Judge Denies Request To Release Jena Teen On Bail

Associated Press:

A judge on Friday denied a request to release a teenager whose arrest in the beating of a white classmate sparked this week's civil rights protest in Louisiana. Mychal Bell's request to be freed while an appeal is being reviewed was rejected at a juvenile court hearing, effectively denying him any chance at immediate bail, a person familiar with the case told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because juvenile court proceedings are closed.

Earlier, Bell's mother emerged from the hearing in tears, refusing to comment.

Read the whole story: Associated Press

Comments

[Triastro]

So when are Al and Jesse coming to protest these black kids again beating up one white--this time in Norfolk VA ? I guess this the ok kind of racism where a poor 13 yr old kid's parents can't buy their way out of the "hood" unlike many who frequent this forum.

See the video—many of you will take satisfaction I’m sure.

http://www.wavy.com/global/story.asp?s=7117439

[scottymac11]

Try some facts. One young man instigated his own ass kicking in school. This happens regularly every day in America with no criminal consequences. Because of the racial differences of the combatants the black participants were punished in a way beyond reasonable measures.
Do you know of the plantifs criminal history?

[Misanthrope2]

Prove your statements. I think they are lies. Also, the plaintiff is the State. Dumb ass.

[manan01]

CNN SIU: Judgment in Jena
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/siu/

Now watch and call me whatever you want

[thetruthmustbetold]

There was no “schoolyard fight” as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree. Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack. A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the “Jena Six” case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker’s assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the “Jena Six” in reaction to Walters’ extreme charges of attempted murder.

Much has been written about Bell’s trial, the six-person all-white jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded to the jury summonses and that Bell’s public defender was black.
It’s rarely mentioned that Bell was already on probation for assault when he was accused of participating in Barker’s attack. And it’s never mentioned that white people in the “racist” town of Jena provided Bell support and protected his football career long before Jesse, Al, Bell’s father and all the others took a sincere interest in Mychal Bell.

[johnnyjust]

Yahoo News actually has a fair and balanced and unbiased story on their website.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070922/ap_on_re_us/a_place_called_jena

Unlike the race-baiting vitriol of PuffPost.

[Concernedperson]

Thanks for the article, Johnny. It appears that white criminals in Jena should be getting harsher sentences. It also appears that Mr. Bell has been a troublemaker for a long time and for the most part has gotten away with it. It's good that the judge denied his bail.

[TheHandyman]

If there is any doubt that Racism, bigotry, and stupidity abounds in this country one only has to read the comments of the posters here. The amount of vitriol and mean-spirited ignorance is overwhelming. Very little has been presented in the way of facts but lots of speculation, innuendo, and outright falshoods have been presented

DemocracyNow.org has been covering this story for more than a week. As usual, Amy Goodwin did a superb job of getting at the facts of the story. The real story is how the players in this story have been treated. Across the board, in every incident, white kids were given a slap on the wrist. The white kid who went to his truck and got the shotgun was never charged with anything, the blacks were charged with everything that could be legally imposed. In the Mychal Bell situation, even though the Appellate Court threw out his conviction the judge refuses to allow him out on bail. The judge in this case has a long history of of treating blacks far more harshly than whites when they appear in front of him. One also has to look at how the public defender program works in Louisiana. It does not afford its people with much of a defense. It was noted that Mychal Bells PD called not one witness nor raised one objection. There were no blacks in the jury pool, period. The Constitution grants us a jury of our peers.

[TheHandyman]

Continued

Everyone should be concerned that our justice system be transparent and fair to the Nth degree as it benefits all of us that it is so. Instead, the arguments here on Huffpo have had the quality and tenor of a lynching in the old South but one has to remember that Blacks have not been treated well in this country anywhere. They are just as likely to be treated poorly in Chicago, Kennebunkport, Washington DC as they are in Jenna. Racism is a subtle thing mostly. Threats of riot and threats of violence from one side or the other does nothing except fan the flames. What I see posted here smacks of the same kind of hatred that Sunnis' and Shiites have for one another. And yet many of the posters here would call them barbarians. Quit with the gut reactions and try some facts and some introspective searching about what motivates you.

[Triastro]

Handyman,
Factually based, logical points work well in academia or in some parts of legal system, but unfortunately since the dawn of man, emotions and perceived reality rule the day. The key is persuading enough people to view reality the way you want them too, just ask Jessie and Al on how they’ve spun the Jena Six. It’s a 180 different approach from what they did in Durham. They have the ability to twist perceptions in such a way to appeal broad audience. It may be wrong, but it is what it is and you have to deal with it.

[Concernedperson]

Try some facts? Six people ganged up on one person and beat him unconscious. The one in jail has a history of other assaults. In some countries, he would have been executed by now. People who batter others belong in jail. Again, I wish someone had videotaped this beating so that everyone could see what these six did. They are not victims or civil rights heroes, they are criminals who belong in jail.

[ImpeachmentNOW]

.
Fresh from their failure to lynch the innocent Duke Lacrosse players, the hypocrite, racist, hate-mongers "Hymietown" Jackson and the God Bigot "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton are once again trying to cash-in by spreading a pack of lies about a crime just to serve their own interests. (Only DickNBish are more chronic liars.) When this Amos and Andy team tried to lynch the innocent Duke Lacrosse players based solely on the word of a lying h'o they became responsible for that gross miscarriage of justice. They are again trying to pervert justice by getting six racist black racists set free after their heinous hate crime. (If six whites attacked a black, Amos and Andy would demand another lynching.) Their actions are racism in its purist form. Americans have had enough of their lies, distortions and self-serving BS.
.

[AlleyCat]

I would like to know who died and left Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson and oh don't forget the honorable Mayor Nagen in Charge?

These Loud Mouthed Attention Whores need a new gig.

When You have a 17 year old with two arrest for charges of aggrivated assault already against him, and then he pulls this shit, You have a very disturbed individual.

I am glad the courts are not bowing to the Mob Mentality which got all of this started and continues to fuel it.

I was a senior in High School in South Gate in 1965 and working in Watts that Summer. Those riots had no Winners. Let the legal system work. What Goes around Comes around and those who escape justice now will fall to future criminal activities. Ask O.J.

[ceasenake]

As a "military brat" thrust into a deep southern high school during a period of extended race riots in the 70's I can relate to a Duval line from the movie "The Great Santini".

"Stay out of it when the grits and the ni_s go for each other."

There is no nobility on either side.

To this day I won't live in the South.

[Misanthrope2]

Live? Hell, I won't even visit.

[ceasenake]

Black bigots and white bigots deserve each other.

This is a comedy, repeated over and over for the past 100 years everywhere in the USA where bigots on both sides reach a critical mass every once in a while.

[Qbear]

part 2
A posting Thursday afternoon that contained contact information for the six youths was headlined: "Addresses of Jena 6 N-----s; In case anyone wants to deliver justice."

In a second item, White was quoted as saying: "If these n------s are released or acquitted, we will find out where they live and make sure that white activists and white citizens in Louisiana know it ... in order to find someone willing to deliver justice."
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=37C3A721EB05BA1630FAFBBA7DFEB056?diaryId=3058

The Southern Poverty Law Center has details on the other sites and groups fomenting violence in light of the march and search for justice in Jena. Take the bleatings at the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network:
"I think a group of White men with AK rifles loaded with high capacity magazines should close in on the troop of howler monkeys from all sides and compress them into a tight group, and then White men in the buildings on both sides of the shitskinned hominids shall throw Molotov cocktails from above to cleanse the nigs by fire," wrote "NS Cat" on VNN. Another poster fantasized about a terrorist attack in Jena today: "Wouldn't that be sweet? Gosh darn, wouldn't that be sweet? Good LORD wouldn't THAT be SWeeeeEET? Boom, Boom, no more Coon! Well? A White man can dream can't he?"
As former White House press secretary Tony Snow said on an October 2003 edition of Fox News Sunday
"Here's the unmentionable secret: Racism isn't that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It's rapidly becoming an ugly memory."
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=37C3A721EB05BA1630FAFBBA7DFEB056?diaryId=3058

[Qbear]

It's getting UGLIER!!!
From Pam's House Blend

Neo-Nazi group publishes addresses and phone numbers of Jena 6 families
by: pam
Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 10:15:00 AM EDT

On the heels of Mychal Bell not receiving bail, the story of the Jena 6 continues to roil all sides.
Mychal Bell, the sole defendant who remains behind bars from the group of teens known as the "Jena 6," will not be released Friday, a court decided.
Bell, 17, has been in jail since his arrest more than nine months ago.

It was not immediately clear what happened in court Friday, where Bell's attorneys had planned to push for his release.

In what is not a surprising, but sad development, a white supremacist organization is being monitored by the FBI. William A. White is trying to stir up violence by posting addresses and phone numbers of the Jena 6 family on his web site, proclaiming: "Lynch the Jena 6." He operates out of Roanoke, Virginia:
William A. White also listed some of the defendants' telephone numbers, urging his readers to "Get in touch, and let them know justice is coming."
The review came as protesters gathered Thursday in Jena, the site of racial unrest since last summer. After a black student asked the school for permission to sit under a tree where white students traditionally gathered, three nooses were found hanging from the tree. Months later, the Jena Six were charged with beating a white student.

On his Web site, White complained of "agitators" who were demanding acquittals.

[Concernedperson]

I'm glad the judge revoked the batterer's bail. Anytime six people gang up on someone and beat him unconscious, they deserve to go to jail for a long time. It's too bad there is no videotape of this beating, like there was when Reginald Denny was pulled from his truck and attacked. I wonder how much sympathy the Jena six would get about their civil rights then.

[mikeinto]

The fact you're using a 60s term like INSTITUTIONAL RACISM clues me in that your a moron.

[Triastro]

Agree Mikeinto

[manan01]

The term "institutional racism" is not period-specific. It describes a socio-cultural phenomenon which is alive and well in some parts of the US.

[mikeinto]

Liberals and black activist don't rule the roost in Louisiana. Maybe that's the reason blacks and whites live peacefully together. Same can't be said for New York, Los Angeles and other hellholes governed by liberals.
I live in L.A. and I know blacks HATE Mexicans and whites,Mexicans hate everyone except for themselves, Chinese hate Japanese, Japanese hate Vietnamese and so on.
L.A. gangs thrive on racial tension and hundreds die every year for having the wrong skin color or being in the wrong neighborhood.
I wonder why Jessie and Al allow this bloodshed to carry on without uttering a peep?

[noamjunior]

the fact that you can't see the difference between private citizens having beefs with people of other races and INSTITUTIONAL RACISM clues me in that you are a CRACKER

[texmex66]

using words coined by a member of the black panther party clues me in that your nothing more than a racist. Using the word cracker confirms it.

[dobermangang]

Jason Whitlock wrote an insightful column on the subject. I'll post some of it below. Go to the link at the end to read the rest of his column.

There was no “schoolyard fight” as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.

Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.

A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the “Jena Six” case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker’s assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the “Jena Six” in reaction to Walters’ extreme charges of attempted murder.

Much has been written about Bell’s trial, the six-person all-white jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded to the jury summonses and that Bell’s public defender was black.

It’s almost never mentioned that Bell’s absentee father returned from Dallas and re-entered his son’s life only after Bell faced attempted-murder charges. At a bond hearing in August, Bell’s father and a parade of local ministers promised a judge that they would supervise Bell if he was released from prison.

Where were the promises and supervision before any of this?

It’s rarely mentioned that Bell was already on probation for assault when he was accused of participating in Barker’s attack. And it’s never mentioned that white people in the “racist” town of Jena provided Bell support and protected his football career long before Jesse, Al, Bell’s father and all the others took a sincere interest in Mychal Bell.

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/284511.html

[Triastro]

Dobermangang,
Unfortunately "facts" and “logic” are irrelevant. Bottom line is this is a political issue used my some to further their own agendas.

[tommygolstch]

it's ok when blacks beatup and terrorise whites, but if you even look in the direction of a black...
They ought to imprison those black
gangster students and deport Jesse
the Jackson and that asshole sharpton.

[Qbear]

If they hadn't institutionalized a F*CKIN' White Tree, hadn't IGNORED the HATE CRIME of nooses being tied to the branches...maybe there wouldn't have been a beating. I can guarantee this won't be the LAST act of violence this town generates, and it won't just be in places Whites are 85% of the population like Jena. There are cities all over America where retaliation for Bell being refused bond that will EXPLODE.

[Iraqnophobia]

nothing will explode, the black community isnt as stupid as you make them out to be.