Mychal Bell released (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Good news on the Jena 6 case. 17 year-old Mychal Bell has been released on bail. His bail was set at $45,000. The LaSalle Parish District Attorney said his decision not to appeal was not influenced by the recent march.
“We still have mountains to climb, but at least this is closer to an even playing field,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize last week’s protest.
“He goes home because a lot of people left their home and stood up for him,” Sharpton said.
District Attorney Reed Walters’ decision to abandon adult charges means that Bell, who had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison on his aggravated second-degree battery conviction last month, instead could be held only until he turns 21 if he is found guilty in juvenile court.
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In related news, Dr. Phil is dedicated his show to the whole Jena 6 incident tomorrow (September 28th). Visit his website and click on Friday for more info.
Congrats! I hope this all ends well.
Good to hear. Hopefully he wont be found guilty.
It’s good he has been released. Hopefully, this will all be behind him and the other 5 and they can learn from this and move on to productive lives.
Congrats…I got to hear it & him say thanks on the Micheal Baisden Show!!
Give us….us free!!! Gon Mike!!! Maybe justice will prevail.
I’m glad he was able to get out on bail…but now he needs to move cause the KKKs are out to kill that poor boy and the families.
woot, woot!
Yes, yes, yes, yes,yes, yes,yessssssss!!!!.
Im still worried for this boy though and his friends and family. Leave Jena babies, Im so serious. Please, I dont want you, your firends and family to be hurt. Sh*t is no joke. KKK already posted their information and threatening to do something to them boys and families. Whheeeewww, Im praying. Now Lets see if this post will reach as many comments as Justin Timberlake/Beyonce post. People this is where you real priorities and arguments/debates should be.
I’m glad people was able to gather together peacefully for this injustice. I’m even happier that it got a response and they gave that man bail.
Oh Thank GOD…He should have been let out for FREE…I still can’t believe in my day they still have this racist things going on…But hey this is society..I guess..Thank God he’s out though.
They better let him go before I take my Canadian ass down to Louisiana…LOL and kick some ass
Please dont be fooled all is not won YET. He is still facing charges in juvenile court as is another of the six for a total of TWO. the OTHER FOUR are still facing charges that carry potential PRISON TIME. One is STILL charged with ATTEMPTED MURDER. Those who have been involved have placed POSITIVE PRESSURE, but it is not over. Remember that the devil is always busy and this time next month they will have continued with a degree of injustice. I don’t want to damper a parade, I am just saying we have to stay on top of this one.
I am so happy for him! But yeah it is a long rode because I heard he was getting threatened in jail and his family too. So I will pray for them and the others of Jena 6.
I am glad he’s free. He now has the right to a fair trial but let’s not forget the fact people that he was involved in a violent fight and we should not be condoning his actions by ANY means!!!!!!!!!!! We have to stop making excuses and start guiding our young black men to make the right decisions and hopefully they’ll never have to face a racist judge, prosecutor or jury.
Log on to Dr Phils website and go to the message board.
This is truly a momentous day for the Jena 6 and for the 21st century civil rights movement. But LOL at the District Attorney saying the protest and media coverage had no bearing on his “decision!” LOL come on now, with all the pressure, and the whole world watching, I dont think he really had a “decisions”
Dr. Phil stood up before Oprah.
Shame on you oprah. shame on you!!
Congratulations to Mr. Bell and mama Bell.
@14, are you kidding, he was wrong for standing up for himself??? what!
Posted on Thu, Sep. 20, 2007
Lessons from Jena, La.
By JASON WHITLOCK
Now we love Mychal Bell, the star of the 2006 Jena (La.) High School football team, the teenage boy who has sat in jail since December for his role in a six-on-one beatdown of a fellow student.
Thursday, thousands of us, proud African-Americans, expressed our devotion to and desire to see justice for the “Jena Six,” the half-dozen black students who knocked unconscious, kicked and stomped a white classmate.
Jesse Jackson compared Thursday’s rallies in Jena to the protests and marches that used to take place in cities like Selma, Ala., in the 1960s. Al Sharpton claimed Thursday’s peaceful demonstrations were to highlight racial inequities in the criminal justice system.
Jesse and Al, as they’re prone to do, served a kernel of truth stacked on a mountain of lies.
There are undeniable racial and economic inequities in our criminal justice system, and from afar the “Jena Six” rallies certainly looked and felt like the righteous protests of the 1960s.
But the reality is Thursday’s protests are just another sign that we remain deeply locked in denial about the path we need to travel today for true American liberation, equality and power in the new millennium.
The fact that we waited to love Mychal Bell until after he’d thrown away a Division I football scholarship and nine months of his life is just as heinous as the grossly excessive attempted-murder charges that originally landed him in jail.
Reed Walters, the Jena district attorney, is being accused of racism because he didn’t show Bell compassion when the teenager was brought before the court for the third time on assault charges in a two-year span.
Where was our compassion long before Bell got into this kind of trouble?
That’s the question that needed to be asked in Jena and across the country on Thursday. But it wasn’t asked because everyone has been lied to about what really transpired in the small southern town.
There was no “schoolyard fight” as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.
Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.
A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the “Jena Six” case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker’s assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the “Jena Six” in reaction to Walters’ extreme charges of attempted murder.
Much has been written about Bell’s trial, the six-person all-white jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded to the jury summonses and that Bell’s public defender was black.
It’s almost never mentioned that Bell’s absentee father returned from Dallas and re-entered his son’s life only after Bell faced attempted-murder charges. At a bond hearing in August, Bell’s father and a parade of local ministers promised a judge that they would supervise Bell if he was released from prison.
Where were the promises and supervision before any of this?
It’s rarely mentioned that Bell was already on probation for assault when he was accused of participating in Barker’s attack. And it’s never mentioned that white people in the “racist” town of Jena provided Bell support and protected his football career long before Jesse, Al, Bell’s father and all the others took a sincere interest in Mychal Bell.
You won’t hear about any of that because it doesn’t fit the picture we want to paint of Jena, this case, America and ourselves.
We don’t practice preventive medicine. Mychal Bell needed us long before he was cuffed and jailed. Here is another undeniable, statistical fact: The best way for a black (or white) father to ensure that his son doesn’t fall victim to a racist prosecutor is by participating in his son’s life on a daily basis.
That fact needed to be shared Thursday in Jena. The constant preaching of that message would short-circuit more potential “Jena Six” cases than attributing random acts of six-on-one violence to three-month-old nooses.
And I am in no way excusing the nooses. The responsible kids should’ve been expelled. A few years after I’d graduated, a similar incident happened at my high school involving our best football player, a future NFL tight end. He was expelled.
The Jena school board foolishly overruled its principal and suspended the kids for three days.
But the kids responsible for Barker’s beating deserve to be punished. The prosecutor needed to be challenged on his excessive charges. And we as black folks need to question ourselves about why too many of us can only get energized to help our young people once they’re in harm’s way.
I’ve been the spokesman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City for six years. Getting black men to volunteer to mentor for just two hours a week to the more than 100 black boys on a waiting list is a yearly crisis. It’s a nationwide crisis for the organization. In Kansas City, we’re lucky if we get 20 black Big Brothers a year.
You don’t want to see any more “Jena Six” cases? Love Mychal Bell before he violently breaks the law.
I was just reading this over @ Yahoo!. I’m so happy for him!
Oh, let’s be clerar. He’s not free, he is just out on bond. He still has to go through the trial in juvenile court. There is still a very long road ahead.
I just read this over on cnn…YAY! The first step was getting him out….now comes dealing with the actual charges.
TWINTRON4,
I support the ’cause’ behind the situation in Jena because the sentencing was unfair but fighting anyone that is racist will not make them change their views. We have to be smarter than that. There are many ‘missing’ facts from this story that many of us were never told (which is why I posted the article above). Racism is alive and well people but we also must know ALL the facts ALL the time. I was glad that Al Sharpton acknowledged tonight that we should not be condoning that fight…it was WRONG but justice should be fair regardless of the circumstances.
It’s about time! Justice for all!
I’m really happy that he got released. What a relief!
Did anyone watch Bill O’Reilley this week? LOL. He tried his best to spin this scenario into something negative but thanks to a well informed guest on his show he was pretty much left speechless.
yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
kkk can’t do shit they need to sit their ass don’t. Don’t they think their to old for that shit GROW UP GET A LIFE DUMB FAGS
I have to learn to start reading everything first. I just felt so excited you know. But my high has died down. He still facing juvie charges. I just read some of the comments on the posting news site. A bunch of f*cking idiots. I love how they keep calling the white boy who got beat up a “victim”, its almost laughable when the people commenting keep saying “he was beat unconscious and could have been killed,blah,blah,blah”. IF that white boy was brutally beaten, he wouldnt have taken his vile,trailer trash, racist ass to some function. Damn, how I love it when people (whites and blacks) exaggerate sh*t.
*F*cking Depressing*.
DOWN*
*school function*.
NO we are not out of the woods….However I am glad to see that we are not being ignored…CONGRAT’s I hope to see something very positive come out of this!!
I’m glad to hear it and I hope these shows don’t exploit them too much and ruin any chances of them coming out of this completely.
I saw it on CNN Thank God I’m so happy for him and his mother. God Bless Him
This is the type of news I looove to READ AND HEAR about.
Yes!!
@29, Sadly, the KKK will ALWAYS exist.
Some of the same white folks that grin in your face are the main ones that are a part of that shit. Trust.
that’s good…
i’m happy!
Nawlins Chic
Thursday, September 27, 2007
I am glad he’s free. He now has the right to a fair trial but let’s not forget the fact people that he was involved in a violent fight and we should not be condoning his actions by ANY means!!!!!!!!!!! We have to stop making excuses and start guiding our young black men to make the right decisions and hopefully they’ll never have to face a racist judge, prosecutor or jury.
——–
Sandra Rose, is that you??? lol. I just saw the backlash on your site today. Too bad.
Anyway, whoever you are, you’re misguided plain and simple. I don’t condone violence either but you’ve completely missed the entire point. This situation was not started as a result of a 6 on one schoolyard brawl. It was caused by some ignorant folks stringing up a tree with a noose (a symbolic gesture I might add) and the school not stepping in and doing the right thing. That’s what started this. And all this talk about what Michael did and what his father didn’t do, blase blase is as ignorant as people juxtaposing that West Virginia victim’s bad check writing situation with her getting raped and sodomized. Don’t you get it?? Don’t even bother answering. I already know the answer.
I’m grateful this has been somewhat “resolved”……
But I sincerely hope these guys do not get caught up in some type of bullshyt in the near future, especially after so many people pulled so hard for the cause.
The YT media would swarm on them like vultures if they so much as SNEEZE the wrong way.
Some small victory, but I’ll take it! There’s still a looooong way to go.
That’s a big boy.
Thank God! I’m glad he’s out
I will be watching the Dr.Phil show.
Why is Oprah so afraid to cover this story? I mean ok Dr. Phil is produced by her company, but Why hasn’t she covered this story. Tommorow she is having a show about mens health with a majority white male audience. What the F***!
I’m glad he’s free. Now we have to wait and see if he gets found guilty…
Dr. Phil is my man! I will be watchin tomorrow..
At least he’s free…surely it’s not over, but he can sleep in the comfort of his own home..hopefully…for good.
I know this is an entertainment site, but these are the kind of post we need more of.
Entertainment and information goes good togeter.
We don’t always have to read about__________ and _____________ I won’t mention
their names on this post. You can fill in the blanks.
Free @ Last Free @ Last! Thank GOD ALMIGHTY!!!
this incident should not have been compared to the civil rights movements…
the crime did not fit the time. (this is just one example of how racism still exist and we as blacks should always look the white man or any man directly in the eye.
We are not afraid to stand up for what is right. Nor will we sit down for what is wrong.
keep standing.
i love my black people
“But the reality is Thursday’s protests are just another sign that we remain deeply locked in denial about the path we need to travel today for true American liberation, equality and power in the new millennium.”
And what path is that Jason? Follow the status quo. Color INSIDE the lines. Refrain from rocking the boat? In the past I’ve agreed with some of the things this brother has to say but he missed the mark here. I saw this entire article as a slap on the hand to Black folks instead of it addressing the underlying root of the real problems in America. Yes, Black boys need their father. Yes, Blacks tend to rally when their own is looking down the same barrel they might have just pointed at someone else (Not my baby. My baby would never hurt a fly!) But again, this is not what this is about. To charge this boy for murder was nothing less than spit to the face of the Black people of that community. I’m sorry. I’m all for equality and fairness but this situation was about retribution and it wouldn’t have mattered if Bell was an honor roll student when this went down!
——————————————————————————-
“Why is Oprah so afraid to cover this story? I mean ok Dr. Phil is produced by her company, but Why hasn’t she covered this story. Tommorow she is having a show about mens health with a majority white male audience. What the F***!”
See, this is what happens when Black folks expect other folks who look Black to be their voice of reason for all things Black. Oprah is NOT the voice of Black America. Hasn’t she made that painfully clear? She has her reasons for not addressing this — not sure what it is but I am sure it’s not because she is unaware.
Thank You Lord!! i’m so proud of my people , we took a stand and now this young man can go home! Let’s not stop until he and the other five are set free for good. Also I agree black residents of Jena need to leave especially those involved.
God is good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i’m glad for him but at the same time i feel bad because it is not over yet. still atleast the protest accomplished something unlike somepeople say that it didn’t. somethings take time. it’s sad how dr. phil is hosting this, and tyra and oprah dont. even tho tyra does alot of things that have to do with race on her show. neway i’ll be watching
@ 39,
Yeah Sandra Rose has been straight clowning. Her azz had to turn off her comments section today, LOL
welcome home lets do this dang thing! jena 6!!!!!!!
natural Mystique
Thursday, September 27, 2007
I’m grateful this has been somewhat “resolved”……
But I sincerely hope these guys do not get caught up in some type of bullshyt in the near future, especially after so many people pulled so hard for the cause.
The YT media would swarm on them like vultures if they so much as SNEEZE the wrong way.
i swear i was thinking the same thing them dudes are going to be have to be little angels for along time if they ever mess especially Mychal bell.
i feel sorry for them dudes they going to be under a lot of pressure.
LMAO @ 55,
I’m straight trippin that this woman, who just a few posts before she got blasted, was clowning the hell out of Alicia Keys for having acne and dissing “Maneka” and others had the balls to say that she cut out the comments because she couldn’t handle anymore negativity!! WTF???? ROTFLMAO. I guess her own medicine really didn’t taste so good after all. lol.
Ms. Mac, I respect your opinion. The nooses were wrong, the school should have handled the situation differently, we’ve all agreed on that but we allow our emotion to get in the way of our judgement all to often. This isn’t the first time nooses have been hung on a highschool campus of a predominately white school and nothing was done. I understand everything…..racism is alive and well but we are quick to defend our own even when sometimes we know that they may not always be right. We as a people will NEVER advance if we always think this way. There ALOT of black men in prison serving excessive time for crimes but the what we forget about is WHERE WAS THE GUIDANCE, AND MENTORING BEFORE THE CRIME WAS COMMITTED. I am not defending what SAndra Rose said about the black woman who was tortured…Sandra’s statement was very ignorant but we have to look at why right now there are more black men in jail instead of college and no..it is NOT the ‘MANS’ fault. It’s deeper than that….use your head sista. The march gave this boy freedom which after 9 months…he definitely deserved. But are we going to run and protest for every black male that beats up a person that has made a racist gesture? As hurtful as these gestures are…they give no one the right (especially 6 athletes) to beat the hell outta one person. Oprah is out of the country right now supporting her school in Africa but she probably won’t speak on this because the fight does not sit well with her. Oprah was very close to Coretta Scott King and definitely understands and respects the morale of making a statement without the use of violence. This entire situation has been tragic.
I am so happy about this!!!!!! The best news I heard all day!