Five days after we published a story about disgraced former Tarrant County medical examiner Nizam Peerwani (“Examining the Evidence,” Mar. 3), an anonymous letter full of accusations about him landed in our office. The sender, going by the name Johnny Hacker, left a nonexistent return address and no documentation to
When Rodney McIntosh saw the pistol, his instincts kicked in. He grabbed the armed man’s hand, shoved it down, and pushed him back into his car. It wasn’t McIntosh’s first time in a conflict on the verge of becoming a shooting. It’s his job. “You can’t do this in broad daylight,” McIntosh recalled telling the young man. If he’d pulled the trigger that day, prison wouldn’t be the only concern. “Someone is going to come shoot you, too,” McIntosh told him.
A community activist, pastor, and mentor, McIntosh, 44, leads a small team battling violence in east and south Fort Worth, using his experiences as a former gang member to mentor young men and mediate conflicts before they devolve into gun violence. The fledgling organization, called VIP Fort Worth, is one of a number of programs that could benefit from a new bill that would help grow and support community-based violence prevention and intervention programs in Texas.