Howard, who does some auto repair work, says police also seized his four vehicles -including two older cars that don't run. Sat-Sun, Closed, The following were booked into the LaSalle Parish Jail in Jena during the past week: [62], Some sources pointed to inaccurate reporting by the media. Please login hereto access content or go here to purchase a subscription. ", "It's going to be like Baghdad out in this community at five am," he continued dramatically, explaining that their target was 37-year-old Darren DeWayne Brown, who owns a barbershop -- one of the only Black-owned businesses in town -- and his "lieutenants," who Franklin said supplied eighty percent of the narcotics for three parishes. The Black teens were arrested and charged with second-degree battery, which was later upgraded to second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit attempted murder, despite Barker returning to a school function hours later, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented one of the teens and helped arrange the defense for another. "It is not and never has been about race," Walters said, according to an AP report at the time. Given the poverty of Bells background, the odds were against him: black men in Louisiana are five times as likely to go to prison as to college; in LaSalle Parish, they are incarcerated at twice their proportion in the population. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. After the fight broke up, the woman told both the white male and the black students to leave the party. Melissa Bell worked a series of low-wage jobsat a hospital, Burger Barn, Procter and Gambleand had her own run-ins with the law, including a stream of bounced checks, for amounts as small as $4, in 2005. LaSalle arrests | The Jena Times Four of those arrested on that day have pled guilty. The pieces didnt add up to real people or a real place, and that argued for checking the math. Please login hereto access content or go here to purchase a subscription. Sat-Sun, Closed, The following people were booked into the LaSalle Parish Jail last week as reported by the LaSalle Parish Sheriffs Office: Jordan Washington, 21, of Pineville, was arrested June 2 by the LaSalle Parish Sheriffs Office for contempt of court. The Jena Times And we finished 7 and 3 and barely missed the playoffs. Jeffrey Goldberg on the coming map of the Middle East; Mark Bowden profiles David Simon, creator of The Wire; James Fallows on China's subsidization of the U.S. way of life; Amy Waldman explores the truth about the Jena 6; Megan McArdle looks ahead to America's coming silver age; Caitlin Flanagan assesses Katie Couric; Michael Scott Moore uncovers the German surfing scene; Virginia Postrel considers the implications of the typeface revolution; and much more. [39][40] On September 26, Parish Attorney Walters announced that the prosecution would not appeal the appellate ruling, but would try Bell as a juvenile. [1][11] Under the district's Crisis Management Policy Procedures, the three students were isolated at an alternative school "for about a month",[6] spent two weeks on in-school suspension, served Saturday detentions, had to attend Discipline Court, were referred to Families in Need of Services, and had to have an evaluation before they were able to return to school. Jena But would such a movement have grown around an icon with a tragic flaw? Diana Boyette, 18. But as he grew up, his temper began to scare others. 2,700 people tricked into working for cybercrime syndicates From then on, Jones said, when Bell asked whether other letters had come, his mother lied and said no. The Jena Times wrote "We're completely satisfied with the results," said LaSalle Sheriff's Department Narcotic Chief Robert Terral, who refused further comment on the operation. They were protesting a pattern of systemic racism and discriminatory prosecutions. She had a daughter and another son and by 23 was largely on her own with three children, working nights and relying on her mothers help. The Nationalist Movement, a white-supremacist (pro-majority) group, ran interviews on its Web site with the victim and the town mayor, providing ammunition for those seeking to prove the towns racism. Walters says he does not look at race in his prosecutions. [76] The demonstrators were addressed by Darryl Matthews, General President of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, who said, "It is sobering to know that in 2007 Martin Luther King's dream of equal treatment, respect, fairness and opportunity is still not realized". Some of the accused have hired attorneys, while others have had public defenders appointed. A couple who say that a company has registered their home as the position of more than 600 million IP addresses are suing the company for $75,000. And all this is going through the courts while theyre clapping him on, running up and down the football field, and then the minute this happened to the white boyits like, uh-ohclick-clickhe going to jail.. Further, in a parish that is eighty-five percent white, his actions have almost exclusively targeted African Americans. "Everywhere I looked all I saw was police. Over the next decades, Jena settled into its post-segregation identity. Fawn Creek, KS Map & Directions - MapQuest Howard, who has seen the evidence, says he is not implicated in the video. Gas-and-oil exploration joined timber as a stalwart of the economy. He and five other Black teens were accused and later convicted of attacking a white student at a high school in Jena, Louisiana, a town with a large majority of white residents, after a series of racially charged incidents there. (June 28) MANILA, He later testified, "I waited 11years to go to it. "It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.". Austin Lefebvre, 30, of Jena, was arrested April 14 by sheriff officers and charged with contempt of court. [99] Barker's medical bills from his emergency room visit totaled more than $5,000. "From racial profiling to unequal punishment in school to potential misconduct by authorities, the Jena Six case causes great concern," Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said in a 2007 statement. "This is serious business what we're fixing to do," said Sheriff Franklin. The proliferation of media outlets made this even easier. Thousands of people gathered to support the Jenna Six, the black teenagers who had been charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate. Times All appeals were dropped as part of the plea agreement. 4 More Arrested in Human Smuggling Case That Left - The New Austin L. Lefebvre, 30, of Jena, was arrested May 9 by the LaSalle Parish Sheriffs Office for possession of drug paraphernalia. [99] The lawsuit alleges that the LaSalle Parish School Board inadequately supervised students and failed to maintain discipline. SECTION B SUMMARY OF UNCLAIMED PROPERTY - 16th [8] Bailey and four other black youths tried to enter the party at about 11:00p.m. Gender: Female. Following the incident and their convictions, the other men too wanted to move on -- some going to college, others entering the labor force. [103][111], Theo Shaw was able to attend classes at another high school and have his credits transferred to Jena. [75] Darryl Hunt, an African American who was wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a young white newspaper reporter in 1984, was scheduled as a keynote speaker. Chelsea Brown, who was arrested for contempt of court, received a sentence of 25 days. F: (318) 992-2287, Office Hours: He had missed Christmas and his birthday and at least one U.S. Army National Combine game, a national forum where high-school players show their stuff. We will not stop marching until justice runs down like waters, Jesse Jackson said. A black teacher described seeing both white and black students "playing with [the nooses], pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them" that same day. With the stroke of a pen I can make life miserable for you or ruin your life. Partly for that reason, the Harts did not press for anything more serious than probation and an apology. Five of them (Robert Bailey, Jr., then 17; Mychal Bell, then 16; It was reported that the principal, Scott Windham, learned that three white students were responsible and recommended expulsion, that the board of education overruled his recommendation, and that school superintendent Roy Breithaupt agreed with the overruling. [71], Rallies in support of the Jena Six were held in Jena on September 20, 2007, the date upon which Bell was scheduled for sentencing. [53], Initially, the Jena Six were largely ignored by the United States national media, though covered locally and within Louisiana. he asks. The protesters asserted that white Jena youths involved in similar incidents were treated more leniently. Demonstrators were furious with disparities in the criminal justice system, which they said often resulted in harsher, more unjust charges and sentences for Black people compared with white people. Once outside, the black students were involved in another fight with a group of white males who were not students. [90] Civil rights advocate Al Sharpton has said that some of the families have continually received threatening and harassing phone calls. The Jena Six case sparked protests by people who considered the arrests and subsequent charges, initially attempted second-degree murder, as excessive and racially discriminatory. It was initially reported that the punishment was reduced to three days of in-school suspension. The Jena Times Find directions to Fawn Creek, browse local businesses, landmarks, get current traffic estimates, road conditions, and Fawn Creek Township is in Montgomery County. Fowler, like every other coach, put his best players names out; the schools then blanketed prospects with pro forma letters of interest. An FBI spokeswoman said the agency believed that the website "essentially called for their lynching". But, it could not be prosecuted as such since juveniles are rarely prosecuted in the federal system, and this offense did not meet departmental standards for charges to be brought. CNN.com - Transcripts Adrian Richardson, 34, who pled guilty on April 23 to two counts of distribution, received twenty-five years. (His father called it kid stuff and complained about Uncle Toms running to whites at the courthouse.) Aired September 20, 2007 - 20:00 ET. Anonymous readers posted the arrest record of Mychal Bells mother, and other allegations about the family, in an online forum of The Town Talk, a daily newspaper based in nearby Alexandria. Tue: 8am - 4pm. [51] On June 26, it was announced that the civil case by Barker against the Jena Six members had been settled on undisclosed terms. Ichikawa Ennosuke arrested over assistance in mothers suicide Shaw also maintained his innocence, claiming he was not involved in the fight. Student dies after going into cardiac arrest at Jena High School [108] Marcus Jones, Bell's father, blamed Bell's attorney at the time of the plea agreement for the denial. The lip service about not excusing Bells past or the boys attack on Barker didnt diminish the hagiography, which climaxed in a standing ovation for two of the Jena Six when they appeared as presenters at the Black Entertainment Television awards (dressed in hip-hop gear, which coach Fowler says they never wore in Jena). [86], In the months following the Jena Six rally, controversy arose about accounting and dispersal of the legal defense funds. The white residents loving solicitousness toward their own was subtler than crude racismwhich Jena also hadbut no less powerful. On Dec. 4, 2006, six Black teenagers, now known as the Jena Six were accused of beating up a fellow white student Justin Barker, who was hospitalized and suffered a Tia Owens-Powers/The Town Talk via AP, FILE. (While Hart had been anonymously, and inaccurately, described in Web accounts, this was the first time she had spoken on the record.) arrested Theo Shaw stands outside of the Louisiana State Supreme Court, where he works as a clerk for Chief Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson, in New Orleans, Nov. 2, 2018. Extensive news coverage related to the Jena Six often reported these events as linked. But that does not mean the racial boundaries of his community do not influence him. He focused on the piece circulated by Bean to news outlets, "Bean's story is framedby his own admissionas an indictment of the criminal justice system and the people in power in Jena and, therefore, the story is unfairly biased". OLLA-TULLOS-URANIA SIGNAL The boy had a history of getting in trouble, she says, and it should have been reckoned with. There he says he spent another hour without any clothes, standing with the other arrestees, until police brought him an orange jailhouse jumper. June 27, 2023 4:08 PM PT. ET. ET. Premium Content is available to subscribers only. [1] Federal and parish attorneys concluded from their investigations that assessment was inaccurate for some of the events; for instance, the burning of the high school was an attempt to destroy grade records. Please provide the title of the article in your email. In a community so small that, as Marcus Jones puts it, if you burp you can hear it all over town (perhaps on the police scanners that many residents have in their homes), the families are connected: Jones was best man at LaTaras parents wedding. "We went to school together. [1] According to some of the school's teachers and administrators, the tree in question was not a "white tree", and students of all races had sat under it at one time or another. [83] Color of Change raised more than $212,000 for the Jena Six legal defense, largely through online donations. June 20, 2023, 5:59 p.m. [23] He attended his school's class ring ceremony and dance that evening. The Jena Times When she opened her eyes, her small home was filled with police. Mon-Fri, 8am-4pm He struck me as wanting to unburden himselfeven if doing so exposed his own clay feet. J. Reed Walters, the white district attorney, devolved into caricature, as did Jena itself. Sat-Sun, Closed. As a football star, he seemed to have found the loophole in his fathers lesson that a black man cant get a break. According to Walters, the matter was unrelated to the assault on Barker, and it had not been referred to during the Barker proceedings. (KALB) - According to a report by The Jena Times, a student at Jena High School passed away after going into cardiac arrest on Tuesday, April 18. And she was often at work. It's where six black teens have been charged with the beating of a white classmate. All six youths, who once faced life in prison, are now either enrolled in college or are on their way. [106] In an interview televised on CNN on August 24, 2008, Bell admitted to having struck Barker in 2006 and described Jena as "a real racist town". This is Jena, Anlynne Hart says. At the end of the day, a dozen people were arrested on charges that ranged from contempt of court to resisting arrest to distribution of marijuana, hydrocodone, or cocaine. [81], Blood at the Root is a play written by Dominique Morisseau about the Jena 6. Together, the galvanizing facts tapped into a larger ache: the record incarceration of African American malesthe shift from plantations to penitentiaries, as the Reverend Al Sharpton put it at the protest. Both The Jena Times[10] and The Town Talk (a regional newspaper published in Alexandria, Louisiana)[54] covered the story from its inception. [78] The song and video led to Jena's mayor, Murphy R. McMillan, issuing a statement rebutting the accusations he believed were expressed and implied in the video. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said to Washington and other Justice Department officials, "Shame on you. The assistant principal was sports-minded, you know, so he didnt want to disrupt, Fowler says. Thordore Hartley, 19, of Urania, was. Unable to post bond, he spent months behind bars but always maintained his innocence. Six male suspects (three juveniles and three adults) had been arrested, and two more adult males were being sought. He warned them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But their polarized perceptions, as much as the legal encounter between Walters and Bell, seemed to capture the competing truths of the Jena saga: Bells denial of her sons responsibility, and the towns denial of its racial cliquishness. "I would say we kind of put pressure on the officials and everybody that run the town to make a change," Purvis added. As his high-school team posted its best season in six years, Bell scored 21 touchdowns, rushed for 1,006 yards, and was named player of the week three times by The Jena Times. Police found no drugs or any other evidence of wrongdoing in Wallace's home. [8] The principal told the students they could "sit wherever they wanted". Together with District Attorney Reed Walters, Sheriff Franklin has said he is seeking maximum penalties for people charged with small-time offenses. Raised in Olla by a schoolteacher mother and a father who worked in the timber industry, Walters has spent most of his life in LaSalle Parish. Anupam B. Jena is an economist, physician and professor at Harvard Medical School. [21] Superintendent Breithaupt described the battery as a "premeditated ambush and attack by six students against one. [70] In a column in the Kansas City Star, Jason Whitlock drew attention to what he called factual inaccuracies in reporting of the story. At trial he rested the defense case without calling any witnesses or offering any evidence. However, community members say that Sheriff Franklin's actions are part of an orchestrated revenge for the local civil rights protests that won freedom for six Black high school students -- known internationally as the Jena Six -- who had been charged with attempted murder for a school fight. He handled the routine cases of a small-town lawyer, and was also drafted into defending the poor. Copyright 2023 KALB. [62][66][67][68] Citing the same statistics, syndicated columnist Clarence Page wrote that "The best legacy for the Jena 6 march would be a new movement, dedicated this time to the reduction and elimination of unequal justice wherever it appears. [32], The jury found Bell guilty, and he faced the possibility of up to 22years in prison. Blood at the Root premiered on March 28, 2014 at Penn State Center Stage. On March 16, 2009, Judge Ronald Lewellyan was assigned to hear the civil case. James Cody Lisenby, 28, of Monroe, was arrested May 10 by the LaSalle Parish Sheriffs Office for possession of CDS II, possession of drug paraphernalia, and improper equipment. The arrest of Ms. Sturgeon, who resigned as leader of the Scottish National Party in February, follows that of her husband, previously the partys chief executive, and of