Jena 6...
Six black students at Jena High School in Central Louisiana were arrested last December after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100 years in prison without parole. The fight took place amid mounting racial tension after a black student sat under a tree in the schoolyard where only white students sat. The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree.
Jena is a small town nestled deep in the heart of Central Louisiana. Until recently, you may well have never heard of it. But this rural town of less than 4,000 people has become a focal point in the debate around issues of race and justice in this country.
Last December, six black students at Jena High School were arrested after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100 years in prison without parole. The Jena Six, as they have come to be known, range in age from 15 to 17 years old.
Just over a week ago, an all-white jury took less than two days to convict 17 year-old Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena Six to go on trial. He was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy charges and now faces up to 22 years in prison.
Black residents say that race has always been an issue in Jena, which is 85 percent white, and that the charges against the Jena Six are no exception.
The origins of the story can be traced back to early September when a black high school student requested permission to sit under a tree in the schoolyard where usually only white students sat. The next day three nooses were found hanging from the tree.
MEGAN WILLIAMS
Megan Williams, 20, wakes up in her hospital bed on Monday evening and is comforted by her mother, Carmen Williams. Police say Williams was tortured and raped in a Logan County (West Virginia) house for about a week. The FBI is investigating this as a hate crime. Read on:
Carmen Williams doesn’t understand why her 20-year-old daughter was tortured, raped and tied up in a shed. Police tell her that what happened was probably a hate crime, that it happened because Megan Williams is black.
“Every time they stabbed her, they called her ‘nigger,’” her mother said.
But whatever the reason, Carmen Williams wants people to know what happened to her daughter. She agreed to talk to a reporter from her daughter’s room at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital.
She said a man and a woman — who Megan Williams thought were her friends — took her to the house of Frankie Lee Brewster in Pecks Mill, Logan County.
The details are even more horrible. According to the complaints, she was forced to eat dog and rat feces and to lick up blood. She was made to lick parts of Brewster’s body, under the threat of death. Her hair was pulled out. She was made to drink from the toilet. She was sexually assaulted while hot water was poured on her body, and while a man held a knife to her.
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
A noose was left hanging from a tree limb near a black cultural studies center on an American college campus.
That's the scenario that University of Maryland police, with help from the FBI, are investigating as a possible hate crime that may be tied to a similar racial controversy playing out in Louisiana.
Students and faculty at the university's Nyumburu Cultural Center reported the noose to police Friday afternoon, Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the University of Maryland Police Department, told ABC News. The building has been a meeting point for the university's black students and faculty for 27 years. Nyumburu is the Swahili word for "freedom house."
The noose already had been removed by the maintenance staff when police first took the report, but not before an unidentified student took a picture of the scene and e-mailed the image to police. It shows a roughly 3-foot white rope hanging 10 to 12 feet off the ground and ending with a small noose.
Police issued a campuswide e-mail Friday night regarding the discovery and marking the beginning of the formal investigation.
"We will treat this like any other serious crime on campus," Dillon said, "interviewing witnesses and developing a timeline."
It remains unclear when the noose was originally hung from the tree and who may be behind the apparent hate message. Dillon said creating a timeline will be key and might allow investigators to pinpoint surveillance video of the area showing the perpetrator or perpetrators.
There is recent precedent for racially motivated disputes on the Maryland campus. In 1999, police investigated a series of disparaging letters sent to some of the university's black leaders. No charges were filed, Dillon said, but police did "get to the bottom" of the harassing letters.
To quote Marvin Gaye, "What's going on...?" Remember, it's not all about the biggest car or the shiniest rims or the one with the most money, the new LV or the cutest jeans. People are still dealing with racial issues EVERYDAY. The Civil Rights Movement was in the 1960's. That was only 40 years ago, enough for one or two generations and some of them have the same ideals of their parents and grandparents. Wake up, people...
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