The JENA 6 Should Be Convicted

[Junket]

JENA, La. - Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in support of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.
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The crowd broke into chants of "Free the Jena Six" as the Rev. Al Sharpton arrived at the local courthouse with family members of the jailed teens.

Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, said the scene was reminiscent of earlier civil rights struggles. He said punishment of some sort may be in order for the six defendants, but "the justice system isn't applied the same to all crimes and all people."

The six teens were charged shortly after the local prosecutor declined to charge three white teens who hung nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder, but that charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.

"This is the most blatant example of disparity in the justice system that we've seen," Sharpton told CBS's "The Early Show" before arriving in Jena. "You can't have two standards of justice."

"We didn't bring race into it," he said. "Those that hung the nooses brought the race into it."

Sharpton, who helped organized the rally, said this could be the beginning of the 21st century's civil rights movement, one that would challenge disparities in the justice system.

The district attorney who is prosecution the teens, Reed Walters, denied on Wednesday that racism was involved in the charges.

He said he didn't charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged. In the beating case, he said, four of the defendants were of adult age under Louisiana law and the only juvenile charged as an adult, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record.

"It is not and never has been about race," Walters said. "It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions."

The beating victim, Justin Barker, was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function later that night.

Bell, 16 at the time of the December attack, is the only one of the "Jena Six" to be tried so far. He was convicted on an aggravated second-degree battery count that could have sent him to prison for 15 years, but the conviction was overturned last week when a state appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult.

Thursday's protest had been planned to coincide with Bell's sentencing, but organizers decided to press ahead even after the conviction was thrown out. Bell remains jailed while prosecutors prepare an appeal. He has been unable to meet the $90,000 bond.

"We all have family members about the age of these guys. We said it could have been one of them. We wanted to try to do something," said Angela Merrick, 36, who drove with three friends from Atlanta to protest the treatment of the teens.

The rally was heavily promoted on black Web sites, blogs, radio and publications.

Thursday morning, thousands of demonstrators clad in black converged on the local courthouse and a nearby park, while thousands more marched along city streets in what at times took on the atmosphere of a giant festival — with people setting up tables of food and some dancing to the beat of a drum. State police declined to give official estimates of the numbers.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke to one crowd. Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president and CEO of the NAACP, compared the outcry over the arrests in Jena to the controversy that followed racial remarks by radio personality Don Imus.

"People are saying, `That's enough, and we're not taking it any more,'" Hayes said.

Sharpton admonished the demonstrators to remain peaceful, and there were no reports of trouble as of midmorning. White residents in the predominantly white town of 3,000 have largely been reluctant to comment, saying privately that the town was being unfairly portrayed.

"I believe in people standing up for what's right," said resident Ricky Coleman, 46, who is white. "What bothers me is this town being labeled racist. I'm not racist."

A group of about a dozen white residents and black demonstrators engaged in an animated but not angry exchange during the march. Whites asked blacks if they were aware of Bell's criminal record, blacks replied that Jena High School administrators mishandled the incidents.

Another white resident, Bill Williamson, 59, said he tried to convince visitors that the town was being treated unfairly and that Mychal Bell belonged in jail.

"I think we changed one man's mind," he said. "But most of these people don't want to hear."

The demonstrators included large numbers of civil rights movement veterans and college students from across the region who weren't alive in the 1960s.

Elizabeth Redding, 63, of Willinboro, N.J., said she marched at Selma when she was in her 20s.

"This is worse, because we didn't get the job done," she said as she walked up a hill leading to the park rally. "I never believed that this would be going on in 2007."

Tina Cheatham, 24, had no intention of missing a brush with history. "I wasn't around for the civil rights movement. This is kind of the 21st century version of it," she said.

Red Cross officials manned first aid stations near the local courthouse and had water and snacks available. Portable toilets and flashing street signs to aid in traffic direction were in place. At the courthouse, troopers chatted amiably with each other and with demonstrators who began showing up well before dawn.

Sharpton said Bell, whom he spoke with Wednesday, was heartened by the show of support.

"He doesn't want anything done that would disparage his name — no violence, not even a negative word," Sharpton said.

Ridiculous. Convict the hell out of the black pricks, there's no reason why they should be freed. Black people got their priorities completely out of whack. Since when was freeing people who committed a crime, justice?

Switch it up now. 6 white men beat the shit out of a black guy. Anybody who protests for the black guys is dumb.

[Gigabitch]

I think everybody involved should be convicted. What a bunch of ****ing assholes. Anybody who hangs nooses from a tree is ****ing asking for it, and anyone who gives it to them should be ready to face the consequences.

I ****ing hate Louisiana. It's full of ignorant people and it's stinky, too. Plus, I got my heart broken in New Orleans, so it can sink into the sea for all I care.

[Junket]

Last fall, when two Black high school students sat under the "white" tree on their campus, white students responded by hanging nooses from the tree. When Black students protested the light punishment for the students who hung the nooses, District Attorney Reed Walters came to the school and told the students he could "take [their] lives away with a stroke of [his] pen."

Racial tension continued to mount in Jena, and the District Attorney did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and threats against black students. But when a white student--who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses--taunted a black student, allegedly called several black students "nigger", and was beaten up by black students, six black students were charged with second-degree attempted murder. Thankfully, Mychal Bell’s June conviction has been nullified but all 6 young men are still awaiting trial, and remain unable to return to Jena High School and get on with their lives.

Somehow a bunch of white kids hanging nooses on the school grounds a while ago is excuse to let the black guys free?

What the hell?

Where is the logic in that?

[Illusional]

but but but.. i've never been to marti grazs yet... i wanna see some tits too.

raverboy

[Gigabitch]

No, I think people who beat up other people need to be punished.

[Illusional]

yes they should... an eye for an eye is what i believe...

and i still haven't been to marti grazs... girls gone wild anyone??

raverboy

[Gigabitch]

yes they should... an eye for an eye is what i believe...

and i still haven't been to marti grazs... girls gone wild anyone??

raverboy

Over-touristed, full of frat boys acting like gorillas on crack. If you're gonna do that, do the real thing and go to Carnival in Rio.

[tooxshort]

they asked for it ... hanging nooses on a tree was a death threat! ... "you hang under our tree again, N-word, and you're gonna be hanging from it" is what they were trying to tell them ... once you get into racism, it hits people dead in the heart ...

It was wrong to beat the kid up, but what did the guy expect by hangin' that shit on a tree? Did he expect them to say,"I really did not appreciate that. Please take the nooses (which are normally used as a symbol to remind us of what you did to our ancestors) down."

And if 6 white kids beat up a black kid in Louisiana, it probably wouldn't have even been on the news ...

[Tone]

they asked for it ... hanging nooses on a tree was a death threat! ... "you hang under our tree again, N-word, and you're gonna be hanging from it" is what they were trying to tell them ... once you get into racism, it hits people dead in the heart ...

It was wrong to beat the kid up, but what did the guy expect by hangin' that shit on a tree? Did he expect them to say,"I really did not appreciate that. Please take the nooses (which are normally used as a symbol to remind us of what you did to our ancestors) down."

And if 6 white kids beat up a black kid in Louisiana, it probably wouldn't have even been on the news ...

Truth ^




______________________

[misombra]

i don't think anybody is saying that these people should go free because they're black. it's that one 17 year old kid is in jail for 22 years and was tried as an adult.


The first black kid to go to court, Mychal Bell, then 16, was tried as an adult and convicted by an all-white jury. He faced 22 years in prison. After an outcry the charges were reduced; however, tomorrow Mychal Bell is to be sentenced on the lesser charges.

[DoesntMatter]

Should the white kid have gotten his ass kicked? Yes

Should the black kids go to jail? Yes

[Tone]

Why should they go to jail?

The retards were askin for a whoopin and that's what this kid got.

They knocked him out, so? He was released from the hospital later that SAME night and was able to attend a school function, but you want to throw KIDS in jail for it? They should be punished... but JAIL? Are you serious?

Find somethin to do.

[Gigabitch]

They knocked him out, so? He was released from the hospital later that SAME night and was able to attend a school function, but you want to throw KIDS in jail for it? They should be punished... but JAIL? Are you serious?

Agreed. Jail is not the answer, here.

[vashti]

Should the white kid have gotten his ass kicked? Yes

Should the black kids go to jail? Yes

I agree with this. I also think the white kids should have been expelled from the school instead of suspended, and perhaps charged with enciting a riot (do they do that?).

I object to trying kids as adults, however, and I think the charges of attempted murder sound extreme. It sounds like assault and battery to me, and the punishment should be whatever is standard for a teenager convicted of assault and battery.

I don't feel bad for the white boy, though, if he was one of the boys that instigated the whole mess.

[DarkDwarf]

It was assault, not 'attempted murder'.