Jena 6

Nevyn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY

http://www.countercurrents.org/woodward120707.htm

On a Friday night, Robert Bailey, a 17-year-old Black student and football player, was invited to a dance at a hall considered to be “white.” When he walked in, without warning he was punched in the face, knocked on the ground and attacked by a group of white youth. Only one of the white youth was arrested—he was ultimately given probation and asked to apologize.

The following Monday students returned to school. In the midst of a confrontation between a white student, Justin Barker, and a Black student, Robert Bailey—where Bailey was taunted for having been beaten up that weekend—a chaotic fray ensued. Barker was allegedly knocked down, punched, and kicked by a number of Black students. He was taken to the hospital for a few hours and was seen out socializing later that evening.

Six Black students—Robert Bailey Junior, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Mychal Bell, and a still unidentified minor, allegedly the attackers of Justin Barker—were arrested, charged with attempted second degree manslaughter, and expelled from school.

The wonders of southern American justice were all men are equal.

And the wonders of the american media ignoring this story.

magdalena

Good examples but remember the O.J. Simpson trial which turned out to be more about race than a man committing two brutal murders? Not only was he acquitted (even though it was more than obvious he did, to my mind anyway) but now he's also making money from a book he just published with a lovely title - 'If I did it'. Sometimes the racial issue is just turned upside down and used for wrong purposes.
I agree that it's hard to discuss racial issues, especially when being white and not realizing what it means to be judged just because of something so irrelevant like the colour of your skin. But if people judge me and my friends wrongly because of some stories they've heard about people from my country isn't that racism as well? What if people are picking on me because of my religious believes?
I'm kind of getting lost in all that now so I'm going to finish before I start making no sense at all.

humbert

Taking what's said there at face value it's jaw dropping. I'm getting the impression that southern America must be one of the most backward places in the western world. To think that people actually believe this is a country that goes to war to fight oppression.

The_Minister

I'd have to know the details of the two cases before I condemned anything. There are multiple reasons that this could happen (physical evidence, time of arrival of cops, ameniable witnesses, the police realising that a tit-for-tat situation could arise and nipping it in the bud, etc.)
Face value, it looks wrong, but the devil is in the detail

McGinty

It is shocking but unsuprising, attitudes are deeply entrenched in America and espicially the south.

de5p0i1er

No suprise there the Hicks and Rednecks still have a firm grip on thing in the deep south.

dave2pvd

Thaedydal wrote:

And the wonders of the american media ignoring this story.

Actually, it was all over the news. A very high-profile story.

Don't think that Louisiana represents the whole of the US. LA is so far behind it's shocking.

pretty-in-pink

one occored on school grounds, the other did. hence expulsion make sense. to have charges brought againnst them, then they would have to be made. did the first kid do this? justice may be blind- but surely this kind of 1920s carry on is well over?

humanji

Well, there's more to it than these two incidents. Sadly, it started with people wanting to sit under a tree :rolleyes:

Personally, I think the black kids should still be charged with something, although the attempted second degree murder charge is a little extreme. They still kicked the shìt out of someone and should be punished. Two wrongs don't make a right, and they should be let off simply because of their skin colour, otherwise it's just as dumb as the white kids getting off.

Actually, I'm finding it very hard to find an objective report of what happened. From one source, Robert Bailey went to the "whites only" ball and got jumped on by a large group of people. In another, he and some friends went and only he was attacked. In another, he and his friends went to meet some of their friends who were already in there and that they were refused because they had no invites. And another says they were attacked by one guy who wasn't even a student.

I'm starting to get dizzy from all the different reports.

The_Minister

According to wiki, the U.S. Attorney Donald Washington said that it was fair, and if memory serves he's black.

EDIT: Yep

humanji

But the wikipedia page seems very one sided against the Jena 6. It may all be true, but it doesn't sit right with me (not that I'm any real judge ).

The_Minister

The Prosecutor in the area has written a short article for the NYT on why he decided to prosecute.
His version of events explains the attempted murder charge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/opinion/26walters.html?ex=1348459200&en=2799131d8e48989c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

THE case of the so-called Jena Six has fired the imaginations of thousands, notably young African-Americans who, according to many of their comments, believe they will be in the vanguard of a new civil rights movement. Whether America needs a new civil rights movement I leave to social activists, politicians and the people who must give life to such a cause.

I am a small-town lawyer and prosecutor. For 16 years, it has been my job as the district attorney to review each criminal case brought to me by the police department or the sheriff, match the facts to any applicable laws and seek justice for those who have been harmed. The work is often rewarding, but not always.

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 trying to motivate listeners on a radio show, but as I am a lawyer obligated to enforce the laws of my state, it does not work for me.

I cannot overemphasize how abhorrent and stupid I find the placing of the nooses on the schoolyard tree in late August 2006. If those who committed that act considered it a prank, their sense of humor is seriously distorted. It was mean-spirited and deserves the condemnation of all decent people.

But it broke no law. I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none.

Similarly, the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, who is African-American, found no federal law against what was done.

A district attorney cannot take people to trial for acts not covered in the statutes. Imagine the trampling of individual rights that would occur if prosecutors were allowed to pursue every person whose behavior they disapproved of.

The “hate crime” the protesters wish me to prosecute does not exist as a stand-alone offense in Louisiana law. It’s not that our Legislature has turned a blind eye to crimes motivated by race or other personal characteristics, but it has addressed the problem in a way that does not cover what happened in Jena. The hate crime statute is used to enhance the sentences of defendants found guilty of specific crimes, like murder or rape, who chose their victims based on race, religion, sexual orientation or other factors.

Last week, a reporter asked me whether, if I had it to do over, I would do anything differently. I didn’t think of it at the time, but the answer is yes. I would have done a better job of explaining that the offenses of Dec. 4, 2006, did not stem from a “schoolyard fight” as it has been commonly described in the news media and by critics.

Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words, clench fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers pull them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery, which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But that’s not what happened at Jena High School.

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Would you later describe that as a fight?

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

I can understand the emotions generated by the juxtaposition of the noose incident with the attack on Mr. Barker and the outcomes for the perpetrators of each. In the final analysis, though, I am bound to enforce the laws of Louisiana as they exist today, not as they might in someone’s vision of a perfect world.

That is what I have done. And that is what I must continue to do.

Reed Walters is the district attorney of LaSalle Parish.