Recent Event Highlights: Bell released on $45,000 bond, State wont appeal appellate ruling, judge wont free Bell during appeal, request to lower Bell's bond denied, "white tree" cut down, Bell found guilty by all white jury, and 9 more...
Created by devin on Oct 8, 2007
Last updated: 03/12/10 at 02:52 AM
Tags: cat_history
online petition circulated claiming over 428,560 signatures as of September 27, 2007.[49] The petition calls for a review of the events in Jena by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco announced that the prosecution would not appeal the appellate ruling, but would try Bell as a juvenile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
Following an order by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, a hearing was held to determine whether to set bond for Bell. The judge in the hearing denied the request for Bell to be freed while his appeal is being reviewed. A motion by Bell's attorneys to have Judge J.P. Mauffrey recused was also denied
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
Rallies in support of the Jena Six and all African Americans in the United States who have been unfairly treated by the justice system were held in Jena and across the nation on the date when Bell was scheduled for sentencing. Because of the rallies' large expected size (estimates were up to 40 to 60 thousand) Jena High and schools on the south side of La Salle Parish were closed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
Musician David Bowie donated $10,000 to the NAACP defense fund and made a statement, "There is clearly a separate and unequal judicial process going on in the town of Jena. A donation to the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund is my small gesture indicating my belief that a wrongful charge and sentence should be prevented."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
Louisiana's Third Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Bell's battery conviction, also ruling that he shouldn't have been tried as an adult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
Charges against Carwin Jones and Theo Shaw are reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
A judge dismissed the conspiracy charge on the grounds that Mychal Bell should have been tried as a juvenile, but let the battery conviction stand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
A request to lower Mychal Bell's $90,000 bond was denied due to his juvenile record. Bell had been put on probation for a battery that occurred December 25, 2005, and he was subsequently convicted of another battery charge and two charges of criminal damage to property while still on probation.
Sources told ESPN that one of the battery charges was for punching a 17-year-old girl in the face, although details of the conviction might be protected under the Louisiana Children's Code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six
Eleven months after the noose incident — the school had the tree cut down. "School's about to start," Billy Fowler, a new school board member said. "We don't want the blacks coming back up there looking at the tree knowing what happened, or the whites. We just want to start fresh." According to Fowler, the tree would have had to have been cut down to make way for the rebuilding of the school after an act of arson that had occurred on November 30.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
Jurors convicted Mychal Bell, 17, of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy charges despite conflicting testimony from witnesses about whether Bell was among a group of black students who allegedly jumped the victim as he emerged from the gymnasium at the local high school on Dec. 4, knocking him unconscious.
The aggravated battery charge against Bell involved the use of a dangerous weapon. Although no evidence of a gun, knife or other weapon was introduced, Walters argued, and the jury agreed, that the tennis shoes Bell was wearing at the time of the attack qualified as a dangerous weapon.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-jena_witt.1jun29,1,1872156.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
The first day of trial for defendant Mychal Bell, Walters reduced the charges for Bell to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
17-year-old Justin Barker, a white Jena High School student, was assaulted at school. He was struck in the head by a black student, knocking him unconscious. A group of black students then repeatedly kicked him.
Some individuals have stated that Barker had mocked Robert Bailey, Jr., who had allegedly been beaten up by a white man the previous Friday. Barker denies that.
Schools superintendent Ray Bleithaupt stated that the attack was no ordinary schoolyard fight. "It was a premeditated ambush and attack by six students against one," Bleithaupt said. "The victim attacked was beaten and kicked into a state of bloody unconsciousness."
According to relatives of the accused, the six defendants have all been expelled from school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
Another incident involving Bailey occurred at a local convenience store. A white student who had attended the Fair Barn party encountered Bailey and several friends. Reports from the involved parties are conflicting. Local police reported that the accounts of the white student and black students contradicted each other and formed a report based on testimony taken from eyewitnesses. The white student claimed that Bailey and his friends chased him, that he ran to get his gun, and that the students wrestled it away from him. According to the black students, as they left the convenience store, they were confronted by the white student with a shotgun. They stated they wrestled the gun away from him and fled the scene. After hearing from an uninvolved witness of unspecified race, the police charged Bailey and two others with three counts: theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery, and disturbing the peace. The white student who produced the weapon was not charged
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
There was a private party, attended mostly by whites but with some blacks, at the Jena Fair Barn. Five black youths, including 16-year-old Robert Bailey, Jr., attempted to enter the party at about 11 p.m. According to U.S. Attorney Washington, they were told by a woman that no one was allowed inside without an invitation. The five youths persisted, stating that some friends were already in attendance at the party. A white man, who was not a student, then jumped in front of the woman and a fight ensued. After the fight broke up, the woman told both the white man and five black youths to leave the party. Once outside, the black students were involved in another fight with a group of white men, who were not students. Police were called to investigate. Justin Sloan, a white male, was charged with simple battery for his role in the fight and was put on probation. Bailey later stated that one of the white men broke a beer bottle over his head, but there were no official records of Bailey receiving medical treatment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
A wing of the main building of the high school was set on fire. That portion of the building was gutted and had to be later demolished. While arson was determined to be the cause, the arsonists have never been identified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
On September 10, 2006, black students attempted to address the school board concerning the recent events but were refused because the board was of the opinion that the noose incident had been adequately resolved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
According to The Jena Times, police began patrolling the halls of Jena High on September 7. The following day, the school received a report that a student had brought a gun on campus, prompting a total lockdown, though no gun was ever found
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
Police were called to the school several times in the days after the noose incident in response to a rash of interracial fights between students.
The principal took action by calling an impromptu assembly on September 6, 2006, in which students segregated themselves into white and black sections. The Jena Police Department asked La Salle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters to attend and speak at the assembly. Allegedly, Walters was unhappy with the request because he was busy preparing for a case and, upon arrival, felt that the students were not paying proper attention to him. He warned the students that he could be their friend or their worst enemy, and he stated that "[w]ith one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear." Though black students state Walters was looking at them when he made the comments, Walters and school board member Billy Fowler, also present, deny it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
Nooses were discovered hanging from the "white tree". Reports differ whether there were three — believed by some to be code for the Ku Klux Klan — or two. School superintendent Roy Breithaupt has stated there were two. 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." According to The Jena Times, the nooses were removed by 7:15 a.m. after school officials were informed.
Craig Franklin, a reporter with the Jena Times, maintains that the ropes were not proper nooses but "crudely tied loops" made of black nylon, hung by members of the school's rodeo team as a joke towards their white friends. Franklin alleges that they were mimicking a scene from the television series Lonesome Dove.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
A school assembly was held. According to media reports, a black male freshman student asked the principal whether he could sit under a large tree, referred to as the "white tree" or "prep tree", in the center of the school courtyard.
According to Donald Washington — U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana — the principal stated that the question was posed in a "jocular fashion". The principal told the students they could "sit wherever they wanted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
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