I had this saved for you guys last week; but then went on vacation and didn't get a chance to publish it for you al. I'm at the library in Alabama putting it up. Anyway, the latest in the Jena 6 situation:
Secret settlement reached in 'Jena Six' civil suit
By Robert Morgan
JENA -- A settlement for an undisclosed amount of money was approved Friday, June 26, by ad hoc Judge Ronnie Lewellyn in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the family of "Jena Six" beating victim Justin Barker.
Barker was attacked Dec. 4, 2006, at Jena High School in an incident that led to charges against six black fellow students who became known nationally as the "Jena Six."
The criminal case was resolved earlier Friday when the remaining five defendants -- Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Bryant Purvis, Theodore Shaw and Robert Bailey Jr. -- pleaded no contest to simple battery and agreed to fines and seven days of probation, among other stipulations.
Terms of the civil lawsuit settlement were not released due to a confidentiality clause in the agreement.
See full story
Showing posts with label Justin Barker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justin Barker. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
The Jena 6 In Court - November 7th, 2007
Four of the Jena 6 Bryant Purvis, Robert Bailey Jr, Carwin Jones and Theo Shaw were arraigned today on charges of second degree aggravated battery. Purvis, who was previously charged with second degree murder had his charge reduced today.
According to the AP News: “Purvis is set to stand trial as an adult in March 2008. If convicted, he could be imprisoned for up to 22 years.”
Not at the Fight, and Not Arrested Until the Next Day:
Purvis has contended that he wasn’t even apart of the Justin Barker beating, and only saw the fight from a far. The fact that he wasn’t arrested on the spot the day of the fight tends to support this. He didn’t get arrested until the next day, from what I can glean is based on one witness saying they may have seen him in the fight. Though not at the fight, he was however the leader of the protest under the “white’s tree” that led this same DA, Reed Walters, to threaten to end protesting black student’s lives with a stroke of his pen.
I posted video of Tina Jones, Purvis’ mother, talking about this at the Jena March, with Purvis standing along side her.
According to the AP News article: Purvis' lawyer, Darrell Hickman, said Purvis was "30 feet away from the melee when it took place" and that the charges against Purvis should be dismissed. If they aren't, Hickman said he will seek a change of venue because of the intense emotions and attention tied to the case in Jena.
"There has just been too much that has gone on here in Jena," he said. "It would be impossible for everyone to put aside those feelings."
Purvis, who attended the hearing neatly dressed in a white shirt, black slacks and a necktie, was accompanied by his mother and brother.
Now a senior attending classes in Texas, Purvis said he's concentrating on his studies and basketball, and hopes to attend college.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LA_JENA_SIX_LAOL-?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
According to the AP News: “Purvis is set to stand trial as an adult in March 2008. If convicted, he could be imprisoned for up to 22 years.”
Not at the Fight, and Not Arrested Until the Next Day:
Purvis has contended that he wasn’t even apart of the Justin Barker beating, and only saw the fight from a far. The fact that he wasn’t arrested on the spot the day of the fight tends to support this. He didn’t get arrested until the next day, from what I can glean is based on one witness saying they may have seen him in the fight. Though not at the fight, he was however the leader of the protest under the “white’s tree” that led this same DA, Reed Walters, to threaten to end protesting black student’s lives with a stroke of his pen.
I posted video of Tina Jones, Purvis’ mother, talking about this at the Jena March, with Purvis standing along side her.
According to the AP News article: Purvis' lawyer, Darrell Hickman, said Purvis was "30 feet away from the melee when it took place" and that the charges against Purvis should be dismissed. If they aren't, Hickman said he will seek a change of venue because of the intense emotions and attention tied to the case in Jena.
"There has just been too much that has gone on here in Jena," he said. "It would be impossible for everyone to put aside those feelings."
Purvis, who attended the hearing neatly dressed in a white shirt, black slacks and a necktie, was accompanied by his mother and brother.
Now a senior attending classes in Texas, Purvis said he's concentrating on his studies and basketball, and hopes to attend college.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LA_JENA_SIX_LAOL-?SITE=LABAT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Friday, October 26, 2007
National Spotlight Causes DA Strategy Change In Jena Six Case
Apparently some white people are able to get it, and to be honest about race in the legal system:
From Kathy Gill,
From September 27
National Spotlight Causes DA Strategy Change
Update: Bell released from jail on $45,000 bond.
The Shreveport Times said last week that a lack of political leadership at the local and state level had created a vacuum for "Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the BBC" to fill. That (inter)national spotlight has kick-started Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) into action.
Blanco has persuaded LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters to re-try Mychal Bell as a juvenile, in conformance with two court rulings. Walters was on record saying he planned to appeal the Louisiana Supreme Court ruling that Bell was improperly tried as an adult.
Bell is the first Jena High School student to be tried after a December 2006 schoolyard fight with fellow student Justin Barker. Six students were eventually arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Four of the six were 17; Bell was 16; another student was 14.
Under Louisiana law, anyone who is 15 must be tried as an adult if the charge is attempted murder. However, the charge of battery -- the charge for which Bell stood trial -- is not on the "adult charge" list.
The DA called the attack on Barker pre-meditated. However, others assert that the attack was instigated because Barker was taunting Bailey about being beat up at a party a few nights earlier. Bailey was hit, by a white student, with beer bottles; that student was charged with simple battery and given probation.
The author responds to a comment: 7. To “unknown”
First, there are links in my timeline, I believe, that back up anything I said in comment #2.
No, I’m not a doctor. No, I didn’t examine Barker’s injuries. What I did was examine, in detail, probably a hundred “news” accounts of this case. Barker is described as having a black eye and a cut lip. No where have I read that he even needed stitches. He attended a social event that evening — suggesting his injuries were pretty minor.
Second, I am tired of a justice system that is not just.
Finally, I am QUITE tired of being accused of saying that I’m advocating no punishment — whether it’s for Bell or Genarlow Wilson. No Where … NO WHERE … have I made such a suggestion.
The punishment should fit the crime — and it doesn’t in either Bell or Wilson’s case. And I firmly believe that neither young man would be in the position they are in re the judicial system if they had been white. Both were A students; both were student athletes.
Kathy
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/208222.htm
From Kathy Gill,
From September 27
National Spotlight Causes DA Strategy Change
Update: Bell released from jail on $45,000 bond.
The Shreveport Times said last week that a lack of political leadership at the local and state level had created a vacuum for "Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the BBC" to fill. That (inter)national spotlight has kick-started Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) into action.
Blanco has persuaded LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters to re-try Mychal Bell as a juvenile, in conformance with two court rulings. Walters was on record saying he planned to appeal the Louisiana Supreme Court ruling that Bell was improperly tried as an adult.
Bell is the first Jena High School student to be tried after a December 2006 schoolyard fight with fellow student Justin Barker. Six students were eventually arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Four of the six were 17; Bell was 16; another student was 14.
Under Louisiana law, anyone who is 15 must be tried as an adult if the charge is attempted murder. However, the charge of battery -- the charge for which Bell stood trial -- is not on the "adult charge" list.
The DA called the attack on Barker pre-meditated. However, others assert that the attack was instigated because Barker was taunting Bailey about being beat up at a party a few nights earlier. Bailey was hit, by a white student, with beer bottles; that student was charged with simple battery and given probation.
The author responds to a comment: 7. To “unknown”
First, there are links in my timeline, I believe, that back up anything I said in comment #2.
No, I’m not a doctor. No, I didn’t examine Barker’s injuries. What I did was examine, in detail, probably a hundred “news” accounts of this case. Barker is described as having a black eye and a cut lip. No where have I read that he even needed stitches. He attended a social event that evening — suggesting his injuries were pretty minor.
Second, I am tired of a justice system that is not just.
Finally, I am QUITE tired of being accused of saying that I’m advocating no punishment — whether it’s for Bell or Genarlow Wilson. No Where … NO WHERE … have I made such a suggestion.
The punishment should fit the crime — and it doesn’t in either Bell or Wilson’s case. And I firmly believe that neither young man would be in the position they are in re the judicial system if they had been white. Both were A students; both were student athletes.
Kathy
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/208222.htm
Friday, September 28, 2007
Justin Barker, The True Victim in the Jena 6 Case
More on Jena 6 @ BlackPerspective.net
This is the line we keep getting from the ‘status quo of racism’ defenders.
Sure, he’s the purist, most innocent kid that ever lived. He’s such a good kid he got expelled from school 5 months after the fight for brining a gun to school. Now he’s a high school dropout as I understand it.
Their should be some recompense for the butt kicking that was delivered to Mr. Barker, but some recompense does not = anything goes. The charges are way overblown! This is the issue here. The fact that the Jena 6 had to be disciplined is hardly in dispute by anyone. That doesn’t mean any discipline is okay. If somebody steals a piece of candy from the store, that doesn’t make chopping off their hand justified. If someone steals a car, they should be prosecuted, but it doesn’t mean they deserve 50 years in prison. The time should fit the crime. It is also a crime to try to kill an ant with a sledgehammer, metaphorically speaking.
Further, ignoring all the context of the incident, and accepting one sided stories that don’t make sense and don’t fit the facts, is egregious. Reed Walters has presented to date, NO evidence of a conspiracy versus a spontaneous reaction to a verbal racial assault; that was in continuation of at least months of racial intimidation. Such context changes everything. If he has no evidence of conspiracy, why did he charge it in the first place; save he was out to get those kids to put the blacks in their place?
Justin Barker is a punk, a thug, and a race baiter. He instigated and attempted to racially intimidate, and then wants to act as if he had no role in anything.
How can one accept the notion, that Justin Barker neither said nor did a thing to provoke the attack; particularly in contradiction to the black students who say he was with at least one of the noose hangers at the time, taunting with racial slurs the black student who had been beaten by whites at a party.
WHICH MAKES MORE SENSE? Only one story makes ANY sense. If you believe Justin Barker, and the noose hanger that was with him and testified as a witness in court; then Black savages, for no reason whatsoever, plotted to randomly pick a white guy to beat down just for the hell of it; and Justin Barker was these savages unfortunate, innocent target.
First, if you believe they just randomly picked him to beat for no reason; then you believe in the long embedded racist stereotype of small brained marauding black Negroes, who only have the mental capacity for sex and violence.
There is more contexts that shapes this whole issue, and that shows Reed Walters had it out to get somebody Black, particularly the ones at the school interrupting the racial status quo.
When the principal of the school (the only person in Jen who’s done anything right in this situation) recommended the noose hangers be expelled, and the superintendent overruled him and slapped them on the wrist with a measly 3 days IN-SCHOOL suspension; the Black kids protested. Not an organized, formal protest mind you, but simply raised their voices in dismay that the noose hangers where getting off so light for such a deep insult and threat of bodily harm. Because of this, Reed Walters came up to the school, held an assembly, and told the Black kids if they didn’t stop their protest and basically get back in their place, “that he would end their lives with the stroke of a pen”. This shows a clear predisposition on his part – stay in your place nigger or I’m gonna get’ch ya – that was the clear message.
Then, in order to make his aggravated battery charge, once the fight did happen, he had to have aggravating circumstances; such as a deadly weapon. He calls a tennis shoe a deadly weapon. If a tennis shoe is a deadly weapon, then a stack of typing paper is a deadly weapon. This is absurd. It’s clearly and extreme overreach. I submit that it is an ‘I’m going get you anyway I can and make an example out of you’ reach.
This is against the backdrop of an ongoing history and tradition in this country of over charging and overly aggressively prosecuting black people when a white person is the victim (or in many times supposed victim) in racially charged settings.
This situation does not simply exist in a vacuumed.
A suspension and maybe a misdemeanor assault charge may have been appropriate; but 80 to 100 years for teens in a school fight who were provoked by constant racial intimidation, death threats, and beatings they took themselves? Even 15 to 22 years, as if there’s no culpability on the other side? For teenagers? Can YOU imagine living under a constant barrage of threats, abuse, and intimidation? Is it not human nature to react when the final straw hits. When the authorities (here, both school, police, and prosecutors) have shown they will not only not protect you, but that they are satisfied to maintain that status quo. When a white teen threatened black students with a shot gun, and they wrestled it away from him, the black students got charged with theft of a firearm, and the white teen didn’t get prosecuted. Is this not a clear message from the white authorities that we not only don’t care what happens to you; but if you sass a white person we’re going to get you?
People get beat up at school all the time for way less provocation (or just for bullying purposes) than what these kids endured. I’ve seen black students stomped before, and no one went to prison. People get beat up at school all the time for way less provocation (or just for bullying purposes) than what these kids endured. I’ve seen black students stomped before, and no one went to prison. It’s a lie that Barker was beat so bad that he almost died. People who almost die don’t go to social events the same night of such a severe beating; they’re too busy, in the hospital, trying not to die!
Where was the zeal and resilience that Reed Walters exhibits in going after the Jena 6, for prosecuting white kids during months of threats, intimidation, physical violence, and abuse? He scarcely went after anybody white for their barrage upon the black kids (one probation for a similar beating administered to a black kid, where a real weapon, a beer bottle across the head was used). He let an environment of intimidation and ridicules fester, and then went full throttle when the recipients of the hostility finally boiled over and exploded.
This is why there is a battered wife’s syndrome recognized in the courts, because it’s understandably human nature that if someone constantly abuses and berates you, that you can have a breaking point. This is why so many school systems in recent years have adopted no tolerance for bullying policies. But some people want to act like these factors don’t exist in this case. In their eyes, the case is as simple as six Black savages, for no reason whatsoever, out of the thin blue sky, beat a pure, innocent, all American white boy.
Oh by the way, some of the Jena 6 claim they weren’t even the ones in the fight (such as Bryant Purvis), and where not arrested on the spot; they weren’t arrested until the next day. I’ve not seen to date, any evidence from DA Walters proving Purvis, for one, was actually even involved. Forget all the above, it’s possible that some may be out right innocent. But you know something; Purvis was involved in leading the protest, though. You know, the protesting that lead to Reed Walters threat to end their lives with the stroke of his pen. Hmmm, how curious.
Read how Reed Walters felt that the noose hanging was insignificant and was frustrated that black people dare be upset by it, and how he was determined to put a stop to black folks making an issue of it: http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2007/09/08/the-wall-of-shame/
Time line of Jena 6 events: http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=103414
Good Article framing the issue, with a Reed Walter quote of the nooses being an “innocent prank”: http://www.newuniversity.org/showArticle.php?id=6027
This is the line we keep getting from the ‘status quo of racism’ defenders.
Sure, he’s the purist, most innocent kid that ever lived. He’s such a good kid he got expelled from school 5 months after the fight for brining a gun to school. Now he’s a high school dropout as I understand it.
Their should be some recompense for the butt kicking that was delivered to Mr. Barker, but some recompense does not = anything goes. The charges are way overblown! This is the issue here. The fact that the Jena 6 had to be disciplined is hardly in dispute by anyone. That doesn’t mean any discipline is okay. If somebody steals a piece of candy from the store, that doesn’t make chopping off their hand justified. If someone steals a car, they should be prosecuted, but it doesn’t mean they deserve 50 years in prison. The time should fit the crime. It is also a crime to try to kill an ant with a sledgehammer, metaphorically speaking.
Further, ignoring all the context of the incident, and accepting one sided stories that don’t make sense and don’t fit the facts, is egregious. Reed Walters has presented to date, NO evidence of a conspiracy versus a spontaneous reaction to a verbal racial assault; that was in continuation of at least months of racial intimidation. Such context changes everything. If he has no evidence of conspiracy, why did he charge it in the first place; save he was out to get those kids to put the blacks in their place?
Justin Barker is a punk, a thug, and a race baiter. He instigated and attempted to racially intimidate, and then wants to act as if he had no role in anything.
How can one accept the notion, that Justin Barker neither said nor did a thing to provoke the attack; particularly in contradiction to the black students who say he was with at least one of the noose hangers at the time, taunting with racial slurs the black student who had been beaten by whites at a party.
WHICH MAKES MORE SENSE? Only one story makes ANY sense. If you believe Justin Barker, and the noose hanger that was with him and testified as a witness in court; then Black savages, for no reason whatsoever, plotted to randomly pick a white guy to beat down just for the hell of it; and Justin Barker was these savages unfortunate, innocent target.
First, if you believe they just randomly picked him to beat for no reason; then you believe in the long embedded racist stereotype of small brained marauding black Negroes, who only have the mental capacity for sex and violence.
There is more contexts that shapes this whole issue, and that shows Reed Walters had it out to get somebody Black, particularly the ones at the school interrupting the racial status quo.
When the principal of the school (the only person in Jen who’s done anything right in this situation) recommended the noose hangers be expelled, and the superintendent overruled him and slapped them on the wrist with a measly 3 days IN-SCHOOL suspension; the Black kids protested. Not an organized, formal protest mind you, but simply raised their voices in dismay that the noose hangers where getting off so light for such a deep insult and threat of bodily harm. Because of this, Reed Walters came up to the school, held an assembly, and told the Black kids if they didn’t stop their protest and basically get back in their place, “that he would end their lives with the stroke of a pen”. This shows a clear predisposition on his part – stay in your place nigger or I’m gonna get’ch ya – that was the clear message.
Then, in order to make his aggravated battery charge, once the fight did happen, he had to have aggravating circumstances; such as a deadly weapon. He calls a tennis shoe a deadly weapon. If a tennis shoe is a deadly weapon, then a stack of typing paper is a deadly weapon. This is absurd. It’s clearly and extreme overreach. I submit that it is an ‘I’m going get you anyway I can and make an example out of you’ reach.
This is against the backdrop of an ongoing history and tradition in this country of over charging and overly aggressively prosecuting black people when a white person is the victim (or in many times supposed victim) in racially charged settings.
This situation does not simply exist in a vacuumed.
A suspension and maybe a misdemeanor assault charge may have been appropriate; but 80 to 100 years for teens in a school fight who were provoked by constant racial intimidation, death threats, and beatings they took themselves? Even 15 to 22 years, as if there’s no culpability on the other side? For teenagers? Can YOU imagine living under a constant barrage of threats, abuse, and intimidation? Is it not human nature to react when the final straw hits. When the authorities (here, both school, police, and prosecutors) have shown they will not only not protect you, but that they are satisfied to maintain that status quo. When a white teen threatened black students with a shot gun, and they wrestled it away from him, the black students got charged with theft of a firearm, and the white teen didn’t get prosecuted. Is this not a clear message from the white authorities that we not only don’t care what happens to you; but if you sass a white person we’re going to get you?
People get beat up at school all the time for way less provocation (or just for bullying purposes) than what these kids endured. I’ve seen black students stomped before, and no one went to prison. People get beat up at school all the time for way less provocation (or just for bullying purposes) than what these kids endured. I’ve seen black students stomped before, and no one went to prison. It’s a lie that Barker was beat so bad that he almost died. People who almost die don’t go to social events the same night of such a severe beating; they’re too busy, in the hospital, trying not to die!
Where was the zeal and resilience that Reed Walters exhibits in going after the Jena 6, for prosecuting white kids during months of threats, intimidation, physical violence, and abuse? He scarcely went after anybody white for their barrage upon the black kids (one probation for a similar beating administered to a black kid, where a real weapon, a beer bottle across the head was used). He let an environment of intimidation and ridicules fester, and then went full throttle when the recipients of the hostility finally boiled over and exploded.
This is why there is a battered wife’s syndrome recognized in the courts, because it’s understandably human nature that if someone constantly abuses and berates you, that you can have a breaking point. This is why so many school systems in recent years have adopted no tolerance for bullying policies. But some people want to act like these factors don’t exist in this case. In their eyes, the case is as simple as six Black savages, for no reason whatsoever, out of the thin blue sky, beat a pure, innocent, all American white boy.
Oh by the way, some of the Jena 6 claim they weren’t even the ones in the fight (such as Bryant Purvis), and where not arrested on the spot; they weren’t arrested until the next day. I’ve not seen to date, any evidence from DA Walters proving Purvis, for one, was actually even involved. Forget all the above, it’s possible that some may be out right innocent. But you know something; Purvis was involved in leading the protest, though. You know, the protesting that lead to Reed Walters threat to end their lives with the stroke of his pen. Hmmm, how curious.
Read how Reed Walters felt that the noose hanging was insignificant and was frustrated that black people dare be upset by it, and how he was determined to put a stop to black folks making an issue of it: http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2007/09/08/the-wall-of-shame/
Time line of Jena 6 events: http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=103414
Good Article framing the issue, with a Reed Walter quote of the nooses being an “innocent prank”: http://www.newuniversity.org/showArticle.php?id=6027
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