In September of 2006, at Jena High School, in Jena, Louisiana, a predominately all white school, a black student asked the vice principal if it was okay for him to sit under the tree that was known to only be where the white kids congregated. The vice principal insisted that this was his school too and he could sit anywhere he’d like. The black students sat under the tree, the next day there were nooses hung from the tree; as an extreme level of offense that it was taken it also stirred up and even more segregated and tension filled emotions throughout the school. The school principal recommended expulsion for those involved with the hanging of the nooses, although the school district committee overruled that decision and gave the three white students three days of suspension, "Adolescents play pranks," the superintendent told the Chicago Tribune, "I don't think it was a threat against anybody."
The African-American community was hurt and upset. "Hanging those nooses was a hate crime, plain and simple," according to Tracy Bowens, a mother of students at Jena High. But blacks in this area of Louisiana have little political power. The ten-person, all-male government of the parish has one African-American member. The nine-member, all-male school board has one African-American member. (A person called the local school board trying to find out the racial makeup of the school board, and was told there was one "colored" member of the board). There is one black police officer in Jena and two black public school teachers.
Black students decided to resist and organized a sit-in under the "white tree" at the school to protest the light suspensions given to the noose-hanging white students.
The white district attorney then came to Jena High with law-enforcement officers to address a school assembly. According to testimony in a later motion in court, the DA reportedly threatened the black protesting students saying that if they didn't stop making a fuss about this "innocent prank", "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen." The school was put on lockdown for the rest of the week.
A series of racial tension filled emotions ensued soon after, between black and white students in the small town. On November 30, 2007 someone torched a part of the high school and although the arson remains unsolved it is believed to be linked to the high school tension filled situation.
On Friday night, December 1, a black student who showed up at a white party was beaten by whites. On Saturday, December 2, a young white man pulled out a shotgun in a confrontation with young black men at the Gotta Go convenience store outside Jena before the men wrestled it away from him. The black men who took the shotgun away were later arrested; no charges were filed against the white man.
On Monday, December 4, at Jena High, a white student - who allegedly had been making racial taunts, including calling African-American students "niggers" while supporting the students who hung the nooses and who beat up the black student at the off-campus party - was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. The white victim was taken to the hospital treated and released. He attended a social function that evening.
Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and an unidentified juvenile, all black teens, were arrested and charged with attempted murder. The weapons used; according to the charges were shoes. Their bails were set at between $70,000 and $138,000.
Last week, LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters reduced the charges against Jones and Shaw to second-degree aggravated battery.
Until recently Robert Bailey and Theo Shaw were in jail unable to post bail, they are now awaiting their cases to be tried; Theo Shaw said to be next in line.
The all-white jury which was finally chosen included two people friendly with the district attorney, a relative of one of the witnesses and several others who were friends of prosecution witnesses.
Bell's parents, Melissa Bell and Marcus Jones, were not even allowed to attend the trial despite their objections, because they were listed as potential witnesses. The white victim, though a witness, was allowed to stay in the courtroom. The parents, who had been widely quoted in the media as critics of the process, were also told they could no longer speak to the media as long as the trial was in session. Marcus Jones had told the media, "It's all about those nooses" and declared the charges racially motivated.
Mychal Bell was convicted and charged on all counts. On September 20, 2007 he will be sentenced, and could face up to 20 years, the other 5 could face up to 100 years. Smh
There is an uproar of injustice protesters for these young promising high school graduates. The NAACP, Al Sharpton, and Martin Luther King Jr. III are all in full swing and support for this injustice. Since when does a typical school fight, that we can see thousands video taped online with camera phones right now on the net, constitute prison time?
Mychal Bell’s charges are not only seen as injustice but the conviction was due to many often typical faulty traditions involving the black accused. The jury was all white; two of its members were related to prosecuting witnesses. Mychal’s public defender didn’t call any witnesses, including a coach that wrote a statement ready to testify for the defense. It is also said that the public defender was working with the D.A. The defense attorney wanted Mychal to cop a plea of which he refused.
Mychal Bell’s father had 8 offering scholarships from several different colleges for his now convicted son who’s behind bars. Bryant Purvis is in Texas in school, hoping that this will all be behind him soon and that justice does prevail.
There is a defense fund that is needed for support for the other 5 who are accused and a petition that is going around as well..here’s where to start!
Support The Jena 6
The Jena Six Defense Committee
PO Box 2798
Jena, LA 71342
What happened to the white guys? The white victim of the beating was later arrested for bringing a hunting rifle loaded with 13 bullets onto the high school campus and released on $5000 bond. The white man who beat up the black youth at the off-campus party was arrested and charged with simple battery. The white students who hung up the nooses in the "white tree" were never charged.
The tree has since been cut down!
NBC NeWs
4 comments:
Update on the case #1
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/09/14/jenna.six.overturned.cnn
that brought tears to my eyes =( a fucking shame. thank you for posting, i'm definitely going to take a stand to support the Jena 6!
www.myspace.com/180023982
Update on the case #2
Thousands of protesters clogged the tiny town of Jena, Louisiana, Thursday to show their indignation over what they consider unjust, unequal punishments meted out in two racially charged incidents.
They swarmed over the grounds of Jena High School, surrounding the stump of the tree from which nooses hung in early August 2006, about three months before six black teens known as the "Jena 6" were accused of beating a white classmate.
There was an aura of a pilgrimage near the former oak tree, with many people touching the stump and some retrieving a lump of dirt, said CNN's Eric Marrapodi. He said the part of the town he was in was ill-prepared for the crowds -- no water or toilets were available.
In the background, groups shouted "Black power" and "No justice, no peace."
The demonstrations shut down the town of 3,000 in central Louisiana. Many residents left for the day, and government agencies, businesses and schools were closed.
Sgt. Tim Ledet of the Louisiana State Police said protesters in buses were still bringing people to town at midday because of the gridlock, but many protesters got off and walked into town on foot.
"There is just no room to maneuver in this small town," he said.
Jena resident Terry Adams disagreed with any accusations that there might be a black-white divide in the area.
"We are not a racial town. We get along with each other, we get along fine. This is something that got out of proportion. It really has."
Protesters gather at tree
Although Washington acknowledged that the FBI and other investigators thought the noose incident bore the markings of a hate crime, a decision was made not to press federal charges because the case didn't meet federal criteria. The students were under 18 and had no prior records, and no group such as a Ku Klux Klan was found to be behind their actions.
Bell, the only one of the six who remains in jail, was to be sentenced Thursday after convictions for aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to do the same, but both charges have been vacated, awaiting further action by the district attorney.
Charges for Bailey, Jones and Shaw also were reduced to battery and conspiracy when they were arraigned, while Purvis still awaits arraignment. The charges for Beard, who was 14 at the time of the alleged crime, are unavailable because he's a juvenile.
Tina Jones, Purvis' mother, condemned Walters.
"I hope that the D.A. will wake up and realize that he's doing the wrong thing, and to release these kids," she said. "It's not equal. The black people get the harsher extent of the law, whereas white people get a slap on the wrist per se. So it is not equal here."
Jones maintained that her son was not involved in the beating, but watched from a railing, and was not arrested that same day.
"We have a long fight ahead of us, and we'll keep fighting until justice prevails in Jena," the mother said.
Purvis, who accompanied her, was asked how he's faring.
"I'm doing pretty good. I hope there is a pretty good outcome of what's taking place today," he said. Watch an interview with one of the Jena 6 and his mom »
President Bush, who was asked about the rally at a news conference, said, "The events in Louisiana have saddened me. I understand the emotions. The Justice Department and the FBI are monitoring the situation down there.
"All of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice."
He advised whoever is elected next year to "reach out to the African-American community."
Hundreds of college students from historically black schools such as Howard University in Washington traveled to Jena, along with civil rights activists such as Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who helped organize the event. Martin Luther King III also attended, saying, "This is about justice for the six young men."
Sharpton called Jena the beginning of the 21st century civil rights movement.
"There's a Jena in every state," Jackson told the crowd in Jena on Thursday morning.
JoAnn Scales, who brought her three teenage children on a two-day bus journey from Los Angeles, California, to Jena, made the same point.
"The reason I brought my children is because it could have been one of them" involved in an incident like the one in Jena.
"If this can happen to them [the Jena 6] , it can happen to anyone," Scales said.
Ondra Hathaway was on the bus with Scales.
"If this young man [Bell] was railroaded to do time as an adult, how many more people has that happened to?" she said.
Jackson said on CNN's "American Morning" on Thursday that the charges against the black youths, their possible jail terms if convicted and their bail amounts are "excessive."
Punishing the teens with probation would have been sufficient, Jackson said.
Bails for the "Jena 6" were set at between $70,000 and $138,000, and all but Bell have posted bond. Bell, 17, has been in prison since his arrest. The judge has refused to lower his $90,000 bail, citing Bell's record, which includes four juvenile offenses -- two simple battery charges among them.
Bell was 16 at the time of the attack; 17 is the legal adult age in Louisiana.
Update on the case #3
JENA, La. (Oct. 12) -- A judge ordered a black teenager back to jail, deciding the fight that put him in the national spotlight violated terms of his probation for a previous conviction, his attorney said.
Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers in the so-called Jena Six case is accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court in Jena on Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of his attorneys.
Instead, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced Bell to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.
"We are definitely going to appeal this," she said. "We'll continue to fight."
Bell had been hit with those charges before the Dec. 4 attack on classmate Justin Barker. Details on the previous charges, which were handled in juvenile court, were unclear.
Mauffrey, reached at his home Thursday night, had no comment.
"He's locked up again," Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. "No bail has been set or nothing. He's a young man who's been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it."
After the attack on Barker, Bell was originally charged with attempted murder, but the charges were reduced and he was convicted of battery. An appeals court threw that conviction out, saying Bell should not have been tried as an adult on that charge.
Racial tensions began rising in August 2006 in Jena after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended but not prosecuted.
More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered last month in the small central Louisiana town to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects are treated. The case has drawn the attention of civil rights activists including the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson .
Sharpton reacted swiftly upon learning Bell was back in jail Thursday.
"We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement," said Sharpton, who helped organize the protest held Sept. 20, the day Bell was originally supposed to be sentenced.
Bell's parents were also ordered to pay all court costs and witness costs, Sharpton said.
"I don't know what we're going to do," Jones said. "I don't know how we're going to pay for any of this. I don't know how we're going to get through this."
Bell and the other five defendants have been charged in the attack on Barker, which left him unconscious and bleeding with facial injuries. According to court testimony, he was repeatedly kicked by a group of students at the high school.
Barker was treated for three hours at an emergency room but was able to attend a school function that evening, authorities have said.
Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were all initially charged — as adults — with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit the same. A sixth defendant was charged in the case as a juvenile.
Bell, who was 16 at the time, was convicted in June of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime. LaSalle Parish prosecutor Reed Walters reduced the charges just before the trial. Since then, both of those convictions were dismissed and tossed back to juvenile court, where they now are being tried.
Charges against Bailey, 18, Jones, 19, and Shaw, 18, have been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery. Purvis, 18, has not yet been arraigned
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