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It is quite clear that beating an unconscious person while he is on the ground is a very serious act and should be prosecuted... And I am not trying to take sides. But there are a number of disturbing incidents in this situation.

What the blacks are complaining about is the fact that no whites have been charged.

There is not enough information about the shotgun incident, for example, for me to know what happened there. Was the WHITE GUY defending himself and it was taken away (which is possible).

Or did the WHITE GUY threathen the blacks with the shotgun?

The RUMOR floating around South Louisiana is that a White student brought a SHOTGUN to school, and it was taken away by black students. I can't tell how much truth or if this false from the article -- it is just possible after reading the article. The article clearly says a WHITE MAN. But where did it occur. Was it an older student (say 20 or 21 years old) that was considered a man?

The other disturbing thing is the statement by a white District Attorney Walters that with a stroke of his pen he could make people disappear.

What makes this a significant issue with blacks and people out of state is that no white person has been charged. There could have been charges brought (possibly) against white students -- the three hangman nooses incident, the beer bottles thrown at the black student, possibly the shotgun.

Again, I am not taking sides as trying to provide the view of both sides.

In a nutshell:

Origins: At the end of a school assembly on 31 August 2006, a black student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, jokingly asked the assistant principal of that institution if black students were permitted to sit in the shade of a tree in a square at the center of campus (a spot usually enjoyed by white students). The official’s response was that they could “sit anywhere you want.” The next morning, two nooses were found hanging from said tree.

Scott Windham, the high school’s principal, recommended that the three white teens responsible for festooning the tree with those nooses be expelled from Jena High School, but that recommendation was overruled by the school superintendent and board members, who instead opted to view the matter as a non-racially motivated “prank.” The three students responsible for placing the nooses were instead given three-day suspensions.

Supposedly as a consequence of how the matter was handled (that is, the nooses’ being judged a boyish prank rather than regarded as a serious threat), racial tensions flared at the school and in the surrounding community throughout the fall. (Investigating officials have since disclaimed a link between the placement of the nooses and subsequent violent incidents involving the school.) On 30 November 2006, a wing of the school was destroyed by a series of deliberately-set fires, one in the principal’s office, and a number in various classrooms on the second floor. (No arrests have been made in connection with the fire.) There were also fights in and near the school, including one in which a black student was attacked by a group armed with beer bottles at a party predominantly attended by whites. (Only one person in that assault was criminally charged, and he with just a misdemeanor.)

In another incident that took place on 2 December 2006 at the Gotta-Go Grocery, a convenience store, a white Jena graduate reportedly pulled a pump-action shotgun on three black high school students when they left the shop. The three teens managed to wrestle the gun away from the man (who was injured in the process and was treated at a hospital for his injuries); they were later arrested and charged with second-degree robbery, theft of a firearm, and conspiracy to commit second-degree robbery. Accounts differ as to what happened in that incident, the white victim asserting he was attacked and robbed by the three teens, and the black teens asserting they were guilty of nothing more than defending themselves against a man with a gun. According to The Jena Times, eyewitness accounts provided by those unrelated to any of the four involved parties supported the victim’s story.

The “Jena 6” attack took place on 4 December 2006 at the high school. During a fight that broke out in the lunchroom between a white student and a black student, the white student was hit from behind, knocked out, then set upon by other black students who proceeded to kick and stomp his “lifeless” body as he lay unconscious on the floor. The victim, Justin Barker, spent about three hours in an emergency room being treated for injuries to his head and face.

That assault resulted in five of the black teens involved being charged, as adults, with attempted second-degree murder and given bonds ranging from $70,000 to $138,000. A sixth teen was charged as a juvenile. Two of the Jena 6 defendants had been part of the threesome involved in the Gotta-Go Grocery incident, which is why their bonds were significantly higher: the bonds so assigned covered both sets of charges.

Mychal Bell, the only one of the Jena 6 to be tried so far, was convicted in June 2007 on a reduced charge of aggravated second-degree battery. He is scheduled to be sentenced on 20 September 2007, when he could possibly be given a term of up to 22 years in prison.

Prosecutors in his case revealed the teen had been convicted as a juvenile for attacking someone a year prior to the Jena 6 assault, then committed three more crimes while on probation for that one, which meant the Jena 6 verdict marked his fifth conviction for violent crimes. These prior acts were taken into account by the judge when the question arose of reducing Bell’s $90,000 bond.

The case against Bell was weighed by an all-white jury (reportedly because no black potential jurors showed up on the day of jury selection), and there are allegations that the accused’s original defense attorney did a poor job. A motion hearing is scheduled for 4 September 2007, at which time Bell’s new attorneys will argue that Bell’s adult conviction should be wiped out and the case sent to juvenile court, or that he should get a new trial because he was misdefended by his original attorney.

Update: On 4 September 2007 prosecutors announced that charges against two more of the Jena 6 defendants, Carwin Jones and Theo Shaw, would be reduced from attempted second-degree murder to aggravated second-degree battery. On 14 September 2007 an appeals court vacated the second-degree battery conviction of Mychal Bell, ruling that the charges should have been brought in juvenile court. (The district attorney has not yet decided whether to refile the charges against Bell in juvenile court.)

Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, asserted that a review of the Jena investigations indicated there was no link between the hanging of the nooses and the beating of a student three months later: “A lot of things happened between the noose hanging and the fight occurring, and we have arrived at the conclusion that the fight itself had no connection.”

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, who oversaw the investigations into both incidents, echoed that sentiment: “When this case was brought to me and during our investigation and during the trial, there was no such linkage ever suggested. This compact story line has only been suggested after the fact.”

Washington noted that after the noose-hanging incident at the start of the school year in August, school routines went forward as usual; there was no apparent lingering anger.

“There were three months of high school football in which they all played football together and got along fine, in which there was a homecoming court, in which there was the drill team, in which there were parades.”

Asked if the incidents had been blown out of proportion, he replied, “To a degree, I believe so, yes.”
Last updated: 19 September 2007