Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Killer Cop of Mychael Bell's Cousin Enters Plea

I got a heads up from The Black Cross on this.

If you're not familiar with the Tasering to death while handcuffed of Barron Pikes, read here.

According to the Chicago Tribune, a couple of Thursdays ago "A former Winnfield police officer pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of manslaughter and official malfeasance in the racially explosive case of a 21-year-old African-American man who died after being shocked with a Taser nine times while handcuffed and in police custody.

Scott Nugent, 21, will remain free on $45,000 bond. He faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Nugent, who is white, was fired from the police force four months after Baron Pikes' death."

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Post Jena March Noose Hanger Gets Sentenced

While in Alexandria after the Jena 6 march, myself and the group I'd helped organize to go down to the march from Nashville Tennessee where circled by two white males in a pick up truck who brandished nooses. I wrote about it here later that week.

In July, the adult offender plead guilty. 19 year old Jeremiah Munsen will do 4 months.


Man gets 4 months for threatening 'Jena 6' protesters with noose

(CNN) -- A Louisiana man was sentenced to four months Friday for using hangman's nooses to threaten and intimidate civil rights marchers near Jena, Louisiana, officials said Friday.

Jeremiah Munsen, 19, pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges for dangling nooses from the back of a pickup in September and driving past a group of protesters at a bus depot in Alexandria, Louisiana, about 35 miles south of Jena, where the marches took place.

The protesters, who were awaiting buses to return to Tennessee, had taken part in demonstrations over the "Jena Six" case, in which a white student was said to have been beaten by six black classmates in 2006...

Munsen, of Pineville, Louisiana, must also complete a year of supervised release and 125 hours of community service after his prison term.

He pleaded guilty in April and admitted that "he and the other person had previously discussed the Ku Klux Klan and how they thought the Klan would have responded to the rally in Jena," the Department of Justice said in a statement Friday.

"The defendant used a threatening and offensive tactic to intimidate peaceful civil rights marchers who were in Louisiana to rally against racial intolerance," said Grace Chung Becker, acting assistant attorney general.

"Our civil rights laws protect the civil rights of all Americans, and they emphasize the reality that we are all members of one particular race: the human race," said Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the western district of Louisiana.

Munsen faced a maximum sentence of a year in prison.