• August 31, 2006, a few days into the new school year in Jena, Louisiana, a new black freshman student asked the principal at the school assembly, if he could sit under the big oak shade tree outside the courtyard. The principal replied that he could sit anywhere he liked.
• Three white students on the rodeo team apparently disagreed.
The next morning, there were three nooses hanging from the shade tree in the courtyard.
• The white superintendent and other school administrators investigated and decided the nooses were a prank. Instead of expulsion or arrest, the three received in-school suspension.
• A few of the black athletes, the stars of the football team, took the lead and organized a silent protest under the tree the day after the nooses were hung.
• The school called an assembly and summoned the police and the district attorney. Black students sat on one side, whites on the other. District Attorney Reed Walters warned the students he could be their friend or their worst enemy. He lifted his fountain pen and said, "With one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear."
• That evening, the black students told their parents that DA, Reed Walters, was looking directly at them during his speech.
• On Nov. 30, someone started a fire at Jena High. Whites thought blacks were responsible, blacks thought the opposite.
• On Dec. 1st, 16-year-old Robert Bailey and a few black friends (invited by their white friends) tried to enter a party attended mostly by whites. When Bailey got inside, a 22-year-old white man unexpectedly punched him as other white party-goers on the scene (estimated 5 or 6) also threw punches, kicks and allegedly threw beer bottle over Bailey’s head. This forced the luckily still-conscious Bailey and his friends to leave.
Crowd of Protesters in Jena• One of the men who participated in the attack on Bailey the previous night stopped at Gotta Go Convenience store alone Sunday, the next day. As he was about to enter, he saw Bailey and two of his friends inside. Fearing retaliation, the man went back to his truck and pulled out a shotgun as the three black youths exited the store. They wrestled the shotgun away from the man and then fled the scene. As a result, Robert Bailey and his 2 friends were charged with theft of a firearm, 2nd degree robbery and disturbing the peace.
• The white man who pulled the shot gun was not charged at all.
• The following Monday, Dec.4, a white student named Justin Barker was loudly bragging to friends in the school hallway that Robert Bailey & his homies had been whipped by his buddies on Friday night. Barker, later on that day, walked into the school courtyard and was attacked by a group of black students. The first punch knocked Barker out and he was kicked several times in the head. The injuries turned out to be superficial. Barker was examined by an EMT and released; he went out to a social function later that evening.
• A couple of days later, six black students were arrested and charged with aggravated assault of Justin Barker. District Attorney Reed Walters increased the charges to attempted second degree murder. All six had been involved in the earlier protest in early September. Their bonds ranged from $70,000 to $138,000. Several families could not afford these outrageous amounts and their sons remained in jail awaiting trial.
• The DA initially filed second degree murder citing the shoe that was used to kick Justin Barker was considered a deadly weapon. Walters’ charged Mychal Bell with attempted murder as a pre-text for getting Bell tried as an adult instead of a minor. After national and international outcry, the charges were changed to second-degree, aggravated assault in addition to conspiracy charges. Further, each individual is implicated to have played an equal share in the assault on Barker when it is obvious that Barker was only punched once.
• On June 28, 2007, Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted of aggravated assault and conspiracy despite contradictory written statements by students right after the Dec. 4 incident. No witnesses called by defense against the many white witnesses called by the DA in front of an all-white jury and white judge. The public defender who was assigned to him had recently graduated from law school a few months before the case.
• September 20, 2007, Louisiana’s Third Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the aggravated assault conviction. Mychal Bell, who was 16 at the time of the beating, could have been sent to prison for 15 years over a school fight. The court stated Bell should have never been tried as an adult on the battery charge.
• District Attorney Walters is now seeking to retry Mychal Bell for juvenile conspiracy charges and Mychal has yet to be released from jail. Actually he has been in jail since December 2006! All but Mychal Bell are now out on bail. The last one was released in the third week of July of 1007.
• Two of the six, Carwin Jones and Theodore Shaw, will also face reduced charges but the other three still face adult assault charges.
SOUCRES:
The Guardian
LA Times
NY Times
CNN
Time
If you want to voice your concerns with the local government in Jena, LA, please send your responses to:
Murphy McMillan, Mayor
P.O. Box 26
Jena, La. 71342
Phone (318) 992-2148
Reed Walters, District Attorney
28th Judicial District
PO Box 1940
Jena, Louisiana 71342-1940
(318) 992-8282
Fax: (318) 992-4731
Office of the Governor, Kathleen Blanco
Attn: Constituent Services
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004
Fax: 225-342-7099
Call: 866-366-1121
225-342-0991
225-342-7015
JUDGE J.P. MAUFFRAY:
1050 COURTHOUSE STREET
P.O. BOX 1316
JENA, LA 71342
(318)992-2002- phone
(318)992-8701-fax
State Senate representatives:
David Vitter
516 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202.224.4623
Fax: 202.228.5061
Mary Landrieu
724 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202.224.5824
Fax: 202.224.9735
U.S. House of Representatives
Bobby Jindal
District 1 1205 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.3015
William Jefferson
District 2 240 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.6636
Fax: 202.225.1988
Charlie Melancon
District 3 404 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.4031
Fax: 202.226.3944
Jim McCrery
District 4 2104 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.2777
Fax: 202.225.8039
Rodney Alexander
District 5 316 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.8490
Fax: 202.225.5639
Richard Baker
District 6 434 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.3901
Fax: 202.225.7313
Dr. Charles Boustany, Jr.
District 7 1117 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-1807
Phone: 202.225.2031
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