Just read a diary over at Daily Kos by rico — turns out that Mychal Bell (of the Jena 6) has been jailed again.
From the link (and it’s a short article so I am quoting its entirety – hope that is all right):
JENA, La. (AP) – A Louisiana teen at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail.
The father of Mychael Bell says a judge in Jena (JEE’-nuh), Louisiana, has revoked Bell’s probation because of an old drug charge that had never been tried.
Bell and five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate. He was originally charged with attempted murder and then convicted of battery. An appeals court threw out the conviction, saying the case should have been brought in juvenile court.
Bell was released last month after thousands demonstrated in Jena to protest the severity of the charges against the teens.
Bell’s father says his son was detained after going to juvenile court for what was expected to be another routine hearing.
And Mychal needs to go to JAIL for this? After he had already served so many months? Something about this whole thing just plain stinks.
Ok, let’s see. Be a mercenary and murder all kinds of folks, women, children, in Iraq? No problem, no jail. Head a telecommunications corporation and spy on Americans? Hey, we’ll make sure you are retroactively protected! Leak information about a covert CIA agent, risking our own national security? Oh no problemo, a Presidential pardon awaits!
Equal protection under the law has become a joke.
Mychal Bell goes with his father to a routine hearing in juvenile court. And now he is in jail. Let’s look at a worst case scenario. Let’s say he has broken probation. Let’s say he has had problems with crime.
Let’s look at the picture here. A white student pulls a gun on black students, they wrestle the gun away from him — the black students are arrested. The white student doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist.