's accepted his punishment, and he's moving forward, doing the things society often hope convictions will do, he said.
And like his Facebook post conveys, Polke said he's the same basic person he was in 2002.
"Some guys need to change," he says. "I just needed a different environment."
GRADUATING
While Polke speaks highly of Mountainview, Roden, the founder, says Polke was more than just a success story.
"What has always distinguished Ean is the care and devotion he extends to the program as a whole," Roden said.
"He is the consummate team player; and for me it has been a rare privilege to have worked with him over the years. Without Ean's support and wise counsel, I am not sure the program could have flourished as it has over the years."
Agens also sang Polke's praises, saying he "blew people away" when he acted in a Mountainview play at Rutgers about incarceration.
"He's an amazing person with words," Agens said. "He's a bit of an artist in crafting words."
"I've seen such a transformation," he said.
Earlier this year, Polke was selected to go back to the Mountainview prison in Hunterdon County to counsel inmates studying for their high school equivalency.
Agens said Polke was the first person he thought of for the gig.
Polke said it was a surreal full circle moment. A few officers remembered him. "Many had good things to say," he said.
The reaction from inmates was different. "Wait, you were locked up here?" they would ask, incredulously.
Now that's he's a college graduate, Polke said he's certain he'll work with youth, and he hasn't ruled out graduate school.
In the meantime, he's currently working with a group of Mountainview program alumni on establishing a program called The SHARE Initiatives (Supportive Housing for Adults in Reentry and Education) which will provide housing and teach financial literacy for those that wish to pursue a bachelor's degree.
SHARE was inspired by Polke and other graduates' difficulty of finding a comfortable living situation, he said. They are currently looking for funding.
As for the graduation ceremony itself, he said, having Obama as speak was "epic."
"It was unreal," he said. His mother and aunt attended, which was special. "Just to be able to be in the presence of him, I think I graduated at just the right time."
Anyone interested in Polke speaking to students or organizations can contact him at eanpolke@gmail.com
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook
