Five members of "Jena 6" sentenced

[Oh, Gee!!]

Jena 6 case wrapped up with plea bargain

JENA, La. – Five members of the Jena Six have pleaded no contest to misdemeanor simple battery and were sentenced to seven days probation and fined $500 plus court costs.

It was a far less severe end to their cases than seemed possible when the six students were initially charged with attempted murder in a 2006 attack on Justin Barker. They became known as the "Jena Six," after the central Louisiana town where the beating happened.

Later, charges against Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery. The only member of the group to serve jail time was Mychal Bell, who pleaded guilty to second-degree battery and was sentenced to 18 months.

A civil hearing is also scheduled today to settle Barker's lawsuit against the group.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_re_us/us_jena_six

[sam1617]

6 vs 1 is not misdemeanor simple battery.

Of course, I don't know that its attempted murder either... But whatever.

[Wild Cobra]

6 vs 1 is not misdemeanor simple battery.

Of course, I don't know that its attempted murder either... But whatever.
I agree it doesn't constitute attempted murder, but misdemeanor... That's a fucking joke. They acted like animals and should be caged like animals.

[PEP]

If it was 6 white dudes and 1 black guy the outcome would have been different.

[Wild Cobra]

If it was 6 white dudes and 1 black guy the outcome would have been different.
No shit. Black activists would have never shut up until they were all convicted of first degree assault or better.

[v2freak]

That whole situation was messed up. Nooses? Reacting with extreme violence?? Civil unrest? Horrible

[jman3000]

Mitigating circumstances. Don't act like that white boy was totally innocent.

If I was black and had to go through the same racist shit as those guys then I'd have done the same thing.

But I guess it's not that surprising you'd defend stuff like that.

[sook]

Republicans hating on black people as usual.

[Wild Cobra]

That whole situation was messed up. Nooses? Reacting with extreme violence?? Civil unrest? Horrible
The news is all wrong about the noose bit anyway. They were lariats, and school property, with the school colors.

[Wild Cobra]

Mitigating circumstances. Don't act like that white boy was totally innocent.

If I was black and had to go through the same racist shit as those guys then I'd have done the same thing.

But I guess it's not that surprising you'd defend stuff like that.
Did you read any of the original thread and links when this came out some time ago?

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The main perpetrator's mother was a civil rights leader. It's pretty obvious she filled her son full of hatred. He was the racist. Not the white kids.

The Jena Six (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77077)

[jman3000]

And the white kids were just filled with happiness and love when they tied the noose to the white tree?

Quit acting like there were victims here. Both sides were wrong for what they did.

[sook]

Why can't you let the black people get their justice for once?

They were packaged like garbage when being brought over here then raped, abused, and lynched for 400 some odd years after.

[sook]

Somewhere Emmet Till's soul lies in unrest as those responsible weren't even convicted.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IG5XsFOevf0/SiR6LcYrsrI/AAAAAAAAADU/4STMJzSJqa0/s320/emmett_till_composite-266x191.jpg

[sook]

http://faculty.lacitycollege.edu/moonmc/html/slavery1b.jpg

[Wild Cobra]

And the white kids were just filled with happiness and love when they tied the noose to the white tree?

Quit acting like there were victims here. Both sides were wrong for what they did.
Have you done any comprehensive reading on this? I'll tell you what. Let's assume the Lasso's were meant an nooses. Let's assume the white kids were racists. What right does that give for an unprovoked attack in a school hallway, where after the first hit, the kid goes down and is unconscious, and is repeatedly beaten while unconscious.

They were fucking animals, and should be caged like animals. How can anyone defend such shit, unless you yourself are a brutal person who likes assaulting people?

[Wild Cobra]

Guess what Sook.

Those who live in the past, have no viable future.

Get over it.

[sook]

Those who don't learn from their past are bound to repeat it.

[Oh, Gee!!]

three of six posts by WC compare the black youths to animals--we get it WC you hate black people.

[jman3000]

Have you done any comprehensive reading on this? I'll tell you what. Let's assume the Lasso's were meant an nooses. Let's assume the white kids were racists. What right does that give for an unprovoked attack in a school hallway, where after the first hit, the kid goes down and is unconscious, and is repeatedly beaten while unconscious.

They were fucking animals, and should be caged like animals. How can anyone defend such shit, unless you yourself are a brutal person who likes assaulting people?

:lol @ lassos. Hanging lassos from a tree. Priceless.

They should go to jail. That's not an issue. The issue is that mitigating circumstances should be taken into account and assuage the decision.

Those white boys shouldn't have been hanging "lassos" and calling black people n-words and expect that tensions wouldn't build like they did.

[jman3000]

On the flip side the blacks shouldn't have reacted as brutally as they did. Some of them had priors so I guess it's not unexpected.

But your assertion that the blacks were the racists here and the whites were 100% the victims shows how ignorant you are.

More conservative "black / white" thinking. This situation was pretty close to 50 / 50.

[sook]

http://www.delta4.icom43.net/images/fullsize/spot_the_racist.jpg

[sook]

If someone hangs a noose that is as fucking disrespectful as it gets. They should have beat them up more, if someone does something as ignorant as that and doesn't realize that that was one of the darkest chapters of our nation's history, by all means, beat the ever loving shit out of them.

[jman3000]

^^^

wtf? ok we get it... you know how to post pictures.

[jman3000]

If someone hangs a noose that is as fucking disrespectful as it gets. They should have beat them up more, if someone does something as ignorant as that and doesn't realize that that was one of the darkest chapters of our nation's history, by all means, beat the ever loving shit out of them.

You're just as wrong as Wild Cobra.

[Wild Cobra]

You're just as wrong as Wild Cobra.
You are one that belongs in jail then.

Such thoughts mean you are a pathetic loser if you let other people's symbolism provoke you like that..

Did you know that the day before, they had a lasso around a toy of a mustang, after a football meet win. The opposing teams mascot was a mustang.

Why do people jump to such conclusions. To assume it's noose is as idiotic as the police officer who said he saw a gun and killed a man when the victim was holding a cell phone.

Just a pathetic excuse, to justify hatred. That's for losers.

You need to go back and read that thread I linked, and remember that there are two sides to a story.

[jman3000]

You're the one missing the fact that there's two sides of a story.

You've fully embraced one as truth and the other as a bunch of racists.

You can't comprehend that perhaps each has a little bit of truth in it. Like I said... typical conservative black / white thinking.

[Wild Cobra]

You're the one missing the fact that there's two sides of a story.

You've fully embraced one as truth and the other as a bunch of racists.

You can't comprehend that perhaps each has a little bit of truth in it. Like I said... typical conservative black / white thinking.

No, I was showing you factual counterpoints. I cannot state for certain that the white kids were not racist. The other events leading up to this are clear that the black kids prompted the events, then used the lasso's that were traditional, as an excuse when they got busted.

Go back and read the link I posted, and the embedded links.

[Wild Cobra]

I've been reviewing the thread myself. Here's a good link you should read:

U.S. attorney: Nooses, beating at Jena High not related (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/19/jena.six.link/index.html)

Part of text:


The events occurred three months apart last year in Jena, Louisiana.
The three white teens were under 18, with no prior records, and no group such as a Ku Klux Klan was found to be behind their actions.
Washington said Bell had several previous assault charges on his record.

Here's part of my reply in post #86:
Just re-read my statements. I am really getting sick and tired of clearly making points and being misunderstood. If you think I'm being to harsh, then get a clue. Buy a dictionary.

If I tried to rationalize the noose, I would have pointed out that the nooses were laid out by members of a rodeo team. They might have been just smart asses and laid out lasso's rather than nooses, and others may have mistook them for nooses. Nothing said otherwise, now was there?

No, I didn't try to rationalize it because I believe they did intentionally intimidate with nooses. I just don't know it as fact. Considering no charges were brought for what is legally a hate crime, it could be just that… lassos!
Here's something X-Ray posted in post #127. The link no longer works, but he posted the whole text:

Black and White Becomes Gray in La. Town

By TODD LEWAN – 16 hours ago

JENA, La. (AP) — It's got all the elements of a Delta blues ballad from the days of Jim Crow: hangman's nooses dangling from a shade tree; a mysterious fire in the night; swift deliberations by a condemning, all-white jury.

And drawn by this story, which evokes the worst of a nightmarish past, they came by the thousands this past week to Jena, La. — to demand justice, to show strength, to beat back the forces of racism as did their parents and grandparents.

But there are many in Jena who say the tale of the "Jena Six" — the black teenagers who were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy for attacking a white classmate at Jena High School last December — is not as simple as all that.

Black and white, they say that in its repeated retelling — enhanced by omissions and alterations of fact — the story has taken on a life of its own. It has transformed a school-yard stomping into an international cause celebre, and those accused of participating in it into what one major Southern daily came to describe as "latter-day Scottsboro Boys."

And they say that while their town's race relations are not unblemished, this is not the cauldron of bigotry that has been depicted.

To Ben Reid, 61, who set down roots in Jena in 1957 and lived here throughout the civil rights era, "this whole thing ain't no downright, racial affair."

Reid, who is black, presently serves on the LaSalle Parish council. He reads the papers. He hears the talk outside of church on Sundays about how the Jena Six business is dividing his hometown down racial lines.

He doesn't buy it.

"You have good people here and bad people here, on both sides. This thing has been blown out of proportion. What we ought to do is sit down and talk this thing out, 'cause once all is said and done and you media folks leave, we're the ones who're going to have to live here."

Clearly, something bad occurred in Jena, population 2,971, an old sawmill town in LaSalle Parish that, once upon a time, was Ku Klux Klan country. And, as most white and black residents readily agree, there is no good reason for embracing what unfolded here.

But what happened, exactly?

The story goes that a year ago, a black student asked at an assembly if he could sit in the shade of a live oak, which, the story goes, was labeled "the white tree" because only white students hung out there. The next day, three nooses dangled from the oak — code for "KKK" — the handiwork of three white students, who were suspended for just three days.

Much of that is disputed. What happened next is not: Two months later, an arsonist torched a wing of Jena High School. (The case remains unsolved.) Two fights between blacks and whites roiled the town that weekend, culminating in a school-yard brawl on Dec. 4 that led the district attorney to charge the Jena Six with attempted murder. The lethal weapon he cited to justify the charge: the boys' sneakers.

In July, the first to be tried, Mychal Bell, was convicted after two hours of deliberations by an all-white jury on reduced charges of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit it.

(It was widely reported that Bell, now 17, was an honor student with no prior criminal record. Although he had a high grade-point average, he was, in fact, on probation for at least two counts of battery and a count of criminal damage to property. In any event, his conviction was overturned because an appeals court ruled he should not have been tried as an adult.)

There is, however, a more nuanced rendition of events — one that can be found in court testimony, in interviews with teachers, officials and students at Jena High, and in public statements from a U.S. attorney who reviewed the case for possible federal intervention.

Consider:

_The so-called "white tree" at Jena High, often reported to be the domain of only white students, was nothing of the sort, according to teachers and school administrators; students of all races, they say, congregated under it at one time or another.

_Two nooses — not three — were found dangling from the tree. Beyond being offensive to blacks, the nooses were cut down because black and white students "were playing with them, pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them," according to a black teacher who witnessed the scene.

_There was no connection between the September noose incident and December attack, according to Donald Washington, an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department in western Louisiana, who investigated claims that these events might be race-related hate crimes.

_The three youths accused of hanging the nooses were not suspended for just three days — they were isolated at an alternative school for about a month, and then given an in-school suspension for two weeks.

_The six-member jury that convicted Bell was, indeed, all white. However, only one in 10 people in LaSalle Parish is African American, and though black residents were selected randomly by computer and summoned for jury selection, none showed up.

About 225 miles and a world apart from racially mixed New Orleans, Jena (pronounced JEE-nuh) is a throwback.

Here, one refers to elders as "Sir," and "Ma'am." Children still pull catfish from creeks; couples court at Jena Giants football games; families rope goats and calves at weekend rodeos.

In a place where per capita income is $13,761, there aren't any swank, French restaurants, but rather, family eateries such as the Burger Barn, Ginny's and Maw & Paw's. Most of Jena's 14-odd churches stage Easter egg hunts. On summer afternoons, sweet tea and lemonade on a neighbor's front porch are obligatory.

And there are endearing figures, like the designated town sweeper who mountain bikes around town with a wagon full of rakes, brooms, dustpans and cleaning fluids, stopping only to sweep shopowners' parking lots or to distribute complimentary bubble gum to grade schoolers.

Not all vestiges of the past are beloved, or quaint, of course.

There are no black lawyers, no black doctors and one black employee in the town's half-dozen banks. (The employee is male, an accountant who works out of public view.)

Economics play a role in this; with the closure of the sawmills in the '50s, the town now relies heavily on the exploitation of oil and natural gas, offshore. There are relatively few good-paying jobs in what is gradually becoming a retirement community, and some point out that African Americans with higher educations tend to leave the parish.

"To a certain extent, that's true," says Anthony Jackson, one of Jena High's two black teachers. "But I know some people who tried to stay here and couldn't get good jobs. There was, for instance, a gentleman who graduated as a certified biology teacher, but he left because he didn't want to deal with what's going on here."

Cleveland Riser, 75, who began working in Jena as a teacher and then rose to become an assistant superintendent of schools in LaSalle Parish, says blacks have long had trouble getting ahead in Jena.

"In my experience, the opportunity for advancing in my profession was denied, in my opinion, because I was black — not because I was unprepared professionally, or because of my performance."

Here and across the "crossroads" of Louisiana, there are Klan supporters, to be sure; David Duke, the former KKK Grand Wizard, carried LaSalle Parish in his 1991 run for state governor. And Jacqueline Hatcher, a 59-year-old African American, remembers when, as a ninth grader in 1962, she saw a large cross burning out front of the all-black Good Pine High School.

"We heard the Klan was meeting in the woods because there was going to be desegregation in the schools and they didn't want that," says Hatcher. Still, no one recalls seeing any public lynchings or whites in robes and masks for a half century.

"If I could take you back to 60 years ago, and then fast forward to today, you'd have to say we've come a long way," says Billy Wayne Fowler, a white school-board member who is one of the few leaders with the school administration or local law enforcement who still talks to reporters.

Most townsfolk, he says, interpreted the events of last year pretty much the same way — that a small minority of troublemakers, both black and white, got out of hand, and that the responses from authorities weren't always on the mark.

The boys who hung the nooses "probably should have been expelled," Fowler says, and the murder charges brought against the black teenagers were "too harsh, too severe."

Tommy Farris, 27, an oil driller, and his wife, Nikki, 29, a registered nurse, concur — to a point. "Those boys should have expelled," says Nikki, who is white. "It was no innocent prank. I think those boys knew what they were starting by hanging those nooses from a tree."

Tommy, who is black, agrees. But free the Jena Six?

"That's not going to happen," he says, adding that he thinks the black teenagers are being given a fair chance to defend themselves against the charges.

Johnny Wilkinson, 44, a platform officer on an oil rig, and his wife, Karen, a 47-year-old director of nurses at the local hospital, are, like many couples in town, wrestling with that question of fairness.

The noose hanging was wrong, say the Wilkinsons, who are white, and the boys who did it should have been more severely punished.

Still, "They knocked that boy out cold and were stomping on him," Johnny says. "They might have killed him. I believe punishment would have been measured the same way if it had been the opposite way around and six whites had attacked a black kid."

(The teenager who was beaten, Justin Barker, 17, was knocked out but walked out of a hospital after two hours of treatment for a concussion and an eye that was swollen shut. He attended a school ring ceremony later that night.)

Adds Karen: "A sentence of 15 years is fair, but I do think they should be eligible for parole. Who are we to say they can't be members of society?"

But to Braxter Hatcher, 62, a janitor at Jena High for 18 years, such punishment would be excessive, and would only serve to reinforce suspicions in the black community that the worst kind of "Deep South justice" still exists here.

"They haven't always been fair in the courthouse with us," says Hatcher, who is black. "If you're black, they go overboard sometimes. I think this was just a fight between boys. I don't think it was attempted murder."

A number of other blacks — and whites — have raised similar questions about the Jena Six episode, particularly the manner in which authorities handled a series of racially charged incidents leading up to it.

Why, they ask, wasn't the noose incident ever reported to police? (A report might have triggered a hate-crime investigation, although federal authorities rarely go after juveniles in such cases.) And when whites and blacks tangled several times before the Jena Six episode, why did authorities charge the whites with misdemeanors — or not at all — while charging blacks with felonies?

Reed Walters, the LaSalle Parish district attorney who is prosecuting the cases of the Jena Six, insisted the case "is not and never has been about race. It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions."

Huey Crockett, 50, lives with his wife, Carla, 45, in a heavily wooded, predominantly black district just beyond Jena's limits, an area known as "The Country." The Crocketts, who are black, have complained to police that Bell and other youngsters were causing trouble in their neighborhood — scratching cars with keys, breaking the windows of parked cars, spraying property with paint.

The authorities, Crockett says, were always slow to respond.

"But as soon as he had a run-in with a white boy, they came down on him like a hammer. That's not right. If I call the police for an incident here, it may take them an hour, an hour and half to get out here. But they'll be right out in an instant if a white person calls them."

What also rankles African Americans in Jena, says Riser, the former school superintendent, is that whites charged with the same crimes as blacks receive more lenient punishment. "What this boils down to is: Why is there a double standard?"

On a road into town, a brick portal welcomes visitors to Jena, touting it as "A Nice Place to Call Home." But when the national spotlight goes away, will it be that nice place?

A week ago, Eddie Thompson, a white pastor at the Sanctuary Family Worship Center, would have said no. But on Wednesday, as thousands of demonstrators prepared to pour into tiny Jena, religious leaders held a unified church service, attended by blacks and whites.

"We prayed for one another, prayed for all of the boys involved in this," Thompson says. "We're not used to the glare, but something positive is going on here. I believe that we're maybe listening to our neighbors better, when we didn't listen before."
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Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.My post #169:
Yes, but still. Not everyone things of the implications of their actions. Especially high spirited school kids, at a school with a rodeo team! The day before the three presumed nooses, was the opposing teams mascot, a mustang, was caught in a lasso. The next day, after the tem win, three lassos. All lassos were of the school colors. Not regular rope. A lasso is also wrapped differently than a noose.

Everyone knew what it meant. You think otherwise? People just wanted to make something out of it that wasn't there. Without looking back, I don't remember the kids name, but one of them has a mother who is a local civil rights leader. It seems to me she misconstrued the incident with the so called nooses.

That goes for the confederate flag also. It gets denounced for slavery, but that is not what it meant. So what. It enrages some people. That's their social insecurities, and we shouldn't have to cater to other peoples problems. They just need to get over it, and not assume everything is racist. When they do, I say that makes then the one who is prejudiced. When political correctness tries to subvert free speech of an action not meant to be one of hate, we know PC is wrong.

[sook]

Wild Cobra is right, I was wrong.

[CubanSucks]

This whole thing is so simple. What the white kids did was fucked up no doubt, but it in no way justifies beating the shit out of them. :wakeup


Those who don't learn from their past are bound to repeat it.

Those black kids have a lot of learning to do then.

[sook]

This whole thing is so simple. What the white kids did was fucked up no doubt, but it in no way justifies beating the shit out of them. :wakeup



Those black kids have a lot of learning to do then.

You're right I'm wrong.

[v2freak]

I'm a bit surprised anyone could seriously advocate a penance-type approach. Yes, it's true; black people were grossly mistreated during the slave trade and even before that. But a simple tenant of economics states that people who reap benefits should bear the costs as well. How would it make sense to "grant justice to the black man" today when it was their ancestors being beaten, raped and imprisoned in the past? Similarly, it would be the slave owners and slave drivers in the past who would merit getting their comeuppance, not anyone else.

I will say however: sook, the "spot the racist" picture you posted is a good one. Simple, yet it gets its point across.

[CubanSucks]

You're right I'm wrong.

:toast

[sook]

I'm a bit surprised anyone could seriously advocate a penance-type approach. Yes, it's true; black people were grossly mistreated during the slave trade and even before that. But a simple tenant of economics states that people who reap benefits should bear the costs as well. How would it make sense to "grant justice to the black man" today when it was their ancestors being beaten, raped and imprisoned in the past? Similarly, it would be the slave owners and slave drivers in the past who would merit getting their comeuppance, not anyone else.

I will say however: sook, the "spot the racist" picture you posted is a good one. Simple, yet it gets its point across.

Thank you, and to those that don't realize it, my posts were satirical.

Now for my actual view on the problem, just like what anyone else would say, both parties were at fault and should be dealt with in such a manner.

[CubanSucks]

Thank you, and to those that don't realize it, my posts were satirical.

Now for my actual view on the problem, just like what anyone else would say, both parties were at fault and should be dealt with in such a manner.

WHAT?!?!?!

Problem is only one party commited the crime. The other party were just assholes. Being an asshole isn't a crime

[sam1617]

Why is it so hard for everyone to just admit that the punishment swung like a pendulum, from being too harsh, to being too light? Its pretty obvious that the 6 were out for some blood, otherwise, why would it take 6 dudes to beat up one kid? I would have a lot less disdain for the kids if they had confronted the white dude one on one, and fought him like that. A group of 6 kids attacking one kid can cause way more damage than was ever intended, and they should get longer sentences when you take that into consideration.

[LnGrrrR]

WHAT?!?!?!

Problem is only one party commited the crime. The other party were just assholes. Being an asshole isn't a crime

I don't know the situation very well; however, I believe there are crimes against intidimation. Again, not sure if this qualifies as that.

[Winehole23]

The FBI didn't think there was a prosecutable hate crime, but this may have more to do with the age of the *cowboys* than what they did.

The school took a much harder line, though.

[Wild Cobra]

I don't know the situation very well; however, I believe there are crimes against intidimation. Again, not sure if this qualifies as that.
That's just it. There is no crime committed by the white kids, and when both sides are considered, nothing that indicates intimidation by them. The lassos were a regular thing after a team win. The shotgun was legally used as a sign of protection when he was being intimidated. I don't remember all the details, but I did a great deal of reading on the subject back then. There was also a private party incident one or more of the black kids crashed.

[Wild Cobra]

The FBI didn't think there was a prosecutable hate crime, but this may have more to do with the age of the *cowboys* than what they did.

The school took a much harder line, though.
True, but that was because of the race card being played. The school was being intimidated to take action.