U.S. attorney: Nooses, beating at Jena High not related
JENA, Louisiana (CNN) — There is no link between the nooses hung by white students outside a Louisiana high school and the alleged beating of a white student by black teens, according to the U.S. attorney who reviewed investigations into the incidents.
The events, though likely symptoms of racial tension, were separate incidents, said Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.
The events occurred three months apart last year in Jena, Louisiana.
“A lot of things happened between the noose hanging and the fight occurring, and we have arrived at the conclusion that the fight itself had no connection,” he said.
Thousands of protesters are descending on the town of 3,000 to demonstrate Thursday against the way the cases have been handled.
Many said they are angry the six black students, dubbed the “Jena 6,” are being treated more harshly than the white students who hung the nooses. The white students were suspended from school but did not face criminal charges. The protesters argue they should have been charged with a hate crime. The black students face charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy in the schoolyard beating.
[...]
While critics contend the nooses and the beating are two sides of the same problem, U.S. Attorney Washington said a direct link would be hard to prove.
There was “no connection that a prosecutor could take into court and say, ‘You know, judge or jury, we’re prosecuting these white kids for these nooses, and look at all the damage they caused downstream, all the way down to the fight at Jena High School on December 4,’” he told CNN’s Kyra Phillips on Tuesday.
“We could not prove that, because the statements of the students themselves do not make any mention of nooses, of trees, of the ‘N’ word or any other word of racial hate.” (more…)
For me, when I read about the Atlanta city council supporting the Jena students, students from both Howard and Atlanta making the trip to Jena, bloggers from coast to coast screaming about this and even the Alphas jumping into the frey, I just wish that there was this much noise over the daily murders of our young Black men and women starting with well over 100 or so murders in New Orleans.
Call me a broken record, but the contrasts are insulting.
The city of Atlanta alone has a close to 50% unsolved homicide rate yet their city council wants to speak out on Jena????
Related:
Jena Six and the predictable blog swarm
Putting a face on the statistics (Part IX)
Putting a face on the statistics (Part VIII)
Putting a face on the statistics (part VII)
Putting a face on the statistics (part VI)
Putting a face on the statistics (part V)
Putting a face on the statistics (part IV)
Putting a face on the statistics (part III)
Putting a face on the statistics (part II)
Putting a face on the statistics
And this…
I just saw the video on TV~
(AP/Chron.com) DALLAS — Two suspects are sought after security video shows a store clerk in Dallas being shot through the front door during a robbery.
Police say the clerk survived Saturday night’s attack at a cell phone store.
The security tape — provided to the media by Dallas police — shows the clerk dashing outside and trying to hold the door against a suspect who’s still inside.
The tape shows glass breaking as a bullet is fired through the door — wounding the clerk in the chest area — as the suspect runs out.
Authorities believe the suspect joined a second man who was waiting in the parking lot. The pair fled.
The clerk, who’s seen on a cell phone, manages to walk toward about half-a dozen people who are nearby, then staggers back to the store area.
A woman who appears to be concerned is later seen approaching the clerk. (source)
This guy was gripping his chest and staggering while a group of the fellas sat there and did nothing.
And you wonder why it is so hard to get small businesses and banks and other “economic opportunities” in the hood.
Am I ranting? Yes.
