Officer To Be Indicted In Tazering Death of Barron Pikes (Jena 6 Cousin)

Ten day ago I posted about Mycheal Bell's Cousin being Tazered To Death In Louisiana; in which I posted a piece by the Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt.

Witt's follow up piece came out yesterday about the pending indictment hearing of the police officer who tazed Barron Pikes to death; which you can see below.

But first I want to encourage any bloggers to participate in tomorrow's Day of Blogging Against Extra-Judicial Electrocution and to post this widget on your website:



Indictment sought for police Taser death in Louisiana
By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent
4:53 PM CDT, July 28, 2008

HOUSTON - Seeking to defuse growing racial tensions in the small Louisiana town of Winnfield, the local district attorney announced Monday that he will seek an indictment against a white police officer for the death of a black man who was shocked nine times with a Taser device while handcuffed in police custody.

Winn Parish District Atty. Chris Nevils said he would convene a grand jury Aug. 12 to consider possible charges against the officer, Scott Nugent, 21, who was fired from the Winnfield Police Department following the death of Baron "Scooter" Pikes.The grand jury will also examine the conduct of two other officers who were present during the incident, Nevils said.

Pikes, 21, died Jan. 17 within 39 minutes of being arrested on a drug possession warrant. Winnfield police claimed Pikes told them he suffered from asthma and was high on crack cocaine and PCP, but the local coroner found that Pikes had been healthy and had no drugs in his system. He ruled the death a homicide.

"Now is the time to take this case to the grand jury for a determination about whether charges should be brought," Nevils said in a statement. "I know there are strong feelings on both sides of this matter. But my obligation, and that of the grand jury, is to objectively sort through the facts and make a decision that is in the best interest of justice. That is what we intend to do."

Nevils' decision came a little more than a week after the Tribune published the first full account of the case amid fears expressed by the victim's family and civil rights groups that the incident would be covered up in a town with a florid history of backroom dealings and political corruption.

Read the rest of the article here.

Yobachi On Black Talk Radio To Discuss Jena Six Update

"Have You Forgotten the Jena Six?"



If the player above doesn't work for you for some reason, you can go here to hear it off of the source website.

I was interviewed in this radio broadcast by Scotty of One Black Man's View. He also intertwined some good audio clips from the Congressional hearing on nooses and from other things.

Below are links that I reference in the interview from The Jena 6 Blog and else where:

My interview with Mychael Bell's lawyer: Mychael Bell Is Indeed Free – July 2008 Jena 6 Update

Mycheal Bell's Cousin Tazered To Death In Louisiana

Another Delay For the Jena Six - Judge Mauffray Hearing

Black Teens SIX Times More Likely to be Sentenced to Jail than White Teens

Here's a link to the Black Talk Radio network's site.

Mychal Bell Is Indeed Free – July 2008 Jena 6 Update

...actually, he’s been free for a long time.

Before I get to this piece, you might want to see the notice in my previous post regarding my appearance on internet radio this evening to discuss the Jena 6, including the contents of this article. Edited to add: Here is that broadcast

Bell's lawyer, Lewis Scott, did me the pleasure of speaking with me yesterday afternoon.

Mychael Bell has been living in foster care with a family in Monroe Louisiana since January, and attending Carrol high school. From when I first heard the term "foster care" months back I thought and had it described to me as a half-way house or a group home; but Scott explains that Bell is "under the supervision of Office of Youth Development", which is a division of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

Scott detailed the different levels of custody that a convicted juvenile of Bell's status could be subject to from detention center incarceration down to release, and says that the foster system supevision is where Bell was appointed; describing him as having a curfew and other legal restrictions equivelent to what you would expect a teenagers limitations to be in a good home.

Scott reports that Bell's mother has regular visitation, and that his grandmother may be moving to the same Monroe neighborhood as his foster home soon.

School

As stated previously he's been attending regular public school since January, even going to the prom this spring. The once star running back for Jena High who'd receive numerous recruitment letters from universities around the country before the December 2006 beating of Justine Barker at Jena high, is receiving interest again from some schools within the state of Louisisana.

Better than his football fortunes though, he finished this past semester with a 3.1 GPA. He's already classified as a Senior, and if he were to take a full load in the fall, he can graduate in December. His natural graduation date would have been this May.

Speaking of fall plans, and returning to football, Bell is hoping to play at Carroll high; but still must receive clearance from the school system. Scott told me that there's "still an issue for eligibility" relating to the number of consecutive semesters in school. But he doesn't handle that type of issue, so he was not able to specifically recite the school system policy on that.

While some are not interested in having Bell around, and some Jena 6 supporters not interested in what he does athletically, just academically; Carroll High's Coach Jackie Carroll is pretty damn excited about the prospect.

Why we're just finding out

Now, as to why no one in the media or in the activist really knew Bell's status all these months; well, because that's how his attorney Lewis Scott intended it. He says he felt bad when he was often asked about it since he wasn’t revealing the information; because he felt it more important that Bell have the opportunity to become re-acclimated to normal life without the media in his face. He says he wanted to correct the misinformation out there but that, "the lawyer's duty is to the client and not the public. I felt a little hurt when people were asking."

Scott continues, "he wasn't a kid really ready for all that" [the media exposure]. " He’s hoping to see Bell become more “outgoing” and “assertive” when talking to people. He feels that he’s not progressed in that regard to the degree that Scott would have liked to have seen at this point. I asked Mr. Scott is that due to his inherent personality, or to the trauma of the events of the last year and a half, and he replied “both”.

Scott relates that even in Jena, the racial stuff was not normally omnipresent, and not stuff Bell normally dealt with before the familiar litany of events that started with the tree controversy in 2006. Further Scott relates that Bell’s status as a star athlete made him somewhat of a town hero, along with “when you have a coach that doesn’t put up with it [racism], you’re kind of insulated from all that”.

“There is nothing in his life that would equip him to deal” with the media and so forth; so therefore Scott felt it was best to keep him out of that spot light and give him space to adjust.

Bell, though not incarcerated in neither on parole is not clearly of sentence either. As state previously, he’s custody status is one of being under the supervision of the Office of Youth development. Scott hopes to have clear within the next month.

Also, in regards to his plea bargin, Bell is not required to testifying against other Jena 6 members.

Victory

This pleasant outcome for a young man who just over a year ago was looking at charges amounting to 100 years; is certainly about his life, and not we the activist and protesters.

Nevertheless, there is a lesson here for both naysayers who said we couldn’t help him in the first place, and even for the ones who thought we could; but because he wasn’t freed the next day thought that we ended up wasting our time.

A simple equation for you: Prosecutor wanted 100 years. When that didn’t fly, he still tried for 22. We said free now.

He got out 4 months after the march. 22 years * 12 months = 264 months. 4/264 = 0.015

That is, 4 months is 1.5% the time of 22 years. That means we got 98.5 percent of what we wanted. That’s not only a win, that’s a land slide of epic proportions; an overwhelming thrashing; and elephant stepping on an ant. Even if you want to count in these next 6 months of him being under corrections supervision, it’s still an epic land slide of 96.3%.

I, my blogs, and the Afrosphere Action Coalition remain committed to seeing a just resolution in the cases of the other 5 Jena 6 members – and I am proud to have stood up for them and what was right, whether they be model citizens or not.

We will fight, and we will (already have) win. [great march pictorial put to music]

The Jena 6 Blog Will Appear on The Black Talk Radio Network

I will be on appearing on the Black Talk Radio network's internet radio program tonight via blog talk radio; by invite of One Black Mans Veiw.

We will be discussin up dates on the Jena Six and related issues, including my recent posting of the NAACP's financial disclosure on the issue, and yesterday's interview with Mychael Bell's attorney Lewis Scott.

Click here to listen to the show. You can also call in and join the discussion.

It starts at 8 easter, 7 central this evening, Wednesday July 24.

Show Info:

Time: July 24, 2008 from 8pm to 9:30pm
Location: One Black's Man View
Website or Map: http://www.blogtalkradio.co...
Contact Info: 1-(646) 478-5242
Event Type: Live, Internet, Broadcast
Organized By: One Black Man

Mycheal Bell's Cousin Tazered To Death In Louisiana

Taser death ignites racial tensions
Not far from Jena, La., suspicions rise of a cover-up mount
By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent
4:16 PM CDT, July 19, 2008
WINNFIELD, La. — At 1:28 p.m. last Jan. 17, Baron "Scooter" Pikes was a healthy 21-year-old man. By 2:07 p.m., he was dead.

What happened in the 39 minutes in between — during which Pikes was handcuffed by local police and shocked nine times with a Taser, while reportedly pleading for mercy —is now spawning fears of a political coverup in this backwoods Louisiana lumber town infamous for backroom dealings.

Even more ominously, because Pikes was black and the officer who repeatedly Tasered him is white, racial tensions over the case are mounting in a place that's just 40 miles from Jena, La.---site of the racially explosive prosecution of six black teenagers charged with beating a white youth that last year triggered one of the largest American civil rights demonstrations in decades. And in a bizarre coincidence, Pikes turns out to have been a first cousin of Mychal Bell, the lead defendant in the Jena 6 case.

No novelist could have invented Winnfield, a place so steeped in corruption that they built a local museum to try to sanitize it all.


Here in the birthplace of two of Louisiana's most colorful and notorious governors — Huey and Earl Long—the police chief committed suicide three years ago after losing a close election marred by allegations of fraud and vote-buying.

Four months later, the district attorney killed himself after allegedly skimming $200,000 from his office budget and extorting payments from criminal defendants to make their cases go away.

The current police chief is a convicted drug offender who got a pardon from Edwin Edwards, the former Louisiana governor who is serving time in federal prison for corruption convictions.

All of that tangled history is now wrapped up in the Pikes case, because Scott Nugent, the officer who Tasered him, is the well-connected son of the former police chief who killed himself—and the protege of the current chief, who hired him onto the force.

For the rest of the story...

The New Jersey 4 Winning Victories

The following article will be a repost from my main blog www.BlackPerspective.net

But first, just to let you know, I'm working on Mychael Bell is free information. If he's not officially free right now, which it seems that he is; it's more than evident that he will be soon as the local High School in Carroll Louisiana is talking about him joining the football team. He was a star athlete at Jena High before all this; getting recruitment letters from major football programs across the country.

Convictions Overturned for 2 of the Jersey 4

Before the Jena 6 there were the Jersey 4. Last summer I brought you their story .

Here is the short of it, you can read the long version in the link above.

As Imani Henry wrote "Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson (20) and Renata Hill (24)—received sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years in prison. None of them had previous criminal records. Two of them are parents of small children." Their were charged in response to defending themselves against an attack by a man who's advacnce they had turned down on a Grenich village street.

Two of them have now had their convictions overturned.

Angry Brow Butch has the story of two of the victims release:

An appeals court on Thursday overturned the convictions of two women accused in the beating and stabbing of a man who they said made unwanted sexual advances to them in Greenwich Village two years ago.

One of the women, Terrain Dandridge, whom a jury found guilty of second-degree gang assault, had her conviction reversed and indictment dismissed; as a result she can no longer be tried on those charges. A four-judge panel of the Appellate Division in Manhattan ruled that there was not enough evidence to support a guilty verdict for Ms. Dandridge. She had been sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

The second woman, Renata Hill, who was found guilty of second-degree gang assault and third-degree assault, had her gang assault conviction vacated, but she can be retried on the charge. The court ruled that the judge’s instructions to the jury on the charge were erroneous and that therefore her conviction could not be upheld.

She was sentenced to eight years in prison, but if the Manhattan district attorney decides against further prosecution, she is likely to be released because the maximum penalty for the third-degree assault is a year and she has already been in prison longer than that.

I'm glad the one can't be tried again. I've suggested to my blogging comrades that we need to go hard and provide political support and cover to help bring pressure on the DA not to retry the other; and for something to be done for the two still locked up.

Mychael Bell is out of jail right now instead of spending years on lock down because of what we did. Shaquanda Cotton http://freeshaquandacotton.blogspot.com/ is home because of our political cover. Determined advocacy works.

I say let's get to it!

NAACP Accounting of Jena 6 Funds

The NAACP spent more than half the Jena 6 money they collected on themselves.

This is a copy and paste from an NAACP PDF file

You can read all of it if you like, but pay attention to the parts in bold. The words in brackets [ ] are my words.

Again, the report below is what the NAACP itself is say about how it spent the money, not what someone is saying about them.

THE NAACP’S ACCOUNTING OF FUNDS COLLECTED REGARDING JENA, LOUISIANA

Members of the NAACP, in keeping with the charge of our founders, stand against all forms of injustice.

Preamble, Constitution of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

For more than 98 years the NAACP has worked to ensure the equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and discrimination. The NAACP calls on all people to support democracy, dignity and freedom. Based on serious concerns about the events occurring in Jena, Louisiana, the NAACP took steps to make its units and members aware of the situation and to use its influence to assist the young men who were charged. Our efforts included chartering an NAACP Branch in LaSalle Parrish Louisiana in May, 2007, to tackle broad based issues affecting the larger African American community.
The NAACP undertook several initiatives:

• At the NAACP National Convention in Detroit, Michigan, delegates passed an Emergency Resolution expressing support and solidarity for the Jena Six, their families and the LaSalle Parish Branch of the NAACP; and demanding that the United States Department of Justice investigate and monitor the trial of the teenagers for any violations.

• On Monday, July 23, 2007, the NAACP began its internet campaign to draw national attention to the events in Jena.

• On Friday, July 27, 2007, the internet campaign was modified to give those visiting the website the option of donating directly to Jean Six defense funds established by the families and by other organizations. Visitors to the website were also given the option of donating directly to the NAACP to support its ongoing programs and initiatives. The modified site was introduced on Monday, July 30, 2007. Data on the webpage were updated as new developments occurred.

• More than 144,000 visitors viewed information about the events in Jena on the NAACP website.

• The NAACP started an on-line petition drive, to collect signatures to present to Louisiana Governor Katherine Blanco. Over 180,000 signatures were collected and presented to the Governor by the NAACP Louisiana State Conference President, Ernest Johnson.

• On September 19, 2007, a web link was placed on the NAACP website to allow visitors to view a live web cast of the historic September 20, 2007 March on Jena.

• The Louisiana State Conference of NAACP Branches led thousands of marchers to protest injustice in Jena. Joined by representatives of Rainbow Push, ACORN, The American Postal Workers Union, Alpha Phi Alpha, the faith community and

others, marchers made a bold and unified demand for justice. Dozens of NAACP units from Louisiana and from around the country, including Michigan, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina, sent busses of NAACP members to participate in this historic event.

• On September 20, 2007, following the march, the NAACP sponsored a town hall meeting of national experts on the school to prison pipeline. The web cast was viewed by over 35,000 visitors.

Contributions received by the NAACP in response to the Jena Campaign include:

Internet Contributions: $ 8,782.00
Mail Contributions: $11,112.00
Total: $19,894.00 Mail contributions of $11,112.00 include a $10,000.00 donation from celebrity musician David Bowie.[So more than half their donation money came from one rich individual. Sorry, but that's not very effective fund raising by the old guard there]

Expenses related to support to the LaSalle Parrish Branch (travel, meetings and web cast) associated with the September 20, 2007 march and streaming video of the town hall meeting total:

$10,283.00 [I don't recall that site, which I viewed a few times back in the summer and fall of last year, notifying donors that there money would go towards support of branches and for meetings. The industry standard for over head is about 35% and many think that's too high.]

Excess of revenue over expense $ 9,611.00

The NAACP will provide a check in the amount of $10,000.00 in pro rata shares, to
the attorneys providing legal services to the Jena defendants. [So they took in 19,894 and spent 10,283 on themselves. That's 52% overhead. Even if you give the NAACP credit for the $389 they added to the pot, that's still 50% overhead]
Knowing that many young men and women of color outside Jena face discrimination in the criminal justice system, the NAACP has declared a State Of Emergency to call attention to the problem of unequal justice nationwide. We welcome the support and assistance of all likeminded individuals and organizations seeking systematic change and broad based solutions to racial injustice.

The NAACP and its members thank you for your continuing support and dedication to justice.

If I was an NAACP donor I’d be furious; but then again that’s why I’m not an NAACP donor.

Online Afrosphere organization Color of Change collected $212,000 dollars for the Jena 6, and they distributed $210,000 to Jena 6 lawyers.

And Jesse Jackson had the nerve to say:

“Internet bloggers can serve the meal better than they can farm,” Jackson said. “Farming requires tilling the soil, removing the debris, planting, being patient, letting it germinate. That’s the strength of labor unions and churches and civil rights organizations.”

I guess “serve the meal” also means distributing the money. Does generating the funds equate to "tilling the soil"; I think so?

The Black bloggosphere can pat itself on the back, becase we posted that Color of Change donation information all over the place.