Draft of Online Petition / Jena Six (2)

1. It's still a draft. I would be grateful for any and all feedback.
2. When inserting material from the comments on this blog, I haven't attributed or used quotation marks. So we are all co-authors. Of course I'm flexible on that -- whatever people prefer.
3. Does anyone know what exactly the US DoJ has done in past cases like this?

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Petition to the United States Department of Justice

We the undersigned respectfully request that the United States Department of Justice review the prosecution of six Black students in Jena, Louisiana, for evidence of racial discrimination.

The prosecution of these young men represents a gross miscarriage of justice, punishing Black students for opposing segregation of their schools while ignoring the threatening and provocative acts of those engaging in segregation.

From a Chicago Tribune article by Howard Witt, May 18, 2007:
"There's been obvious racial discrimination in this case," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a "racial powder keg" primed to ignite. "It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment."

[EDIT:
The Jena cases also fit into a national pattern of disproportionately severe treatment of young people of color by police and prosecutors over the past year:

Shaquanda Cotton (age 14, shoved a teacher’s aide, sentenced to up to 7 years in prison, realeased last month after one year)

Desre’e Watson (age 6, threw a tantrum at school, charged with two misdemeanors and a felony)]

Gerard Mungo Jr. (age 7, sat on dirt bike — not running at the time — on sidewalk waiting for father, arrested, processed, and let go; bike was confiscated)
Cases from Vox ex Machina.]

[EDIT: More details from the Tribune article on the Jena cases:]

"One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard."

The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.

"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the nooses were hanging from the branches.

African-American students and their parents were outraged and intimidated by the display, which instantly summoned memories of the mob lynchings that once terrorized blacks

Also from the Tribune article:

First a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.

Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim—allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks—was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.

But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.

To the defendants, their families and civil rights groups that have examined the events, the attempted murder charges brought by a white prosecutor are excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.

The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man—in self-defense, they said.


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