A Hero's Welcome

One week after his family's protest, Philly's boy hero is allowed to go home.

by Brian Hickey

After everything he's been through, it's not easy to get the kid to smile. He's sitting at a cramped kitchen table inside a well-kept rowhome on a tough block in one of Philadelphia's harshest pockets. His 4-year-old niece is nestled in his lap, clinging to him like she never wants to let go. Her beaming eyes are focused on a Dora the Explorer Etch-a-Sketch. She could draw anything, but she chooses to write two words instead:

"Uncle Doobie."

Her adoring eyes rise from the toy. As she seeks his approval, the only thing Uncle Doobie can do, as his brother Andre takes it all in with a video camera, is smile. There's more to it than that, though: Uncle Doobie knows that in one short week, he'll finally be granted clemency from the hell that's been his life ever since he was hailed as Philly's boy hero.

Brian Hickey ALMOST HOME: Eddie Sheed Jr.'s long ordeal will end on Monday. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

On Monday, at long last, Eddie "Uncle Doobie" Sheed Jr. will be free. And his family, convinced that faith enabled this change of events, can only thank God almighty for answering their prayers.

Long story short: In 2002, Eddie told the cops that his dad, under threat of violence, made him sell crack. Dad got 12 to 25; Eddie's name landed in the mouths of the mayor and the police commissioner, both of whom publicly lauded the 11-year-old for breaking a sick stop-snitching ethos. He was a hero, if just for a day.

In the years since, Eddie has been shipped to boys' homes in central Pennsylvania, Colorado and Texas before being brought to a local facility last month. Initially, they sent him away for his own protection, but they kept him because the system had soured his spirit, making him an angry kid ready to lash out at just about anything. When the Department of Human Services inspected the family home a couple of weeks back, they thought he'd be home soon. But then, officials said they were shipping him off to Alabama; he wasn't ready to assimilate. They told his mom, Rhonda Overton, that the visit was "a glitch," and when I called DHS last week, they told me it was "out of our hands."

"It was the only time since this all started that I've heard him cry," Eddie's grandmother Beverly says.

By the time my column hit the honor boxes [Philly Blunt, "The Forgotten Hero," Oct. 11, 2007], DHS somehow wrapped their fingers around it. They scheduled a meeting for 11 a.m. this past Monday to meet with Eddie and his family. He was issued an eight-hour home pass to be there when three officials arrived.

"They came in and basically just said, 'What do you all want to do now?'" says Beverly. "He told them he wanted to come home, and they said OK."

Just like that, with zero fanfare, a heart-wrenching saga came to a long-overdue end. (Rhonda says the visitors, who will work with the family on an integration and counseling plan, acknowledged they didn't want any more bad publicity. A spokeswoman said Tuesday that the agency is happy with the resolution.)

When someone he's never met before asks how he's feeling just two hours after getting the news, Eddie, who didn't think he'd sleep in his own bed again till he turned 18, can muster only a pair of words: "I'm happy."

Then, with a giddy niece following his every step, he stands up to join a dozen relatives in the living room. While they sport the "DHS: Let Him Come Home" shirts they wore to a protest outside DHS headquarters two weeks back, the baggy T-shirt that's hiding Eddie's sculpted, athletic 16-year-old frame picks up the chronology from there. There are two photos: One is of an 11-year-old who doesn't know he's about to have his childhood torn away from him and shredded; the other shows him flexing his ample muscles and sporting a cold expression that belies no hint of youthful innocence.

"Five Yrs. Later," it reads. "I'm Goin' Home."

But not today. Thanks to some red tape, Eddie has to head back to the facility by nightfall. Scheduled for day passes on Wednesday and Friday, he says he's just going to keep his head down and get through his last week of captivity. Then, with a frame reminiscent of a young Brian Westbrook, he will enroll in a nearby high school and play football. Mom doesn't think it's all really hit him yet.

Despite having told his family otherwise during moments of frustration, Eddie doesn't regret doing what he did. He tells me he knows he did the right thing and realizes that those who made him a hero, but forgot all about him, "were just doing it for themselves."

I pray that Uncle Doobie will keep smiling as he finds a way to forgive the system for doing so wrong by him.

(hickey@citypaper.net)