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Jesse Ray Beard said he was constantly in trouble, even when he behaved. It took being accused of the racially charged attempted murder of a white classmate in the Deep South to turn his life around. Beard, 18, now interns at a New York law firm as he prepares for his senior year next month at Canterbury School, a Connecticut prep academy where Beard is highly regarded among peers and teachers. "I didn't change the way I act. I didn't do nothing different. It was just that I was at Canterbury instead of Jena," he said. "It was like Jena...

Susan Roesgen, the hack who harassed tea party goers, was a driving force behind the flawed Jena 6 narrative that circulated the MSM cesspool back in 2007. The level of professionalism which made her famous on tax day has clearly been par for course in Roesgen's career. Patterico has uncovered the extent of her involvement pushing the absurd and reprehensible racially charged narrative:

Susan Roesgen, the CNN reporter who mocked tea party attendees in Chicago, is the same reporter who spread myths about the racially charged “Jena 6″ case in Louisiana, in which six black teenagers were charged with attempted murder for the beating of a white student. The case gained national prominence because of the racial issues involved, and Susan Roesgen was at the center of publicizing the controversy, and perpetuating several myths about it. Roesgen’s bio says that Roesgen became the first national TV reporter to cover the tumultuous “Jena 6″ episode in that Louisiana town. In a piece titled Media...

MONROE, Louisiana (CNN) -- Mychal Bell says he felt pressure to be perfect after his part of 2006's "Jena 6" assault case was over. When police alleged last month that he wasn't, the Louisiana teen took his Christmas money and sought a gun to kill himself. Mychal Bell says he's strived to do well after Jena, and last month's shoplifting allegations devastated him. 1 of 3 Distraught after being arrested on suspicion of shoplifting and battery, the 18-year-old Bell says, he pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger. The gun misfired, and he aimed at his chest...

MONROE, La. – A teen convicted in the "Jena Six" beating case shot himself in the chest and was taken to the hospital Monday, days after his arrest on a shoplifting charge, police said. Mychal Bell's wound isn't life threatening, said Monroe Police Sgt. Cassandra Wooten. The 18-year-old used a .22-caliber firearm in the shooting around 7:40 p.m., she said.

WASHINGTON — It was November 2006 when Senator Barack Obama first gathered friends and advisers at a Washington law firm to brainstorm about what it would take for him to win the presidency. Those who attended the meeting said the mix of excitement and trepidation at times felt asphyxiating, as the group weighed the challenges of such a long shot. Would Mr. Obama be able to raise enough money? What kind of toll would a campaign take on him and... --snip-- Aides said Mr. Obama’s campaign was unaware of the magnitude of the tensions brewing in Jena, La., over charges...

It’s time for some True Crime. Two horrific shootouts over the weekend shocked the nation. Two LA Cops shot in a hostage situation in LA. A city council meeting attacked by a very disgruntled citizen, the mayor, two council members, and some police shot, and a teacher assaulted in her classroom by her estranged husband. An American woman arrested in Saudi Arabia for drinking coffee in Starbucks, a former beauty queen arrested, a police officer arrested for rape and an update on Timothy Hennis and his military trial. Videos of Joran Vandersloot's many confessions.

A Hebron High School student said a member of the "Jena Six" choked him and then pushed his head into a bench, bruising his eye, according to an arrest warrant affidavit released by Denton County on Thursday. Bryant Purvis, 19, was charged with assault and released from Denton County Jail early Thursday morning after posting $1,000 bond.

A defendant in the Louisiana "Jena Six" case was arrested after allegedly slamming a student's head into a bench at his new school in Texas, police said. The defendant, Bryant R. Purvis, 19, was arrested on a charge of assault causing bodily injury Wednesday after an altercation at Hebron High School. It began because Purvis believed a student had flattened his tires, Sgt. John Singleton said. Purvis was released from jail Thursday morning. According to a police report, the student felt Purvis come behind him and "grab his neck with one hand and begin to choke him." Purvis then said,...

Rules--link only http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080207/NEWS01/802070330/1002

We have had a fairly mixed year. Both good stories and bad were bountiful, and sometimes good and bad news came together to neutralize mega-stories. Take Pakistan, where Pervez Musharraf’s lifting of both his military uniform and his country’s State of Emergency was closely followed by the untimely assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Nobody quite knows what the net effect of these events will be.

NEW ORLEANS — Members of the Congressional Black Caucus called on Gov. Kathleen Blanco to pardon Mychal Bell and five other teenagers known as the "Jena 6." Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said in a letter to Blanco this week that Bell and the other teens have paid their debt to society and should be immediately pardoned. "They and their families have suffered enough, as has the State of Louisiana and the town of Jena," the letter reads. Fourteen other members of the caucus joined Lee in urging Blanco to support releasing Bell, who was sentenced to 18 months in...

(AP) The family of Justin Barker, the victim in the "Jena Six" racial beating case in Louisiana, has filed a civil lawsuit against the local school board, the parents of the six young men accused of beating him and the adult members among the six. The lawsuit was filed Nov. 29 in state district court, the Alexandria Daily Town Talk newspaper reported. The case and its racial overtones, sparked by the hanging on campus of nooses, a traditional symbol of lynch mobs, have attracted the attention of U.S. civil rights leaders, who led a large protest and said the original...

<p>JENA, Louisiana (AP) - The family of Justin Barker, the victim in the «Jena Six» racial beating case in Louisiana, has filed a civil lawsuit against the local school board, the parents of the six young men accused of beating him and the adult members among the six. The lawsuit was filed Nov. 29 in state district court, the Alexandria Daily Town Talk newspaper reported. The case and its racial overtones _ sparked by the hanging on campus of nooses, a traditional symbol of lynch mobs _ have attracted the attention of U.S. civil rights leaders, who led a large protest and said the original charges against the Jena Six were too strict. David and Kelli Barker and their son allege that seven Jena High School students attacked Justin on Dec. 4, 2006, as he walked out of the school's gym. The suit names the attackers as Mychal Bell, Jesse Beard, Theo Shaw, Bryant Purvis, Carwin Jones and Robert Bailey Jr., as well as a seventh student who has not been officially named by law enforcement as a part of the attack. The lawsuit alleges that school employees were not adequately supervising students or maintaining discipline. The Barkers are asking for a jury trial. Bell pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor second-degree battery charge and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. The other members of the Jena Six are awaiting court appearances. Barker spent several hours in the emergency room after the attack but was discharged and attended a school event the night after the attack.</p>

http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071203/NEWS01/71203057 Rules-link only

New Orleans, LA (AHN) - A black teenager whose case fueled one of the biggest civil rights protests in the U.S. is expected to enter a guilty to a misdemeanor on Monday. If Mychal Bell, 17, enters a misdemeanor please, he will avoid a second trial for aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy for his role in attacking Justin Barker, a white student from Jena High School. Barker was unconscious, but survived the attack. Although he was treated in the emergency room for several hours, he managed to attend a school event on the same evening a year ago. Bell's first...

JENA, La. - A judge ruled Wednesday that the public and the news media should have full access to all legal proceedings involving Mychal Bell, one of the teenage defendants in the racially-charged Jena 6 case in Louisiana, whose prosecution had been shrouded in secrecy on orders of the trial judge. Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Chicago Tribune and joined by a coalition of major U.S. media companies, Rapides Parish District Judge Thomas Yeager ordered that Bell's upcoming criminal trial, as well as any pre-trial hearings, must be open to the press and the public. Yeager also ordered...

JENA La. A state district judge filed papers Thursday indicating that he would open to the public the upcoming juvenile trial of one of the six black teenagers charged with beating a white classmate. But District Judge J.P. Mauffray, in the court filing, also argued he was not required to open the juvenile proceedings and asked that a lawsuit, filed by several news media to do so, be dismissed. Mauffray is the presiding judge over Mychal Bell's case but disqualified himself from hearing the news media's request because he was named as a defendant in the litigation. The Associated Press...

BASTROP (TV8) - Since the events in Jena, there have been a number of reported incidents involving nooses across America--in schools, offices, even on a college campus. Tonight, a newspaper is in dutch over just such a graphic in one of its own ads. TV8's Dustin Barnes has the story. Bastrop Councilwoman Betty Olive got calls from her constituents after this ad appeared in friday's issue of The Daily Enterprise Newspaper. Betty Olive says "Certainly at this particular time, that caught the eyes of a lot of readers and they expressed their concerns. The copy for the newspaper's advertising office...

HOUSTON - Just weeks after some 20,000 demonstrators protested what they decried as unequal justice aimed at six black teenagers in the Louisiana town of Jena, controversy is growing over the accounting and disbursing of at least $500,000 donated to pay for the teenagers' legal defense. Parents of the "Jena 6" teens have refused to publicly account for how they are spending a large portion of the cash, estimated at up to $250,000, that resides in a bank account they control. Michael Baisden, a nationally syndicated black radio host whois leading a major fundraising drive on behalf of the Jena...

Saturday, October 13, 2007 The New Civil Right -- Attack A Cracker! Am I the only person who found the entire Jena 6 "celebration" disturbing and more than a little Orwellian? It was like watching an updated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, with Al Sharpton in the role of Napoleon, leading the Manor Farm's animals in not "Four legs good, two legs bad!" but in "No justice, no peace!" which in civil-rights-speak, oddly enough, translates to: "Black folks good, white folks bad!"

By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they've all heard the story of the "Jena 6." White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics. There's just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing...

Two of the teens enmeshed in the nationally known "Jena Six" case helped present the most anticipated award during Black Entertainment Television's Hip Hop Awards show broadcast Thursday night.Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis were introduced by Katt Williams, a comedian and the awards show's host, as two of the students involved in a case of "systematic racism." "By no means are we condoning a six-on-one beat-down," Williams said during his introduction of the teens, one of whom is still facing attempted murder charges in connection with the attack on white student Justin Barker. "... But the injustice perpetrated on these...

Nooses Found Hanging Inside N.J. Home Depot Hate Speech Inexplicably Takes Over Tri-State Area Reporting Sean Hennessey PASSAIC, N.J. (CBS) ― A spree of disturbing crimes is spreading hatred and fear around the region. Many people are wondering when it will end. The latest act of hate took place in a busy home improvement store. Three nooses were captured on a cell phone hanging in the aisle of the hardware department inside a Home Depot on Thursday. Terrance Baker is a Home Depot vendor who was helping a customer when he looked up and couldn't believe his eyes. "I look...

No, these two don't have the latest hit on the Billboard charts. They are Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis of the so-called "Jena 6." The two walked the red carpet of the 2007 BET Hip-Hop Awards, held this weekend in Atlanta. According to those in attendance, they spoke briefly about the case before presenting the Hip-Hop Video of the Year Award. Though their cohort Mychal Bell is back behind bars, that didn't stop the two from hamming it up for the cameras (even holding up the number six with their fingers). What does it say about the culture's celebrity obsession...

(AP) WASHINGTON Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday the Jena Six case shows the government needs to do more to combat racism far beyond a small Louisiana town where charges filed after a school fight garnered national attention. "Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is not unique to any one place, but is found in cities and towns north and south throughout our nation," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said as he opened a hearing into the Jena case. In Jena, six black teenagers were charged with the beating of a white student. The incident happened after nooses were hung...

(AXcess News) Washington - The House Judiciary Committee will be schooled about the Jena Six incident and youth hate crimes Tuesday.

JENA, La. - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy was back in jail Thursday after a judge decided 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 is accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell's attorneys. Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple...

JENA, La. (AP) - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail after a judge revoked his probation because of an old drug charge that had never been tried, his father said Thursday. Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court expecting another routine hearing, Marcus Jones said. "He's locked up again," Jones said. "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."...

At this point, there seems little doubt about the ugliness that has simmered, and then boiled, in a little town in Louisiana called Jena. There is a lot that has already been said, and done, about the latent racism in the town that led to the display of nooses on a tree. Racism that led, in reaction, to six black youths brutally beating a young white man, and then the subsequent disproportionate sentencing, in which those black youths could have served prison time for trumped-up murder charges. Action has been taken, and will be taken, so that those charges, and...

"Oh, oh, oh Jena, take your nooses down."Let's see who accuses me of misinterpreting this.... Initially five of the "Jena Six" teens were charged with attempted 2nd degree murder, to be tried as adults by an all-white jury.As we've covered this "all-white jury" thing here, it's plainly obvious that Mr. Mellencamp is starved for relevance and attention. He clearly hasn't kept up on the facts of this case, but when it comes to the entertainment royalty, facts are for some gopher to look up if necessary. This appears to be a lame song and a lame attempt to interject himself...

FORT WORTH -- A store cashier struck a deaf customer in the head with a crowbar after he mistook the man's silence for rudeness and disrespect, police said. The cashier, Ricky Benard Young, 20, is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The customer, Cody Goodnight, 31, suffered "a large knot" on his head during the incident, which occurred Saturday at the Family Dollar Store at 4117 E. Lancaster Ave. "I can't believe someone would hit him for not speaking," said Goodnight's mother, Kay Goodnight. "When you're deaf, you don't make a point of starting conversations with people." Young's...

This Week...Jesse Jackson is a Racist Pig Oh'Lawdy, pick a bale'a cotton... Oh'Lawdy... livin' in the past  Nope... sorry, not buying it. You will never get me to believe that the great Martin Luther King Jr. would be in Jena, Louisiana, hand in hand with his people, marching in the name of beating the crap out of some innocent white kid. Because if he truly was the man of honor that I've been taught he was, by the media and the Leftist, Teacher Union run government school system... if he really did stand for non-violence, peace and justice... for...

Folksy rocker sings about injustice as part of recording session for new album. *The heartland rocker that brought us "Jack and Diane" and "Pink Houses" in the 80s has focused his creative attention toward Jena, Louisiana for a song on his upcoming album. According to Fox411 columnist Roger Friedman, John Mellencamp has recorded a song about the Jena 6, the group of six African American teens who were charged in the beating of a white classmate by a district attorney largely viewed to be racially biased. Listen to the song here: http://relative-way.com/jenastream. The lyrics are as follows: "An all-white jury...

Commentary by Daniel T. Zanoza, National Director, RFFM.org Laws which prosecute individuals who participate in crimes driven by hate may sound like a good idea to the general public. However, as with any other issue, upon closer inspection things may not be as simple as they seem. When a hate crime law is violated, motivation is almost impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and often such laws are not applied equally. A perfect example of how hate crime laws muddy the criminal justice system can be illustrated by the situation in Jena, Louisiana. Six African-American males were charged with...

October 01, 2007, 6:45 a.m. Orlando Vacation from RealityWhat Patterson got wrong. By Heather Mac Donald The high incarceration rate of black males is not “solely the result of white racism,� wrote Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson in the New York Times on Sunday. Patterson’s startling admission was occasioned by the media-saturated protests two weeks ago in Jena., Louisiana, over attempted murder charges lodged against five black students who had beaten a white student unconscious. This unusual outbreak of frankness on the pages of the New York Times might seem to signal a breakthrough in the otherwise nonexistent public debate...

.."The walkout is in conjunction with the National Walk-Out Movement created by rapper, Mos Def"..

JENA, La. | Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and talk-show hosts certainly feasted on the racial unrest in this tiny central Louisiana town. But it would be unfair to claim they threw the match that ignited the Jena Six case into a global blaze of hostility and misinformation. That distinction belongs to Alan Bean, a 54-year-old white, self-proclaimed Baptist minister from Tulia, Texas. “Do I know him?” was LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters’ sarcastic and dismissive response when I asked about Bean during a 45-minute interview. “People are reluctant to say it,” said Craig Franklin, editor of the Jena Times,...

At this point, there seems little doubt about the ugliness that has simmered, and then boiled, in a little town in Louisiana called Jena. There is a lot that has already been said, and done, about the latent racism in the town that led to the display of nooses on a tree. Racism that led, in reaction, to six black youths brutally beating a young white man, and then the subsequent disproportionate sentencing, in which those black youths could have served prison time for trumped-up murder charges. Action has been taken, and will be taken, so that those charges and...

JENA, La. (AP) - A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate prompted a massive civil rights protest here walked out of a courthouse Thursday after a judge ordered him freed. Mychal Bell's release on $45,000 bail came hours after a prosecutor confirmed he would no longer seek an adult trial for the 17-year-old. Bell, one of the teenagers known as the Jena Six, still faces trial as a juvenile in the December beating in this small central Louisiana town. "We still have mountains to climb, but at least this is closer to an even...

Six black teens beat up a white kid in Jena, Louisiana, and Al Sharpton hails it as "the start of the 21st century civil rights movement." The white teen who was assaulted had nothing to do with the hoo-ha. Some 18,000 "protesters" swarmed Jena demanding that the black teens, the so-called "Jena 6," be released from custody -- for beating up an innocent bystander. This is not justice. This is no civil rights movement. This is the culture of victimization, avoiding its own problems and projecting them on others. How did it all get started? ...The "Jena 6" story began...

There are many aspects of the Jena Six saga that have slowly come to light. Some very pertinent questions are beginning to be answered. The answers will probably be brushed aside as it goes against the very template some use to exploit race in what was a law enforcement matter. I have taken the position that the six young boys involved shouldn't have put themselves in the situation they now find themselves. Sure, they are young, hotheaded, and the initial gestures made by the white kids who hung the nooses should never have been excused, or treated as lightly as...

*** I do not question the sincerity or motivation of the 10,000 or more protesters who descended on Jena last week, after riding hundreds of miles on buses. But long before reaching our town of 3,000 people, they had decided that a miscarriage of justice was taking place here. Their anger at me was summed up by a woman who said, “If you can figure out how to make a schoolyard fight into an attempted murder charge, I’m sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime.” That could be a compelling statement to someone...

A lawmaker said Tuesday he will press the government for the release of a black teenager held in the "Jena 6" case that spurred one of the biggest civil-rights demonstrations in years. Other activists said they planned more protests if the teen is not immediately pardoned. "Our first responsibility is to get young Mychal Bell out of prison," said Rep. John Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who said he will pressure the Justice Department to take a hard look at "the miscarriages of justice that have occurred in Jena, Louisiana." Conyers spoke after he and several other...

The reason that the black incarceration rate is the highest in the country is that blacks have the highest crime rate—by a long shot. Don’t trust the police, prosecutors, or judges to give a fair picture of black crime? Then go where the bodies are. Los Angeles is representative. In the first seven months of 2007, blacks in Los Angeles were murdered at a rate ten times that of whites and Asians. Who’s killing them? It’s not whites and Asians. While a minor proportion of the assailants of blacks are Hispanic, the vast majority are black themselves. Nationally, blacks commit...

Let’s assume the worst about Jena, Louisiana, and the charges of attempted murder brought against five black youths for beating a white student unconscious last December: that the district attorney’s indictments were motivated by rank racism, and that the racial tensions in this town of 3,000 are exclusively the product of white animus against blacks. Does it follow that this latest object of frenzy on the media’s racism beat is emblematic of America’s judicial system or the state of race relations today? That is certainly what the ever-expanding army of racial victimologists and their media enablers would have you believe....

In the unlikely event that an American soldier – by definition my hero – purposely shoots Iraqi civilians for no reason, I would want him to rot in jail for the rest of his life, just like anyone else would. If my own cousin robbed a store, I would want him prosecuted to the fullest extent possible, just like anyone else should be. But if six teenagers from my own race beat another teenager unconscious simply because he was taunting them, I would want them to roam the streets freely for the sole reason that they share my skin’s concentration...

People think of the Deep South as a place prejudice and racism. This story is one of how a South Louisiana college quietly integrated to the point that almost no one seemed to notice... A lawsuit in March of 1954 allowed black students to attend college in Lafayette, Louisiana, in the September of 1954. This was a situation where integration occurred peacefully. However, many whites involved do not understand how hard it was for a handful of black students to attend this college. SLI [Southwestern Louisiana Institute] later became the University of Southwestern Louisiana and is now the University of...

As thousands of people rallied in Jena, La., for six black youths charged with assaulting a white classmate, the FBI was monitoring a neo-Nazi activist in Roanoke who posted their names and addresses on a Web site that proclaimed: "Lynch the Jena 6." William A. White also listed some of the defendants' telephone numbers, urging his readers to "Get in touch, and let them know justice is coming."[snip].......[snip] An FBI official said the agency is aware of White's posting. "The FBI reviews information provided for possible violations under our jurisdiction, and would seek a prosecutive opinion at the appropriate time,"...

Last Updated: Thursday, 20 September 2007, 09:17 GMT 10:17 UK Bowie supports US race row teens Bowie said the donation was a "small gesture" David Bowie has made a $10,000 (£4,981) donation to a legal defence fund for six black teenagers charged with assault on a white student in the US. One of the teens, Mychal Bell, was found guilty of second degree battery in June by an all-white jury before the case was overturned by an appeal court.The court said Bell, 16 at the time of the alleged incident in December 2006, should not have been tried as an...