Mychal Bell's Parents, Others Seeking His Release Set to Meet with Gov. Kathleen Blanco
Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The parents of a jailed Jena, Louisiana teen and civil rights leaders are scheduled to take their pleas for the release of Mychal Bell directly to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco in a Wednesday meeting at the state capital.

Bell, one of six black youths dubbed the Jena Six, has been locked up for about 10 months in connection with a fight with a white classmate. That case attracted thousands to the central Louisiana town last week in what was one of the biggest civil rights marches in recent history.

On Tuesday, Bell's mother, Melissa Bell, met in Washington, D.C., with members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Al Sharpton. Today, Melissa Bell is to be joined by Sharpton and Martin Luther King III in the meeting with Blanco.

Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, who organized Tuesday's meeting, told BlackAmericaWeb.com, "We must now apply pressure in the right places." Blanco has said that Louisiana's constitution, which provides for a separation of powers, prevents her from intervening in the case at the time. But, Jackson-Lee said, Blanco "must render justice, and not excuses."

Bell is the only one of the six youths tried and convicted on criminal charges in connection with the fight. On Sept. 14, an appeals court overturned his conviction and said the matter should have been handled in juvenile court. He will now have an opportunity for a new trial in juvenile court with conspiracy, lawyers said.
The other young men, Bryant Purvis, Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones and an unnamed juvenile await trials. Bell is the only one who was facing adult charges to have had the case sent back to juvenile.

Prof. Charles Ogletree, a noted Harvard law professor who has been advising Jena Six lawyers, says Bell should be freed from jail before the end of this month.

"He is not a flight risk. He is not going to skip bail. He has not committed a heinous crime. He is not a danger to himself or others," Ogletree told BlackAmericaWeb.com.
"I believe the judge and the prosecutor are just trying to clean up the mess in their records," he said. "Already they've been told they made errors. When the judge first threw out the attempted murder charge, that showed he had been overcharged. Then the appeals court said that it should have been handled as a juvenile matter in the first place."

Reed Walters, the LaSalle Parish district attorney who brought charges against Bell and his classmates, has maintained that the youths attacked 17-year-old Justin Barker. Though some witnesses said Barker first uttered a racial slur, Walters has denied that it occurred.

The fight on Dec. 4 followed months of racial tension in the city, touched off in August when a black student sat under a tree that had been the usual gathering place for whites. The next day, nooses were hung from that tree.

The white students who hung the nooses were suspended from school. Some published reports also said that they were placed in an alternative school for about a month. The black students were arrested and charged with felonies. Their bond was set in amounts ranging to $130,000.

Jackson-Lee said there are too many Jenas in America and the federal government must do something about the problem.

"Today is the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine. Those black children integrated a white school under federal court order," she said. "Federal officers help part the way through the mob. The federal government has to step in in Jena."

John Conyers, head of the House Judicial Committee, is calling for hearings on Jena and said he also will press the Justice Department to take a hard look at "the miscarriages of justices that have occurred in Jena." But he said "Our first responsibility is to get young Mychal Bell out of prison."

Jackson-Lee said that beyond the hearings, she also is calling on the state of Louisiana to address the issue of prosecutorial abuse in this case. "I will also call Gov. Blanco on Wednesday," she said following Tuesday's meeting with the CBC and the subsequent press conference.

Bell's mother, and his father Marcus Jones have traveled across the country and appeared on several news show discussing their son. Tuesday, Melissa Bell faced cameras and spoke into a row of microphones.

When asked about her son, she said: "He's kind of excited and ready to get out. All he's concentrating on right now is just him getting free."

This from keithboykin.com

Was This A Hate Crime Too?

By Keith Boykin, in sexuality
Friday, September 21 2007, 10:04AM

When I first heard about the murders of three college students in Newark, New Jersey last month, I was immediately suspicious. The crime itself seemed so senseless. On August 4, four young adults were hanging out in a school playground when a group of males came up to them, lined them up against a wall and shot them execution-style. Three of the young people were killed on the spot, while the fourth was seriously wounded.

After reviewing the myspace pages of several of the victims, I wondered if they might be gay and wondered if police were pursuing that angle. But that never came up in the public discussion. The police immediately ruled out the possibility of a hate crime, and the media never brought it up either. Until yesterday. That's when black gay activist James Credle released a letter he sent to Newark Mayor Cory Booker asking the city to investigate the murders as a possible anti-gay hate crime.
Evidence of A Hate Crime

Writing on behalf of Representatives of the LGBTIQ & Two-Spirited Concerns Group, Credle asked the city to look into the possibility of whether the taking of their lives was driven by some type of bias or hate. "It has come to our attention that the attackers selected the victims because of a perceived bias against the race and sexual orientation of the victims," he wrote. "We are aware the victims were African American and at least one or more of the victims were gay," he said in his letter.

Credle's letter, which was also sent to the US Attorney General for New Jersey Chris Christie, urged Booker not to overlook the sexual orientation of the victims. "To date, in public statements by you, Mayor Booker, Police Director Garry McCarthy, including all newspaper articles, radio and television reports and/or statements from the parents of the victims, there has been no mention of the sexual orientation of the victims or that there was the possibility of a bias/hate crime based on race and/or sexual orientation. Further, we want to know why, although the murders were committed more than a month ago, the fact of the sexual orientation of the youth has never been a part of the media or public discourse or media regarding the murders?"

According to Credle, "several sources including friends, boyfriends/lovers of at least one of the victims and perhaps one of the parents knew that one or more of the murdered students were gay. At the same time, failure to fully expose and examine this issue will mean that the clarity that comes with the truth is clouded with distortion and rhetoric."

Credle said the group decided to go public with the information so that the crime would be thoroughly investigated and "full disclosure" was made. "We believe that if we keep silent, we will surely be an accessory to future tragedies like these in our community. Our silence would send the wrong message: 'You can attack and even murder lgbtiq & two-spirited residents of Newark and you will not be prosecuted and convicted under hate/bias crime laws.'"

If the information the group provides is accurate, will the black community, the gay community, the media, and the pontificating Republican presidential candidates still care about this case if one or more of the victims turns out to be gay? So far, it doesn't seem likely. An Associated Press story about the murder ran today with no mention of Credle's letter, despite the fact that it was sent out to the media by a New Jersey gay rights group, Garden State Equality. But even some of the top gay news blogs have buried the story today, although other blogs like Rod 2.0 have highlighted it.

That's another real tragedy here. If we really care about hate crimes, we can't sweep them under the rug just because the victims don't fit into our ideal character types to garner public sympathy. This is a case that still demands answers, and the time is ripe for the city to investigate the questions that remain unanswered.
The Looks Of A Hate Crime

From the beginning, the crime was particularly suspicious. Even after police arrested suspects, questions still lingered. I wrote about them last month. "These were good kids, getting an education and not bothering anyone, I wrote. "Why would anyone want to kill them? The police said it was not gang-related or drug-related. Robbery was supposed to be the motive. But why rob a group of young kids who didn't have much of value on them? And then why kill them? When some of the suspects were identified as Hispanic immigrants, some speculated that it might have been a hate crime against the four black kids. But police seemed to rule out that option too. So what was this murder all about?"

Without any hard evidence about the victims' sexual orientation, all I could do was to recall a previous anti-gay hate crime in Newark. "In the summer of 2003, I went to Newark to meet with the family of Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old high school student who had been murdered on one of the main streets of the New Jersey community. I interviewed Sakia's mother and felt the pain she was going through after losing her daughter," I wrote.

Then I introduced the victims. Eighteen-year-old Terrance Aeriel missed his spring semester at Delaware State University but had re-enrolled for the fall. A musician, Aeriel played the baritone saxophone and participated in his college's band camp last summer. Aeriel was also known as a gifted orator, who had preached at Higher Dimensions Ministry in Bloomfield.

Dashon Harvey, 20, was also a junior at Delaware State University. He was a psychology major who had worked in the admissions office on campus. On his myspace page, he described himself as a "sometime runway model" and he is seen sitting in a photo studio holding up a fashion magazine. Harvey also seemed to proud of being elected "Mr. Junior" in Delaware State's homecoming court. He even recorded a video for his campaign on YouTube.

At 20 years old, Iofemi Hightower was the oldest in the group that was shot. She had attended Essex Community College, but was in the process of enrolling at Delaware State University for the fall. She had close ties to the Aeriels since elementary school and even attended the prom with Terrance Aeriel. Her myspace page featured a "Before and After" photo comparison of herself with Aeriel in 2006 and 2007. In the before picture, the couple are dressed up in formal wear with matching blue and white colors. In the after picture, Hightower sports a baseball cap and a sweatshirt.

Natasha Aeriel was the only survivor of the shooting. A 19 year-old junior at Delaware State University, she is a biology major who plays the alto saxophone in the school's marching band. Natasha Aeriel has also helped the police to identify and arrest the suspects involved in the case.

The families of the three young people who were killed and the young woman who was shot deserve to know the truth about what happened the night of August 4. And the public also deserves the truth. It's time to break the taboo and investigate this crime for all the possibilities.

I agree that we should send a strong message that violence achieves nothing. I dislike the notion of punishment but I agree that is the way we have decided to communicate our displeasure with certain types of unacceptable behavior and battery certainly falls in that category.

However, context is everything. This is about young people under extraordinary pressure. The idea that these students should be treated like adults is not only irrational based on everything we know about decision making capacity at their stage in life it also doesn't make sense on legal grounds (as the Appeals Court decision affirms).

There is no doubt that race was the key factor at a stage. The incident started with race: a tree under which only white students could sit; was escalated by an attempt at race-based intimidation: a noose hung from the "whites only" tree; only to be follow by: a slap on the wrist to the white students.

The Jenna 6 have been mistreated throughout this episode. Though they are not blameless it is hardly just to examine only their reaction to a bad set of facts. It certainly isn't just to deprive them of a trial before a jury of their "peers."

Here's the latest news:

Lawyers for Mychal Bell one of the "Jenna 6" who has been jailed for 10 months in connection with a fight with a white schoolmate said they will begin working today to get him released on bail, after an appeals court judge on Friday overturned his conviction. Because Bell was a juvenile at the time of the incident, his new attorneys -- who took the case following the conviction -- argued that the case should not have been in the adult system. On Friday, an appeals court agreed with that argument.
The rally on Thursday is still planned since Bell remains in jail and we don't know what the prosecutor will do with him or Theo Shaw, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and the unnamed juvenile were arrested Dec. 4 and charged with beating Justin Barker, the white student at Jena High School. Barker's parents have said that beating amounted to attempted murder.

Bell has been in jail since his arrest on $90,000 bond. Families of the other teens were able to raise money to get them out on bail.

On Friday, Polk County Judge Robert Hanson, who ruled Thursday that the state's decade-old ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, issued a stay on his own ruling. The stay closed the window for any gay couples seeking to marry in Polk County. The Iowa county judge's ruling knocking down the state's same-sex marriage ban stirred has up the presidential race as Republicans and Democrats staked out positions.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney from the only state which now has marriage in place in same sex couples was the first to seize on the ruling, promptly aligning himself with Iowa political leaders in denouncing the decision.
Romney of course was trying to bolster the conservative image his campaign has been working hard to promote. Romney stressed his retrogressive support for a federal amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, a stand that distinguishes him from his top rivals, who have somewhat more thoughtfully said they prefer to leave such decisions to the states.

Spouting the usual rhetoric of backward looking pols Romney said that, "The ruling in Iowa ... is another example of an activist court and unelected judges trying to redefine marriage and disregard the will of the people as expressed through Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act. This once again highlights the need for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman."
While Romney is willing to generally leave it to states to decide how to set up health care coverage plans, in his effort to pander to the conservative voters he shows his penchant for inconsistency by taking the position that it shouldn't be left to states to decide same-sex marriage issues.

"It's a status that lasts a lifetime. And so, if somebody is married in one state and they move to another state, that status travels with them. And so, if you have gay marriage in one state, whether you want it or not, you have gay marriage in all states," Romney told reporters after speaking at a Greenville, S.C., restaurant.

Romney failed to state why that would be such a major problem that we would have to amend enshrine discrimination in our nation's laws.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has not found it politically pragmatic to support full marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples but does support civil unions, was the first Democrat to offer a reaction. Taping an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" Friday, Clinton again expressed her support for civil unions "with full equality of benefits."

"The states have always determined age of marriage, other conditions and over time we've gotten rid a lot of discrimination that used to exist in marriage laws," Clinton said. "That's now happening. People are making decisions. Civil unions, marriage. They're deciding in the states and I think that's the appropriate place for that to be."
Most Democratic candidates have voiced support for same-sex civil unions, they have declined to back full equality, a stance that has riled many gay supporters.

A spokesman for Democrat Barack Obama said the senator "believes these matters should be left to the states, which is why he opposes the Defense of Marriage Act."

Joseph,

You write "World peace is a task that each citizen needs to participate in. Governments
cannot be trusted with the task because they are to driven by control and power."

I can understand your frustrations with governments but I think the sentiment is dangerous and destructive. Government at least in the United States is after all "by and for the people." Our government is often a ugly reflection of the face of the American people. In our cities and towns crime is on the rise. From Main Street to the county road; from Wall Street to Broad Street greed is on display.

When we the people become more peaceful our government with reflect that is well. Until then--keep the peace.


P.S. Lex's comments are rarely if ever worthy of a response.

Dave,

I agree Senator Obama seems to be playing his cards very close. Time will tell if it's a good strategy or if he's been dealt a bad hand.

I've been eager to get excited by the Senator but I am one of those odd-man-out people that didn't think his Democratic convention speech was anything to write home about--until the media said so.