Feature Article
By Doug Goodnough
Aaron Kinzel ’10 Uses Education to Be on the
Right Side of the Criminal Justice System
Above: At the age of 19, Aaron Kinzel was convicted of 8 felonies and entered federal prison in Maine
to serve 19 years. He has turned his life around and now teaches criminal justice at U of M—Dearborn.
The Worst of the Worst
Kinzel, born in Toledo and raised in
Monroe, Mich., said his childhood was
surrounded by trouble.
“My mother was just with a lot of
men who were either criminals, convicts,
drug dealers, etc., etc.,” he said. “They
were the worst of the worst. I never
knew my real dad. As a little kid, my ear-
liest memories were watching people do
dope and commit crimes. I didn’t know
that some of the things I did were wrong,
but eventually later in adolescence, I still
did it, because it was a familial thing.”
One of his mother’s boyfriends was
a cat burglar, who taught Kinzel to “pop
a lock” at age 5.
“I remember breaking into another
apartment to steal toys from another
kid because I learned that from this
guy,” he said.
During high school, he got into an
argument with a teacher during a basket-
ball game, which eventually escalated
to a shoving match.
“He called the cops, and the cops
came and tried to arrest me,” Kinzel said
of the incident. “I fought, and I went to
the Monroe County Youth Center. It was
my first entrance into the system.”
It wasn’t his last. At age 16 he was
placed on probation, and was doing and
selling drugs. He received his first drug
charge at age 17.
From Bad to Worse
By the time Kinzel was 18, he was
trying to get off drugs and now carrying
a gun everywhere he went. Deciding to
leave home, he and his girlfriend were
traveling by car in Maine when a state
trooper pulled his vehicle over.
“A state trooper came up to my left,”
Kinzel said of the event that changed his
life forever. “I pulled a gun out and fired
out the window. He drops back, and an-
other trooper behind me fired 15 rounds
from a nine millimeter beretta into the
car. … There were bullet holes that went
through the driver’s seat, and to this day,
I don’t know how the hell I’m alive.”
Kinzel fled the scene, and led police
on a high-speed chase through northern
Maine near the Canadian border. After a
spike mat eventually slowed his vehicle,
he and his girlfriend fled into the woods,
where they spent more than a day avoid-
ing a manhunt that had more than 100
law enforcement officers in hot pursuit.
Eventually surrendering to police,
Kinzel was charged with eight felonies,
including the attempted murder of a po-
lice officer.
“It was completely stupid, the dumb-
est thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he
said. “I was a dumb kid. I was an arro-
gant kid. Reflecting back, I think I was
like scaring that cop. I really don’t think
I wanted to hurt him. Completely reck-
less. I could have gotten someone killed
with those actions. … It was me being
stupid and being a tough guy.”
Slave to the System
Waiving his right to a jury trial, he
pleaded guilty to five felony counts and
was sentenced to 19 years in prison. In
October 1998, he was sent to the federal
prison in Thomaston, Maine, just like
the one where the movie “The Shaw-
shank Redemption” was filmed. It was
anything but glamorous.
“I heard all of these prison stories
from all the people I was around (as a
child),” Kinzel said. “I wasn’t scared.
I don’t think it really hit me, initially.
After I stayed there a couple of years,
I realized how much it sucks. You are
just deprived of your rights, your liber-
ties. You are a piece of meat with a
number stamped on your forehead.”
Reflections Summer ’17 | 17